“All the Demagogue’s Men”

Author(s):  
Shmuel Nili

This chapter revolves around “media demagogues”: politicians who rely on their mastery of the media, and on recurrent lies, as they exploit the electorate’s worst fears and prejudices to gain and retain power. The rise of media demagogues produces integrity complexity for the political actors who surround them, including both political operatives who are considering whether to serve the demagogue, and fellow politicians, who are considering whether to ally with him. From the perspective of both of these kinds of political actors, it may appear as if integrity’s dictates are indeterminate. Should one wash one’s hands clean of the demagogue in the name of personal integrity, or collaborate with him to limit the threats he poses to the polity’s collective integrity? Taking up the cases of Donald Trump, Silvio Berlusconi, and Benjamin Netanyahu, the chapter shows how the integrity framework can offer a systematic solution to this problem.

Journalism ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 146488492095950
Author(s):  
Jefferson Lyndon D Ragragio

Editorials are a political force used by news media to fulfil its watchdog function in fragile democracies like the Philippines. However, they also serve as a platform to invite a more positive reading of strongman administration. Against the backdrop of media populism, the article will problematize how the Fourth Estate articulates its political stance by examining the tensions and complexities in editorials. It will highlight the ways the media deals with subjects and stories surrounding Rodrigo Duterte. Through an analysis of editorials of four leading dominant news outlets (Bulletin, Inquirer, Rappler, and Star), three meta-thematic categories of media frames are uncovered. First, character degradation frames delineate how the media denounces the ties of Duterte with other political actors, particularly the Marcoses and China’s Xi. Second, pro-establishment frames echo the optimistic mantra of the government amid crisis. And third, non-editorial frames exhibit the failure of media to publish watchdog-inspired editorials. Each of these categories has underlying frames that are indicative of the democratic potential, or lack thereof, of news media.


2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. 1641-1656 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uwe Volkmann

It is a long-established commonplace in any debate on immigration that immigrants should integrate into their receiving society. But integrate into what precisely? Into the labor market, into the legal order, into the political system, into a national culture whatever this might comprise? The Article tries to approach the question from the legal point of view and looks for hints or clues in the constitution which might help us with the answer. For this purpose, it explores the general theory of the constitution as it has been shaped by its professional interpreters as well as by political actors, the media and the public. The main intuition is that “constitution” is not only a written document, a text with a predefined, though maybe hidden meaning; instead, it is a social practice evolving over time and thereby reflecting the shared convictions of a political community of what is just and right. Talking about constitutional expectations toward immigrants then also tells us something about ourselves: about who we are and what kind of community we want to live in. As it turns out, we may not have a very clear idea of that.


Author(s):  
Stefaan Walgrave ◽  
Peter Van Aelst

Recently, the number of studies examining whether media coverage has an effect on the political agenda has been growing strongly. Most studies found that preceding media coverage does exert an effect on the subsequent attention for issues by political actors. These effects are contingent, though, they depend on the type of issue and the type of political actor one is dealing with. Most extant work has drawn on aggregate time-series designs, and the field is as good as fully non-comparative. To further develop our knowledge about how and why the mass media exert influence on the political agenda, three ways forward are suggested. First, we need better theory about why political actors would adopt media issues and start devoting attention to them. The core of such a theory should be the notion of the applicability of information encapsulated in the media coverage to the goals and the task at hand of the political actors. Media information has a number of features that make it very attractive for political actors to use—it is often negative, for instance. Second, we plead for a disaggregation of the level of analysis from the institutional level (e.g., parliament) or the collective actor level (e.g., party) to the individual level (e.g., members of parliament). Since individuals process media information, and since the goals and tasks of individuals that trigger the applicability mechanism are diverse, the best way to move forward is to tackle the agenda setting puzzle at the individual level. This implies surveying individual elites or, even better, implementing experimental designs to individual elite actors. Third, the field is in dire need of comparative work comparing how political actors respond to media coverage across countries or political systems.


