From Watchdog to Watched Dog: Oversight and Pressures between Journalists and Politicians in the Context of Mediatization 1 Del gos guardià al gos vigilat: fiscalització i pressions entre periodistes i polítics en el context de la mediatització (original) (raw)

Political control is one of the central and conditioning aspects of the relationship between journalists and politicians. Through the perceptions of journalists and politicians, this article analyzes the validity, characteristics, and functioning of one of the principal mechanisms of political control: the journalistic oversight of politics, which is linked to the watchdog theory and political pressures on the media. In addition, the degree of mediatization of politics is measured with regard to media autonomy. The methodology is based on in-depth interviews of 45 participants in Spain. The results indicate the pre-eminence of political pressures that are principally exercised via indirect means (i.e., communications offices and media enterprises). The latter are a vehicle for channeling political control, which reveals the weight of the factors associated with political economy in the relationship between journalists and politicians. Finally, the low incidence of journalistic overs...

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