Mass Media Logic Research Articles

A Colonial Celebrity in the New Attention Economy: Cecil Rhodes’s Cape-to-Cairo Telegraph and Railway Negotiations in 1899

Abstract In 1899, the British colonialist Cecil Rhodes went to Berlin to negotiate about his fantastical ‘Cape-to-Cairo’ telegraph and railway scheme with his former nemesis, the German emperor Wilhelm II. Why did this initiative of Rhodes, who was held responsible for the disastrous Jameson Raid and no longer occupied any official position, receive so much coverage and legitimacy in the international press? Despite the vast scholarship on Rhodes, there is strikingly little analysis of these negotiations, considering that they were hailed as marking the rehabilitation of Rhodes and the troubled Anglo-German relationship, signalled that Germany would not support the Boers in their conflict with Britain, and led to Germany’s inclusion in the prestigious Rhodes Scholarships scheme. This article analyses the reporting of the negotiations and shows that Rhodes overshadowed other political figures in the competitive ‘attention economy’ of the emerging mass press. Building on the notion of ‘celebrity politics’, it argues that the press attention for him resulted from three interconnected logics: a political logic of agenda-setting and ideological loyalties, a journalistic logic in which scarce access to Rhodes fostered his mythologising, and a mass media logic that increasingly superseded ideological divides. This mass media logic dictated a focus on Rhodes’s personal narrative (infused with literary and colonial themes), personifying politics, and performing these politics in a novel business-like style. This press attention gained Rhodes informal power and shows how, by the end of the nineteenth century, successful politics required the new ability of political figures to attract and leverage media attention. Moreover, it constituted the precondition for the growing cult of Rhodes in the twentieth century, and the subsequent criticism of this cult and its representation of racism in recent times.

An effective ‘weapon’ for the weak? Digital media and interest groups’ media success

ABSTRACT The equalization-normalization debate concerns whether the Internet equalizes politics by empowering resource-poor organizations, or whether it further strengthens the position of resource-rich organizations. We address this debate by studying how interest groups’ utilization of digital media is associated with their success in influencing news media. We suggest digital media is characterized by the coexistence of old and new media logics that benefit resource-rich and resource-poor groups in different ways. Analyzing a dataset of 1,127 Finnish interest groups, we found that groups’ utilization of digital media is positively associated with their news media success, yet traditional ways of influencing the news media remain more effective. Among resource-rich groups with larger public relations staff, blog publishing is positively associated with both media access (media visibility) and agenda-building success (influencing news topics). In contrast, utilization of digital media among resource-poor groups only correlates with agenda-building success, and audiovisual content is more effective than other content. We suggest that while resource-poor groups benefit from network media logic in which the flow of information is initially based on popularity among social media users, resource-rich groups can exploit mass media logic where traditional journalistic gatekeeping is more important. The findings also imply that digital media has not decreased resource-related bias in interest groups’ media access.

Servant of two masters: How social media editors balance between mass media logic and social media logic

Social media editors were initially appointed by media organizations which aimed to extend their reach and to establish their presence in social media. These editors were hired to create content on behalf of mass media organizations, but with social media in mind. As such, they need constantly to reconcile mass media logic and social media logic. Relying on the frameworks of ‘social media logic’ and ‘network media logic’, this study focuses on the role of social media editors as the arena in which both logics fuse to create a hybrid media system. Twenty in-depth interviews with social media editors, representing a large proportion of the Israeli media, were carried out. Our findings underscore how editors’ every day routines are a result of negotiation between logics, creating hybrid media organizations.

Bypassing the press gallery: from Howard to Hanson

Traditionally politicians have been dependent on political news media to get their message across to the public. The rise of social media means that politicians can bypass the Press Gallery and publish directly to their target audiences via Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms. This article argues that Prime Minister John Howard’s (1996–2007) use of talk back radio and early forays on YouTube were pivotal in the trend towards ‘disintermediation’ in Australian politics. It draws on two studies. One involving interviews with 87 key media actors from the Howard era including journalists, broadcasters, politicians and media advisers; and a second, which includes fresh interviews with contemporary press secretaries. This article examines the shift from a ‘mass media logic’ to a ‘hybrid logic’, considered from a mediatization theoretical position. We also ask important questions about the press gallery’s ongoing relevance in the digital era, when politicians preside over their own social media empires.