2011 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Albæk ◽  
Christian Elmelund-Præstekær ◽  
David Nicolas Hopmann ◽  
Robert Klemmensen

Abstract Previous studies have shown that experts appearing in the media are increasingly speculating about trends and developments rather than presenting their own research. With respect to political journalism, this raises the question of whether increased use of expert sources has also led to an increased focus on process relative to substance in election news coverage. The study, conducted in 1998 and 2007, surveys what types of experts are referred to in the election coverage, what topics the experts comment on (in particular whether they focus on substance or process), and whether the number and types of experts as well as topics have changed over time. As expected, there is an increase in newspapers’ references to experts in their election campaign coverage. However, contrary to our expectations, in both 1998 and 2007, there is an equal number of articles referring to the election campaign’s political content (i.e., they mentioned the topics promoted by the political actors during the campaign) and to the political process. And extremely few articles included meta-discussions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-72
Author(s):  
Indra Setia Bakti ◽  
Khairul Amin

As a newcomer, the Perindo Party seeks to implement a specific strategy in order to compete with other parties that have already existed in the Indonesian political contestation. One of these is charity show programs. The high rating and concern societies watching the lives of poor people in various charity programs show besides creating profits also become a means of political communication. When political actors control the media, it is clear that there are interests also communicated, including the political powers of the funnel to get support from voters. When the Perindo Party is declared, the "scent" that HT and his party would use the media under their control is very clear. These signals can also be observed from the dominance of HT’s trusted people in the MNC Group in the composition of the Central Management Board Center, the Assembly of the Union Party and the court of Perindo party. That mean a charity program not only gives a very big business profit, but also the political media communication, enhance social branding in front of audiences, and build a base of loyal voters from poor family beneficiaries. To finishing this paper, the author uses a descriptive qualitative approach. The data in this article sourced from observations, studies of literature, and other sources considered relevant and then analyzed by the exchange theory of Peter Blau.


Author(s):  
Jens Wolling ◽  
Dorothee Arlt

The annual climate summits (Conferences of the Parties, or COPs) are major political events that receive considerable media attention. In this way, the topic of climate change returns regularly to both the media and the political agenda. It makes sense, therefore, that communication research regards COPs as occasion to investigating how the media cover climate change. Nevertheless, this strategy has two shortcomings: On the one hand the focus on the conferences might provide a distorted picture—because of the political character of the conferences, the role of political actors and policy-related frames might be overestimated. On the other hand, the political character of the conferences is not always considered appropriately. Most research is mainly interested in the coverage on climate change in the context of the conferences and not in the political discussions taking place at the summits. Future research should address these discussions more intensively, giving more attention especially to the debates in the various online media.


