This chapter examines media scrutiny of the UK Parliament. Major newspapers have always routinely featured Hansard-style reports of debates. Today, mainstream coverage of Parliament tends to focus on points of contention. Live coverage (mostly of the Commons Chamber) has become available on BBC Parliament, while the full array of Commons, Lords, Westminster Hall, and Moses Room sittings, plus committee hearings can be viewed on the much expanded Parliament TV online video service, both live and as archived recordings. This has implications for media reporting of proceedings and for the media's role in the way the public receives information about Parliament. The chapter first considers journalistic scrutiny of parliamentary proceedings before discussing the increasing role of new media in scrutinizing such proceedings as well as the role of the parliamentary media in explaining what is happening.
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6. The Media and Agenda-Setting
Political Turbulence
This chapter addresses media in politics, including newspapers, television, the internet, and social media. It seeks to answer the question of how influential the media is over politics, in areas such as voting behaviour. This discussion gives a broad overview of politics and the media, about the agenda of politics and its framing, and what shapes it. The chapter then covers the classic question of the influence of the media in British politics. It also considers the importance of social media, and how it is now part of all media today, especially in relation to elections and referendums. Finally, the chapter looks at media and social media campaigning in elections. It introduces the concept of chaotic pluralism as a way of characterizing today's social media-dominated and fluid political environment.
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Gary LaFree
This chapter explores open source databases on terrorism. These are created from unclassified, publicly available information retrieved from both print and digital media. The unit of analysis for these databases are events, organizations, or individuals. The advantage of event- and group-level databases is that they are worldwide in scope. In contrast, individual-level databases are more focused on perpetrators in a single country. However, open-source databases can be susceptible to media inaccuracies and government censorship. There is also the issue of a lack of systematic empirical validation. The chapter notes possible improvements that can be made to open-source databases such as better coverage of domestic terrorism, automated coding, use of geo-spatial information, and more detailed data on the effectiveness of countermeasures.
Chapter
This chapter explores the link between media and politics. It first considers the more general relationship between the media and governmental organizations, and more specifically the overlap of governmental and media functions, and how dramatic representation influences our understanding of political life. It then examines the ways in which journalists and media organizations make news, along with the role of political journalism in political life, especially in democracies. It also discusses the globalization of media and the convergence of styles of news presentation and reporting on television around the world. Finally, it analyses the implications of the Internet and social media for political life, from potentially promoting democracy to accusations of false narratives and ‘fake’ news.
Chapter
Piers Robinson
This chapter examines the academic debates over the relationship between US public opinion, media, and foreign policy. It first considers the nature of US media and public opinion, including democratic expectations of mass media and public opinion, before discussing pluralist and elite approaches to understanding the links between media, public opinion, and foreign policy. It then explores the role of propaganda and persuasion with respect to US power projection, with particular emphasis on the ways in which public opinion and media can be understood as a source of power for — and as a constraint upon — US foreign policy. It also reviews contemporary debates regarding the impact of technological developments, such as the emergence of global media like the internet and social media, upon US power and influence.
Chapter
Larry Diamond and Zak Whittington
This chapter examines the role of social media in processes of democratization. Facilitating rapid and decentralized communication among a wide range of actors, social media have played a particularly potent role in the past decade in facilitating the mobilization of protest against authoritarian regimes, the exposure of corruption and human rights abuses, and the monitoring of elections to expose electoral fraud. The chapter explores how social media have provided new tools for challenging dominant parties. It also looks at the ways in which authoritarian regimes censor and suppress access to these tools, while appropriating them for their own purposes of propaganda and control.
Chapter
Katrin Voltmer and Gary Rawnsley
This chapter examines the role of the media in processes of democratization. It considers the media’s political, economic, and social environment both in their domestic and international contexts. It also explains how new communications technologies have made it increasingly difficult for authoritarian regimes to hermetically seal their borders to prevent the flow of information in and out of the country. The most noticeable influence of international communications in the process of democratization is the ‘demonstration effect’. The chapter also discusses media-state relations, how market conditions and commercialization affect the media’s ability to fulfil their democratic role, and issues of journalistic professionalism and the quality of reporting. It argues that democracy and the media need each other.
