Government media relations: A 'spin' through the literature (original) (raw)
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2014
This thesis examines the under-explored career transition between two roles at the centre of political communicationthe journalist and the parliamentary media adviser. They are two roles commonly portrayed as antithetical to each other, locked in a power struggle over the control of information. This oppositional framing is most easily recognised in the ubiquitous binary stereotypes of the 'watchdog' journalist scrutinising government, seeking truth and informing in the public interest; and the manipulative 'spin-doctor' engaged in advocacy, Since the arrival of the "press agent" in the 1920s the number of public relations professionals has risen rapidly. By the 1980s and 1990s, Mayhew (1997) said the trend toward employing public relations practitioners "exploded" with political consultants, media specialists, public opinion pollsters, professional grassroots organizers, specialised lobbyists, focus group organisers and demographic researchers assuming increasingly influential roles (p. 4). Deacon & Golding (1991; 1994) argued governments became wise to the advantages of being able to use tax payer funds to promote its policies, which lead to the emergence of what has been coined the
TEN SHADES OF TRUTH: A study of Australian Journalists’ shift to Political PR
The use of manipulative overt and covert ‘spin’ tactics by parliamentary media advisers to embellish, obfuscate and evade has been well documented. However, there has been less attention paid to the way journalists adapt to ‘spin’ culture and interpret truth once they become parliamentary media advisers. Based on inductive analysis of in-depth semi-structured interviews with twenty-one Australian journalists who made the transition to parliamentary media advising, this paper offers a typology of ten subtle approaches to truth telling adopted by these journalists in their new role as political media advisers. The interview data revealed a range of pragmatic approaches including: ‘triage’, ‘putting the best foot forward’, ‘never tell a lie’, ‘playing a dead bat’, and ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’. Through the comparative insights of journalists who have worked as parliamentary media advisers, the practitioner reflections in this paper complicate the blunt conception of the mendacious ‘spin-doctor’ and point to the malleability of ‘truth’ in both communications roles.
"I am the gatekeeper": why and how ministerial media advisers have been empowered
Frontiers in Political Science, 2024
Although policy advisers have been amply studied, far fewer studies have examined media advisers. And, so far, adviser research has offered few insights into the relationship between these two key groups of political staffers. This article claims that media advisers have been empowered. It offers a rational functionalist explanation, which emphasises concerns about functional efficiency. Media generates functional pressures for the institutional strengthening of media advisers, solidifying their role. This argument is examined empirically through a case study of ministerial media adviser (MMA) empowerment in Sweden, based on interviews conducted among MMAs and political journalists. The data tell us that MMAs are on the rise, that they have become more controlling toward journalists and more assertive within ministerial staff. In the process, MMAs have come to constitute a category of their own as they have converged among themselves but diverged from policy advisers. The interview evidence indicates that MMAs also have a role in government policy, as the media has contributed to more integration of communication and policy, but additional research is needed. Overall, this work has implications for research on political communication, executives, and advisers-especially for debates about political professionals in government.
In journalism, public relations and political communications scholarship journalism and parliamentary media advising have been defined in opposition to each other. This is most notably observed in the ubiquitous stereotypes of the journalist as democratic ‘watchdog’ and the parliamentary media adviser1 as Machiavellian ‘spin doctor’. Both of these stereotypes carry ethical assumptions about each of the two roles. On the one hand is the journalist whose professional identity is tied to its role in democracy serving the ideals of truth, fairness, scrutiny and informing in the public interest. On the other hand is the ‘spin doctor’ whose use of morally dubious tactics of lying, manipulation, control, persuasion and advocacy in the interest of a client are seen to be undermining democracy. Based on the reflections of twenty-one reporters who have worked as both journalists and parliamentary media advisers this paper argues that these oversimplified antithetical stereotypes do not adequately reflect the more complex reality of either role. This paper is part of broader doctoral research which draws on the traditions of phenomenology to examine the under-explored phenomenon of journalists who make the transition from reporter to parliamentary media adviser and back again. Using grounded theory strategies this qualitative research project examines a range of issues related to the career transition including power relations between the two roles and conceptions of ethical conflict. Instead of the black and white oppositional portrayal of the two roles the study found the interviewees perceived many similarities between journalism and parliamentary media advising, including shared skills and goals. Based on their individual lived experience of the two roles some of the study participants perceived the goals of ‘informing’ and ‘advocacy’ to be shared by both journalism and media advising and not confined to either role. In response to these findings, this paper argues it is time to address the inadequacy of such oversimplified oppositional stereotypes and adopt a more nuanced understanding of the two roles based on the varied perceptions of individual practitioner experience.
News Management and a Campaign Interaction in the 2005 Uk General Election
2008
This paper presents a specifi c case study – a “campaign interaction” between the prime minister and a member of the public during a live BBC TV general election debate – in order to examine a number of issues around concerns over the “crisis in public communication” and political control of news information fl ows. In a wider political sense this episode, in which Tony Blair seemed to be unprepared for a question about family doctor appointment times, was a relatively minor element of a general election campaign dominated by issues such as asylum policy and the Iraq war. Nevertheless, analysis of the ensuing news coverage suggests that election news agendas can be diverted away (at least temporarily) from the planned communications of political agents towards issues and themes publicised by non-offi cial, non-expert sources, while also illustrating the ultimate reliance of the media on those offi cial accredited sources. The role of the BBC in the case study also raises the issue o...
Locked in a mutual dependency : Media and the political executive in close interplay
2019
The focus of this anthology has been the relationship between political journalists and their sources in government. The results from this three-year project show the many dimensions, contradictions, and uncertainties of the relationship. Both sides need each other in their daily work, but there are also conflicting interests in the struggle for control of information flows. Both sides need close and personal relationships, but also distance and a division of roles. Journalists and sources perform a daily trade of information in exchange for publicity – a daily negotiation based on power and personal contacts. The rules governing this trade are written by media logics, and both parts know these rules and use them for their own purposes. The negotiations are mostly hidden, but their results are visible in the public image of government politics and the control of information flows in politics. This anthology lists many examples of this daily exchange between political journalists and...
Quantifying government media relations in Queensland
Public Communication Review, 2010
This article draws upon historical and contemporary data to attempt to identify key issues in government media relations and to discuss the processes and challenges involved in attempting to quantify the expenditure on this activity in Queensland in the modern era. A combination of investigative journalism and academic research methods have been used to position Queensland Government media relations as a practice and to gauge expenditure, staffing, and cost to the taxpayer. The Electoral and Administrative Review Commission"s Report on Review of Government Media and Information Services was the first comprehensive measure of such costs and since then only some insights were offered by Premiers Beattie and Bligh in 2006 and 2008 in response to parliamentary questions on notice. This article reviews these costs, canvasses expert estimates of the real cost of government media relations and debates some of the competing interests at stake.
Living With Spin: Political and Media Relations in Mediated Public Life
Southern Review: Communication, Politics & …, 2003
The recent resignation of Alastair Campbell and the reorganisation of governmental communications at 10 Downing Street have highlighted the political influence of 'spin doctors' and other professional communicators involved in media management. This article delineates the identity and functions of a spin doctor. It evaluates the political influence of spin doctors, acknowledging their significance in contemporary political communication but also arguing that their powers are tempered when considered in the longer-term contexts of political process. Spin doctors are nonetheless posited as necessary figures in modern politics, given the mediated basis of public life.