The fourth age of political communication: Democratic decay or the rise of phronetic political communication? (original) (raw)

New Frontiers for Political Communication in Times of Spectacularization

Media and Communication, 11-2, 2023

Political spectacularization is a broad global phenomenon challenging contemporary digital political communication under new features that define interactive digital narratives. In this sense, the use of politainment formulas in digital contexts to reconnect the electorate with political leaders and institutions through a more direct and interactive communication deserves further understanding of its implications on the devaluation of political information and the loss of democratic quality. This thematic issue sheds some light on how the spectacularization of political communication, which increasingly takes place in online contexts, affects and is affected by these processes, where entertainment is crucial to engage citizens. In this editorial, we provide a short overview of how research on politainment has started to shift its attention away from traditional media toward the wide array of lenses of politainment among digital platforms. The articles in this thematic issue reflect this shift but also show its consequences in terms of political engagement. Finally, we outline further research steps, which should establish a more nuanced and multifaceted understanding of the complex relationship between political communication, entertainment, and new digital communication formulas, which is crucial to advance knowledge in the field.

Telematics and the political process

Telematics and Informatics, 1984

Recent advances in communications technology are revolutionizing the speed with which information of all kinds reaches the home and workplace. These advances, which include developments in the computer industry, interactive communication systems, laser and fiber optic based communication, and geostationary space platforms, are also affecting the extent and content of the information which is now accessible, with trends suggesting even greater impacts in the near future. Given the premise in a democratic society that the availability of information is critical to a responsible citizenry, such trends would seem to spell good times ahead for mass politics. A closer inspection of recent trends suggests reasons for concern, however. Patterns of the control of and sources of information; the content, quality and extent of information, and access to and use of information which is becoming available through the new technology show evidence of little change from the previous state of affairs. In addition, what change does exist demonstrates as much potential for adding to social, economic, and political inequities which already exist as for helping to reduce these inequities, leading to a society of the information rich and the information poor. The solution as to whether technological change in communications is a positive or negative addition to democratic politics depends ultimately on our willingness to learn from past mistakes and see this technology as a resource which needs to be carefully integrated into the larger social, economic, and political environment.

Introduction: New Trends and Challenges in Political Communication

International Journal of Press-politics, 2011

Recent discussions about "new trends and challenges" in the field of political communication start from a diagnosis of crisis: the crisis of the economic model of the press, crisis of professional standards and status of reporters, crisis of the emerging formats of news, and so on. They tend to attribute most of the problems to technological change brought on by the Internet (for a review, see Bennett and Iyengar 2008). Technological changes, however, are only part of the changes. Political communication in crisis is not only at the core of the contributions in this special issue, but it is also present in past research agendas. The economic viability of the prestige press, investigative reporting, and public or community media drew attention during the last decades of the past century. Scholars also were concerned about issues ranging from the ideologies and professional routines of news workers to the changes from "hard" to "soft" news formats, from the tabloidization of the press to the colonization of programming by infotainment Atkinson 2001). This pattern points out that instability is inherent to political communication, given the contentious relationships and constant mutation among politicians, constituencies, and media and public relations specialists. Technology emphasizes rather than generates the present disjunctions in and future challenges for how societies communicate politics and policies. From this perspective, new trends in the field relate to classic questions, particularly, how political representation and mediatization evolve in an always-changing environment. Articles in this issue highlight three traits of the current political communication environment: disillusion about a single and unified public sphere, transnational information flows, and the technological empowerment of ordinary citizens. These issues are central to research agendas and offer a general overview of current research trends in the field.

Acting Politically in a Digital Age

This essay explores how our conceptions of politics and political action shape the ways people make use of all the new digital tools for mobilizing, organizing, and other political actions. The promise of new media for participatory politics is deeply connected to how robustly we understand the political. Where Kahne, Middaugh, and Allen broaden the scope of politics from formal processes to culturally-wide participatory ones, this chapter suggests broadening it further still, so that engagement includes not only voice and influence targeted at elites but also the collective work of shaping our polities' futures.

The New "Media Affect" and the Crisis of Representation for Political Communication

International Journal of Press/Politics, 2011

Political communication research in the United States, despite two decades of change in how the public receives information, follows theories that rely on definitions of citizenship from a century ago and on metaphors growing out of communication techniques and practices of five decades ago. A review of the state of news media, facing technical, labor, and economic crises, and the state of political science, illustrated through research methods, leads to a reexamination of communication at the intersection of media and politics. Political communication theory has come to rely on functional metaphors, economic background assumptions, an emphasis on method, and a legacy of structuralism. The crisis presents current theories with challenges for the representation of citizens and the press in democracy. Especially as young adults reject older forms of information, political communication can renew itself by deepening existing theory and shifting from old effects rationality to a new "media affect" sensibility. Political communication research is at a turning point, its direction unclear in the face of unprecedented change. The conditions of public information are transforming technologies of political knowledge and common perspectives on political life. But political communication research has had difficulty keeping up. Conference planners still receive a bulk of papers going over familiar ground, especially functionalist research on agenda setting, gatekeeping, and the like. 1 As the field expands in each Research Article 574 International Journal of Press/Politics 16 national setting, scholars repeat existing studies, so that in Spain, for instance, researchers have been retracing ground covered decades ago in other countries under different circumstances. Assailed by turbulence in politics and tumult in the media, political communication has remained cautious in method and theory, its firm traditions and horizons generating few new ideas and rendering inert the drama going on in the world today. Political communication in the current century has lost its moorings.