Chapter
Piers Robinson
This chapter examines the influence of media and public opinion on U.S. foreign policy and vice versa. It considers the extent to which the media and public have been manipulated by the government, and the extent to which public opinion and media have shaped foreign policy during tumultuous times such as the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. It also explores the consequences of public opinion and media for U.S. power in the twenty-first century. The chapter describes pluralist and elite models of the public opinion/ media/foreign policy nexus, long with public and media diplomacy. It concludes with a discussion of the extent to which developments in communication technology have empowered U.S. public opinion and media, as well as the impact of this technology on global U.S. power and influence, in particular in the context of the current war on terror.
Chapter
Simona Guerra and Hans-Jörg Trenz
This chapter provides an overview of trends in public opinion toward the European Union. The chapter also discusses the key factors thought to explain differences in mass opinion regarding the EU. These include political economy and rationality; that is, opinions stemming from calculations about the costs and benefits of the EU; perceptions of the national government (domestic proxies); the influence of political elites; political psychology, including cognitive mobilization (attentiveness to politics) and concerns about the loss of national identity; and finally, the role of the mass media in driving opinions regarding the EU.
Chapter
This chapter discusses the way in which political ideas are put forward and relates this to the forming and mobilization of political opinions. It looks the forms of communication used, the means of ‘media’ for transmission; the approach that political parties and government take towards it; and the influence it can exert from within the democratic system. The chapter looks at how people transmit information and how organizations do too. An important element of this discussion is how people form political opinions in the first place and how they make decisions based on them. A key question is: how can the right to vote be used to transmit and impact a political view point? The chapter also examines the role of social media and recent phenomena such as ‘fake news’. It also asks: how can public opinion be measured? The chapter provides a number of theoretical perspectives and real-life examples: the ‘Leveson Inquiry’ of 2011–12 and what it revealed about political communication and the online parliamentary petitioning process. Finally, the chapter explores a debate about whether the Internet has made political communication more supportive of democracy.
Book
British Politics provides an introduction to British politics with an emphasis on political science to analyse the fundamental features of British politics, and the key changes post-Brexit. Part A looks at constitutional and institutional foundations of the subject. Chapters in this part look at leadership and debating politics and law creation. The second part is about political behaviour and citizenship. Here chapters consider elections, the media, agenda setting, and political turbulence. The final part is about policy-making and delegation. The chapters in this part examine interest groups, advocacy, policy-making, governing through bureaucracy and from below, delegating upwards, and British democracy now.
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Sheena Chestnut Greitens
This chapter analyses the dynamics of humanitarian intervention and peace operations. It begins with a discussion of the changing nature of peacekeeping since the cold war and how peacekeeping expanded in the post-cold war period, creating demand, opportunities, and incentives for intervention that resulted in an unprecedented increase in the number and scale of military interventions by United Nations forces. Today, humanitarian interventions are larger, more complex affairs. The chapter goes on to examine how post-cold war operations shaped peacekeeping debates, peacekeeping since 2000, the benefts and challenges of the regionalization of peacekeeping, and evolving norms in contemporary peacekeeping. It also considers the politics of humanitarian intervention, especially at the UN Security Council, and how public opinion of humanitarian intervention is shaped by media coverage and casualties. Finally, it describes the military character of peace operations as well as problems and prospects surrounding humanitarian intervention and peace operations.
Book
Peter Ferdinand, Robert Garner, and Stephanie Lawson
Politics offers an introduction to political studies. It combines accessibility and an analytical approach, encouraging critical study and engaged debate. Alongside coverage of concepts, approaches, and ideologies, the text features chapters on all crucial elements of political studies, from institutions and states to security, political economy, civil society and the media, making it an ideal text for a broad range of modules. Current debates and key developments in contemporary politics are taken into account, with coverage of the rise of populism, Brexit, and the presidency of Donald Trump, as well as a broad range of international case studies and examples.
Chapter
Cristina Leston-Bandeira and Aileen Walker
This chapter examines why the UK Parliament has invested heavily in public engagement over the last decade. Since the 1960s, the UK Parliament has been facilitating public engagement through a variety of ways. However, it is also an institution which is far more vulnerable and criticized by both the public and media. The chapter first defines public engagement before discussing the importance of parliamentary public engagement today. Four key inter-related factors that explain the rise in the importance of public engagement for parliaments are highlighted: the steady trend of increasing scepticism towards politics; the improved access to education and information; the increased opportunities created by digital media; and the growing appeal of participatory democracy. The chapter goes on to analyse how public engagement developed in Parliament and asks whether this has led to changes in public attitudes towards the institution.
