Political Mediation Research Articles

It is about time! Exploring the clashing timeframes of politics and public policy experiments

Abstract Although existing studies on experimental policymaking have acknowledged the importance of the political setting in which policy experiments take place, we lack systematic knowledge on how various political dimensions affect experimental policymaking. In this article, we address a specific gap in the existing understanding of the politics of experimentation: how political timeframes influence experimental policymaking. Drawing on theoretical discussions on experimental policymaking, public policy, electoral politics, and mediatization of politics, we outline expectations about how electoral and problem cycles may influence the timing, design, and learning from policy experiments. We argue electoral timeframes are likely to discourage politicians from undertaking large-scale policy experiments and if politicians decide to launch experiments, they prefer shorter designs. The electoral cycle may lead politicians to draw too hasty conclusions or ignore the experiment’s results altogether. We expect problem cycles to shorten politicians’ time horizons further as there is pressure to solve problems quickly. We probe the plausibility of our theoretical expectations using interview data from two different country contexts: Estonia and Finland.

Policy engagement as ‘empowered representation’: democratic mediation through a participatory research project on climate resilience

Background: The article analyses the policy engagement component of a research project on climate resilience in vulnerable communities that took place in Cape Town, South Africa. Conducted in 2022, the engagement included community and stakeholder events in three research sites, and a cross-cutting policy event with municipal officials, held at the end of the project. Importantly, this policy engagement process occurred in a context of political marginalisation, that is, one characterised by low trust, and little meaningful representation or even communication between these vulnerable communities and the city. Aims and objectives: This article examines the impact of policy engagement on political relations between local government and vulnerable communities. Methods: The overall methodology of the article is qualitative, using an illustrative case-study research design to unpack the subjective experiences of both government officials and residents of vulnerable communities. Primary data included many primary documents, direct observation of the engagements and post-event interviews. Findings: First, the engagement process created new ‘invented’ spaces for the representation of community perspectives to the city, and the city’s perspective to the community. Second, the engagement facilitated community self-representation through educating community members to advocate for their ideas in these new invented spaces. Third, this engagement tended to be more constructive and deliberative than polarising and confrontational. Discussion and conclusions: Drawing on the theoretical framework of ‘political mediation’, the policy engagement process is characterised as a positive instance of democratic mediation through ‘empowered representation’, with some specified limitations.

Factors of the growing role of mass communication as a tool for shaping political consciousness in the modern world

The article is dedicated to the study of the factors contributing to the increasing influence of mass media on the formation of political consciousness in modern society. In the context of globalization and digitalization, mass media have become key instruments in shaping public opinion, political preferences, and mobilizing various forms of socio-political activity. The paper analyzes the key technological, sociocultural, political, and economic factors that directly or indirectly determine the influence of mass media on political processes and societal consciousness. Special attention is given to the role of algorithms in the selection and presentation of information, including the impact of external factors on content, as well as challenges related to the spread of disinformation and manipulative technologies. The article also explores the phenomenon of the mediatization of politics and the self-referential nature of mass media, which contribute to the formation of a specific public space and changes in political communication. The problems of global media influence, which tend to unify information flows and blur cultural and political differences between countries, are also analyzed. The conclusions emphasize the importance of ensuring transparency, independence, and diversity of mass media to support democratic processes, strengthen civil society, and prevent information manipulation in the modern world.

Inflation of crisis coverage? Tracking and explaining the changes in crisis labeling and crisis news wave salience 1785–2020

Abstract Has there been an inflation in crisis coverage in newspapers over the last centuries, and if so, what structural factors drive this change? We utilize computational text analyses along with our own signal detection algorithm to measure the presence of crisis keywords and the emergence of crisis news waves. An analysis of crisis coverage in The Times (U.K., 1785–2020, 183,239 news stories) shows that the share of coverage that uses crisis keywords has increased, though not steadily. The number and salience of crisis news waves tied to discernible events has increased at a slower pace. The hypothesized driving forces—government expansion, mediatization of politics, and the activity of crisis frame sponsors—explain the development well and allow accurate predictions even when ignoring time in the forecasting model. Crisis coverage seems to reflect not so much the problems society faces, but society’s identity, priorities, and outlook on the world.

Pandemic Persona and Digital Culture: The Role of Celebrity Politicians on Social Networks

The paper discusses a specific intersection of the politics, celebrity, and digital culture. In the last few decades, more and more people from the entertainment realm entered the world of institutional politics trying to leverage their popularity. Thanks to the media, they manage to transfer their celebrity capital, namely accumulated media visibility and recognisability (Driesens 2013) into the political sphere. In the beginning, they improve their visibility with the help of mass media that place their personas and private lives in the focus of public attention. However, with the digitalization of the media, the popular-political landscape has changed (Marshall 2020), so today they have dispositional new bases for practising personalized politics, i.e. imposing their personality instead of political party programmes. In this paper, attention is directed to former American president Donald Trump, president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Miroslav Škoro, who was a candidate in the presidential, parliamentary, and local elections in Croatia. Although there were obvious differences between these three celebrities mentioned before entering the political arena, their later use of social networks vividly shows how they built their political/pandemic persona in the evolving mediatization of politics.