Learning Political News From Social Media: Network Media Logic and Current Affairs News Learning in a High-Choice Media Environment

With the migration from traditional news media to social media, understanding how citizens learn about politics and current affairs from these sources has become increasingly important. Based on the concept of network media logic, distinct from traditional mass media logic, this study investigates whether using social media as a source of political news compensates for not using traditional news media in terms of political and current affairs learning. Using two panel studies conducted in two different political contexts—an election setting and a nonelection setting—the results show positive learning effects from using traditional news media and online news websites, but not from using social media. Taken together, the findings suggest that using social media to follow news about politics and current affairs does not compensate for not using traditional news media in terms of learning a diverse and broad set of general political news.

The Politics of Immersive Storytelling

This article applies and extends the concept of social media logic to assess the politics of immersive storytelling on digital platforms. These politics are considered in the light of what has been identified as mass media logic, which argues that mass media in the 20th century gained power by developing a commanding discourse that guides the organization of the public sphere. The shift to social media logic in the 21st century, with its grounding principles of programmability, popularity, connectivity, and datafication, influenced a new discourse on the logics of digital ecosystems. Digital platforms such as Facebook are offering all-surrounding mediated environments to communicate in Virtual Reality (‘Facebook Spaces') as well as immersive narratives such as Mr. Robot VR. This article provides an understanding of the politics of immersive storytelling and of its underlying principles of programmability, user experience, popularity, and platform sociality, which define immersive technologies in the 21st century.

Mediatization of companies as a factor of their communication power and the new role of public relations

The paper seeks to explore and analyze the mediatization of companies, and argues that companies are entering a new phase of mediatization that is no longer evident as an adaptation to the logic of mass media but now involves the incorporation of media logic into the company’s own media practices and communication structure. Companies are (i) transforming into producers of owned media and media content, and (ii) through their owned media, managing communication with stakeholders, which is (iii) significantly altering the role of corporate public relations. In the context of a case study of a company from the financial sector, the paper brings together three concepts – communication power, mediatization, and strategic communication – toward a new conceptual framework for assessing the characteristics of the communication dimension of modern companies. Such an analytical position enables the phenomenon of mediatization to be analyzed both in its historical dimension and structural dimension.

The implication of technology in mediatisation and mediation approaches to religious studies

This paper investigates the groundwork upon which the concepts of mediatisation and mediation were erected, focusing on the very definition of what media-technology is. These concepts frame the conversation among scholars in the study of religion and media. However, despite the fact that the two keywords share the same root, media, they are understood as incompatible with one another. On the one hand, mediatisation is broadly defined as a historical shift in which the logic of mass media transforms traditional forms of religion, subsuming them under the imperative of the modern marketplace. On the other hand, scholars studying the mediation of religion affirm that media have always shaped and transformed religious practices. This investigation argues that the controversy between the two modes of analysis does not consist of whether or to what extent media technology affects or transforms religion. Rather, the conflict arises from how media technology is defined.

Medialization of Research Policy

This article researches the medialization of research policy in Germany. The concept of medialization focuses on adaptation processes by the micro (individuals), meso (organizations), and macro levels (social systems) of society to the logic of (mostly journalistic) mass media. Below, the focus lies on how decision makers in the field of research policy perceive the journalistic logic as well as adaptation processes to this logic in their fields of expertise and their organizations. The study is based on 35 semistandardized interviews with stakeholders in organizations from politics, science, and research funding.