Author(s):  
Francesc-Andreu MARTÍNEZ GALLEGO

LABURPENA: Lan hau komunikabideen eta ustelkeria politikoaren arteko harremanei buruzkoa da. Lanaren estrategia komunikabideek gobernatzaileen eta gobernatuen arteko harremanak hedatzeko bitarteko aktiboak bezala duten jarrera agertzea da, hau da, komunikabideek ustelkeriari buruz emandako informazioa izan ez dadin prentsaren jatorrietatik datorren ataza soila, hots, askatasun publikoen eta gobernu onaren watchdog or atari-txakur lana. Gauzak horrela, komunikabideak aktore politikoak dira, interes partikularrak dituzte eta egitateekiko elkarrekintza dute, eta egitate horiei garrantzia ematen diete (edo ez), interesen arabera. Ustelkeria politikoko eskandaluak kazetaritzako argitan, komunikabideen enpresen interesen arabera eta sistema politikoaren eta komunikabide sistemaren arteko harremanak kontuan izanda aztertu behar dira. Horrela soilik ahal izango diogu lana honen funtsari ekin, alegia: zer egin dezakete komunikabideek demokraziaren kalitatea handitzeko, hau da, ustelkeria politikoa bertatik erauzi edo, gutxienez, mugatzeko? RESUMEN: El presente trabajo es un estudio crítico sobre la relación existente entre medios de comunicación y corrupción política. La estrategia del mismo consiste en desvelar la posición de los medios de comunicación como mediatizadores activos de la relación entre gobernantes y gobernados, de manera que la información sobre corrupción producida por los medios no se vea como el mero cumplimiento de una tarea asignada desde sus orígenes ilustrados a la prensa, a saber, su labor de watchdog o perro guardián de las libertades públicas y del buen gobierno. Vistas así las cosas, los medios se configuran como actores políticos con intereses particulares que interaccionan con los hechos y a los que confieren (o no) la entidad de noticiables en grados diversos. Los escándalos de corrupción política deben estudiarse a la luz de las narrativas periodísticas, a la luz de los condicionamientos empresariales de los medios y a la luz de la configuración de las relaciones entre el sistema político y el sistema mediático. Sólo así podremos encarar la cuestión de fondo que se plantea al final de este trabajo y que pregunta qué pueden hacer los medios de comunicación para acrecentar la calidad de la democracia extirpando o al menos limitando en ella la corrupción política. ABSTRACT: This work is a critical analysis about the relationship between mass media and political corruption. Its strategy is to unveil the mass media position as an activ mediator in the relationship between governers and governeds so that information about corruption by the media cannot be seen as the simple fullfilment of an assigned task to the press since its Enlightment origins, i.e. their job of watchdog or guard dog for public liberties and good governance. As things stand, mass media are configured as political actors with particular interests that interact with facts to which the give (or not) a gradual entity of political newsworthiness. The scandals of political corruption should be studied in the light of journalistic narratives, corporate constraints of the mass media and the setting of relationships among the political and the media system. Only this way we will be able to face the underlying issue that arises at the end of this work and that questions what mass media can do in order to improve the quality of democracy by removing or at least constraining within the political corruption.


2001 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 519-536 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sergio Fabbrini ◽  
Mark Gilbert

On 13 May 2001, Italy Elected To Power A Centre-Right Coalition headed by the media magnate Silvio Berlusconi. Forza Italia, the political party founded by Berlusconi in 1994 when he first decided to enter politics, became the most widely supported political force in the country with almost 30 per cent of the popular vote. Forza Italia's success was partly a result of its ability to ‘cannibalize’ the votes of two of its smaller coalition partners, the Biancofiore, an electoral coalition between the Christian Democratic Centre (CCD) and the United Christian Democrats (CDU), and the Northern League (Lega Nord), both of whom saw their share of the vote fall sharply. The other party in Berlusconi's ‘House of Freedoms’ coalition, the National Alliance (AN), the formerly neo-fascist party that now sees itself as a pillar of the democratic right, held steady in electoral terms but remains very much a junior partner in the coalition.


2010 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angeliki Koukoutsaki-Monnier

This paper focuses on the argumentative approaches and the rhetorical strategies employed by political actors in France in favour of or against the EU Constitutional Treaty (TCE), as they appeared in four French daily newspapers, Le Monde, Le Figaro, Libération and Aujourd’hui en France (national edition of Le Parisien), before the 29th of May 2005 referendum. In a qualitative discourse analysis and with the aid of argumentation theories and political communication approaches, the study investigates how the European Union’s Constitution, identity and future were represented and discussed by French political actors through the media in their effort to obtain public adherence before the referendum. Inevitably, the role of the media and the mediation process in the construction and transcription of the political discourse is also discussed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Afusa Nidya Kinasih

Social Deconstruction Through Hoax Photo. The Governor of DKI Jakarta, Basuki TjahayaPurnama was sentenced to 2 years in prison due to a blasphemy case that occurred in 2016 ago. As a result of this incident, the FPI mass organization (Front Pembela Islam) held an action "411 AksiDamai" which was led directly by FPI chairman Habib Rizieq Shihab with demands to thoroughly investigate Ahok as a suspect in the blasphemy case. On the other hand, the community is separated into two camps. This incident made AganHarahap, a digital artist make creative manipulations, as if Ahok and Habib Rizieq had made peace. In essence, people are dragged by the media to form a social flow that has the power to force. Social currents that may be created in the crowd of cyberspace are seen as contestation of opinion. Agan tried to shake up the political fact into a reality that is formed using Photoshop software.  


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