玄德 mysterious virtue: Wu wei and the non-paradoxical politics of the Dao

ABSTRACT In his work on Wu wei, Edward Slingerland argues that the classical Chinese ideal is an inherently paradoxical concept that is first and foremost spiritual and political only secondarily. Through a close reading of the Dao de Jing, the first major classical text to substantially deploy and develop the concept, I argue that Wu wei isn’t inherently paradoxical and that this is seen precisely when it is viewed in terms of its political primacy. On my reading, the emergence of Wu wei in the Daoist canon is an equilibrating moment of political mediation between the highly intentionalized sphere of human pursuits and the purposeless fluidity and boundless flux of the natural world. Wu wei here takes on a different aspect—mystery rather than paradox—when considered within a form of political collectivity in which the intentional and the innate, purposive and natural are constantly juxtaposed and contending with one another.

Leveraging uncertainty, market-power, and fiscal opacity: The growth of financial security states

AbstractSince 2008, we have observed a more prominent role of the state in economic life, with the widespread use of financial tools. Advancing discussions on the financialization of distributional politics, the expansion of financial statecraft as a result of fiscal conflicts, and the fragmentation of state power, this article explores how proliferating financial policies reconfigure the state and its relationship with the economy as well as its democratic foundations. I introduce the concept of financial security states to theorize reactions to mature financialization and its inherent instabilities, which provoke socially structured demands for public stabilization. Leveraging the tradition of fiscal sociology, I work out differences between taxation and welfare systems and those based on financial security. In particular, I show that financial security states exploit value uncertainties to postpone loss-reckoning, are carried by hybrid state-banking institutions, and leverage the states’ endogenous power within market-based finance. This article argues that the by-and-large regressive distributional outcomes and fiscal costs of financial policies remain opaque, due to strategic obfuscation, the failure of traditional modes of political mediation, and deficient budgeting procedures.

Media Framing of Kaesang Pangerep’s PSI Chairmanship by Tribunnews.com

Media undeniably has a great influence in the political sphere today. The interdependence between media and politics is an interesting discussion because it should be an institution that disseminates information neutrally, no tendency to certain groups. However, today’s media in Indonesia exacerbates the phenomenon of political mediatization. This study aims to provide new insights into how Tribunnews.com uses framing to shape political narratives in the context of news coverage of Kaesang Pangarep’s rise to the leadership of PSI party. This study combines qualitative methodology with the framing analysis method based on the theories of Gerald Kosicki and Zhongdang Pan. It examined the Tribunnews.com report, edition September 30th 2023 titled “Observer Suspects Megawati’s Anger over Kaesang Joining PSI”. Tribunnews.com was chosen because the news was only reviewed from the observer’s side. Hence, this research attempted to reveal how Kaesanng’s rise to the leadership of the PSI party was framed by Tribunnews.com. The results of the research based on the Zhongdang Pan and Kosicki model demonstrated that Tribunnews.com constructed Megawati’s alleged anger, yet the news was not followed with reliable sources for balanced reporting. Tribunnews.com also mediatized the use of bombastic titles and content to increase news appeal. This requires a public concern because the media, which should act as the fourth pillar of democracy, instead tend to mediatize the news only for attaining public attention.

Mediatization of politics and political manipulation as components of information warfare

Mediatization of politics and political manipulation as components of information warfare

국가 생존을 위한 외교 전략으로써 중재 역할에 대한 고찰

Countries engaging in conflict mediation have traditionally been seen as peacemakers. However, within the framework of an international order prioritizing national survival, the role of a mediator can be examined as a strategic approach to maximize national interests. This study analyzes the motivation behind Oman and Kuwait's involvement in mediating conflicts, drawing on the theory that sees mediation as a tool for pursuing national interests. The field of political mediation has received limited attention from scholars. Specifically, within the political dynamics of the Gulf region where Saudi Arabia and the UAE play significant roles, an examination of Oman and Kuwait's involvement in conflict mediation as part of their foreign policy strategy contributes to expanding the understanding that mediation serves as a political tool for national survival

Networked feminism in a digital age—mobilizing vulnerability and reconfiguring feminist politics in digital activism

AbstractIn what ways can we understand the productive tensions and complexities of digital feminist activism? This paper explores the increase of networked feminism, which focuses attention on digital activism and its relation to transformative social change. It suggests that we need a better understanding of how digital feminist activism might be changing the shape of transnational feminist resistance and praxis, and how feminist politics are created and enacted in digitally mediated environments. These result in new forms of feminist consciousness built on affective and embodied engagements. The paper explores the complex and ambivalent role of affective politics and embodied ethics to explore conditions of vulnerability. Using illustrative, global cases to show the nuances across digital activism, the paper contributes to understanding the complexities and differential effects of online environments, the mediation of feminist politics through digital knowledge cultures and the possibilities, challenges, and productive tensions that lie in the ever‐increasing use of digital environments.