Mass Media Logic and The Mediatization of Politics

This article proposes a theoretical framework for analyzing both mass media logic as a driving force for social change and, probably more importantly, that change itself as caused by the mass media. Mass media logic as a highly complex construct of interacting structures has changed society fundamentally, as actors in different social functional systems believe in first-order mass media effects and, therefore, adapt to the mass media logic. In the case of the mediatization of politics, this refers both to the adaptation of mass media logic by political actors and media-induced changes in the public representation of politics. Those adaptation processes have one pre-condition (the existence of a more or less autonomous mass media system) and are three-fold: political actors modify their individual strategies (micro-level), rearrange resources of political organizations such as parties, lobbying groups, or non-governemtal organizations (meso-level), and rewrite the programs of the political system (macro-level). Here, those second-order long-term mass media effects are called mediatization.

Understanding Social Media Logic

Over the past decade, social media platforms have penetrated deeply into the mech­anics of everyday life, affecting people's informal interactions, as well as institutional structures and professional routines. Far from being neutral platforms for everyone, social media have changed the conditions and rules of social interaction. In this article, we examine the intricate dynamic between social media platforms, mass media, users, and social institutions by calling attention to social media logic—the norms, strategies, mechanisms, and economies—underpin­ning its dynamics. This logic will be considered in light of what has been identified as mass me­dia logic, which has helped spread the media's powerful discourse outside its institutional boundaries. Theorizing social media logic, we identify four grounding principles—programmabil­ity, popularity, connectivity, and datafication—and argue that these principles become increas­ingly entangled with mass media logic. The logic of social media, rooted in these grounding principles and strategies, is gradually invading all areas of public life. Besides print news and broadcasting, it also affects law and order, social activism, politics, and so forth. Therefore, its sustaining logic and widespread dissemination deserve to be scrutinized in detail in order to better understand its impact in various domains. Concentrating on the tactics and strategies at work in social media logic, we reassess the constellation of power relationships in which social practices unfold, raising questions such as: How does social media logic modify or enhance ex­isting mass media logic? And how is this new media logic exported beyond the boundaries of (social or mass) media proper? The underlying principles, tactics, and strategies may be relat­ively simple to identify, but it is much harder to map the complex connections between plat­forms that distribute this logic: users that employ them, technologies that drive them, economic structures that scaffold them, and institutional bodies that incorporate them.

Weblog Campaigning in the German Bundestag Election 2005

Election campaigns are catalysts for new forms of political communication. They are a field of experimentation for new techniques and technologies to reach target groups and influence voters. This article explores how weblogs were used in the 2005 Bundestag election campaign in Germany, examining their effect on the mediatized political field. It is based on an empirical analysis of 317 campaign weblogs. Building on mediatization theory and research on campaign weblogs in other countries, weblog usage is examined along the dimensions of activity, interactivity, and connectedness. The results of the study indicate that weblog communication largely follows the dominant logic of mass media. But weblogs also offer forms of communication that allow political actors to bypass established media practices. Although the results are limited by the fact that the political blogosphere in Germany is still under construction, they reveal the potential of weblogs to enrich campaigns.

Media Icons of War and the Instrumentalisation of Images in US-American Media Today

In his paper Icons of War and the Instrumenalisation of Images in US-American Media Today, Reinhold Viehoff argues that the destruction of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad in April 2004 by the US army represents an attempt to instrumentalise the logic of mass media as a strategy of public diplomacy. Viehoff explains the logic of mass media and public diplomacy of the US government and US media today in the context of the history of the destruction of monuments as played out on the landscape of media during and following the demise of the Soviet empire. Viehoff proposes that the media images of the toppling of Hussein's statue is linked, historically, to the iconic representations of the divestiture of Central and East European dictatorships. Further, the divestiture of tyranny of the Soviet empire and its media images have been capitalised on in the strategic media image construction of the deposition of Hussein's government of tyranny. Based on specific examples of media images, Viehoff analyses the process in which the iconisation of images occurs in the case of Hussein's divestiture. In his conclusion, Viehoff proposes that the strategy of media and its icons used in the US media suggest misguided intentions. These misguided intentions are due to particularities in the processes of reflection in current USAmerican media systems. Reinhold Viehoff, Icons of War and the Instrumenalisation of Images in US-American Media Today page 2 of 11 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 7.4 (2005):