Chapter
Caitlin Byrne
This chapter examines public diplomacy as a foreign policy instrument for the contemporary world. Public diplomacy has enjoyed a revival over the past decade, beginning with the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Within a few years public diplomacy had become the hottest topic on the diplomacy studies agenda, giving rise to robust new debate about the role and relevance of publics and public opinion in the conduct of foreign policy. The chapter first traces the origins and modern evolution of public diplomacy before discussing its theoretical foundations, with particular emphasis on its soft power underpinnings and constructivist tendencies. It also explores key approaches and instruments to illustrate the broad diversity of a project of public diplomacy. Finally, it assesses the role of new media technologies in extending the reach of public diplomacy and drawing foreign policy more than ever into the public domain.
Chapter
Michael Cox and Doug Stokes
This work examines how domestic politics and culture shape US foreign policy, with particular emphasis on the role of institutions and processes. It considers the ways in which pressure groups and elites determine influence what the United States does abroad, the importance of regional shifts and media and their impact on the making of US foreign policy, and US relations with Europe, the Middle East, Russia, the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America, and Africa. The text also discusses key issues relevant to American foreign policy, such as global terrorism, the global environment, gender, and religion. It argues that whoever resides in the White House will continue to give the military a central role in the conduct of US foreign policy, and that whoever ‘runs’ American foreign policy will still have to deal with the same challenges both at home and abroad.
Chapter
Simona Guerra and Hans-Jörg Trenz
This chapter provides an overview of trends in public opinion towards the European Union (EU). The chapter also discusses the key factors thought to explain differences in mass opinion regarding the EU. These include political economy and rationality; that is, opinions stemming from calculations about the costs and benefits of the EU; perceptions of the national government (domestic proxies); the influence of political elites; political psychology, including cognitive mobilization (attentiveness to politics) and concerns about the loss of national identity; and, finally, the role of the mass media in driving opinions regarding the EU.
Chapter
Sheena Chestnut Greitens
This chapter analyses the dynamics of humanitarian intervention and peace operations. It begins with a discussion of the changing nature of peacekeeping since the cold war and how peacekeeping expanded in the post-cold war period, creating demand, opportunities, and incentives for intervention that resulted in an unprecedented increase in the number and scale of military interventions by United Nations forces. Today, humanitarian interventions are larger, more complex affairs. The chapter goes on to examine how post-cold war operations shaped peacekeeping debates; peacekeeping since 2000; the benefits and challenges of the regionalization of peacekeeping; and evolving norms in contemporary peacekeeping. It also considers the politics of humanitarian intervention, especially at the UN Security Council, and how public opinion of humanitarian intervention is shaped by media coverage and casualties. Finally, it describes the military character of peace operations as well as problems and prospects surrounding humanitarian intervention and peace operations.
Chapter
Donald Holbrook
This chapter tackles the role of social media in the evolution of terrorism. It dissects the key components of social media, using Twitter as a case study. It then highlights ways in which the emergence of social media has impacted modern terrorism. These ways relate to notions of asymmetry where terrorists seek to maximize their impact against materially stronger adversaries, the networked aspect of terrorism, and the importance of communication for terrorists. Communication here is defined very broadly. The chapter looks at how terrorists have adopted social media techniques in various parts of the world and considers some of the pitfalls, in addition to the benefits, this adoption can bring. The final part of the chapter delves into the relationship between online habits and behaviours on the one hand and their implications in the real world on the other.
Chapter
Peter Ferdinand
This chapter focuses on the concept of civil society, along with interest groups and the media. It first provides a background on the evolution of civil society and interest groups before discussing corporatism. In particular, it examines the ways in which civil society responds to state actors and tries to manoeuvre them into cooperation. This is politics from below. The chapter proceeds by considering the notion of ‘infrapolitics’ and the emergence of a school of ‘subaltern’ studies. It also explores the role of the media in political life and the impact of new communication technologies such as the Internet and mobile phones on politics. Finally, it evaluates some of the challenges presented by new media to civil society.
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