Celebrity culture, level of education and trust in media institutions: Empirical evidence from the Philippines

This study aims to provide empirical evidence on the celebrity culture, i.e. the pervasive fascination of an audience with public figures, in the Philippines. We used data from the seventh wave of the World Values Survey ( n = 1200) to establish whether celebrity culture exists in the Philippines. We then tested whether citizens’ level of education affects one's attribution of confidence to an institution dominated by celebrities, i.e. television, over those institutions governed by experts, i.e. universities. Lastly, we performed a sentiment analysis in the comments of a YouTube video from a well-known celebrity, Toni Gonzaga, on her interview with Bongbong Marcos, the son of the late dictator, to investigate how strong celebrity influence is in the country traversing the social and political arena. The results showed that there is a significant difference between citizens’ level of confidence in television and universities, and that those with lower levels of education are more likely to be confident in the television as an institution. The public sentiment of citizens on the infamous video was overwhelmingly positive. While the results underlined the strong celebrity influence in the country, our paper not only reinforces the need for a greater role of education in fostering democratic citizenry but also bears significant implications for the mediatization of politics in developing democracies.

A Middle Eastern style of mediatization of politics and conflicts: Were regional-domestic intersections considered?

This article examines the extent to which mediatization, as a western-centric metatheory central to an understanding of how the media logic comes to influence the political logic, applies to the study of non-western case studies. Considering the case of the 2006 Palestinian internal conflict (the split), the article examines the role of pan-Arab transnational satellite TV (PTSTV) journalism in covering the conflict’s trajectories. Building on primary qualitative data, gathered via semi-structured interviews with prominent stakeholders/insiders in the two parties and relevant sectors of news media and politics, the article explores the interplay between regional and Palestinian politics, evident in PTSTV’s coverage, and shows how available western-centred theoretical paradigms that draw on mediatization – in examining mediatized conflicts – fell short in examining such interplay for contextual, structural and sociocultural challenges in PTSTV’s operating milieu. Alternatively, the study inductively explored this interplay, overcoming the aforesaid contextual challenges, and provided evidence on how, with the lack of democratic principles in PTSTV’s operational milieu, structural/internal characteristics in these channels interacted with peripheral/external dimensions in their milieu and adversely affected their cultural dimension (coverage). PTSTV produced escalatory journalism that disseminated inflammatory content within a politically fractured culture, exacerbating the conflict and expanding the gap between the two rivals. This inductive approach in tracing the interplay – and its concurrent bargaining process – revealed five pivotal characteristics in PTSTV performance that are unique to those postulated in mediatization. They stand in this article as an authentic theoretical contribution that facilitated the handling of analytical challenges in the case study.

Mediatization and Populism Approach through Media Content Analysis of Newspapers during Sarawak’s Election and Midterm Transition Government 2020

This paper aims to investigate the relationship and adaptation of mediatization of politics with populism into media content of seven (7) Sarawak newspapers, namely Borneo Post, New Sarawak Tribune, Utusan Sarawak, Utusan Borneo, Suara Sarawak, See Hua Daily, and Sin Chew Daily during Sarawak's election and the Midterm Transition of Malaysia Government 2020 by using quantitative content analysis. The Hoslti Inter-coder reliability and validity, Chi-Square, and One-way ANOVA tests were used on 695 news items. The results demonstrate that the Hoslti Inter-coder reliability and validity averaged 93%, above 70%. The Chi-Square test proved the news headline, government initiation, government response, and blame attribution (substance blame and non-policy blame) at the 0.001 level (2 tailed p<0.0005), and we rejected the null hypothesis. As for opposition response, and blame attribution (substance and non-policy blame), the p-value is more significance level (2-tailed p>0.0005), and we do not reject the null hypothesis. For mediatization of politics, only two (2) issues under media logic have p-values above .05, which are conflict (0.054) and opinionated and narrative news articles (0.143) with F values of 6.957 and 6.364. In political logic, result showed that p-value is less than .05 which there is a statistically significant difference in newspaper coverage. Anti-elitism (0.161) has a p-value more significant than .05, with F value is 1.797 in populism. People-centrism and mistrust of experts have p-values less than .05. This results in a statistically significant difference in newspaper coverage. Keywords: Mediatization of politics, populism, newspapers, content analysis, Sarawak.

EU Representations in Portuguese Media and Populism: Embodying Political Antipodes?

<div><span>Mass media mediate different publics, thus being crucial in constructing political reality. By selecting which topics are covered (agenda), which voices are heard, or how social and political issues/actors/dynamics are represented (priming and framing), mass media impacts how political conversations and processes unfold. Acknowledging the increasing mediatisation of politics, this article zooms into media texts of the Portuguese media during a complex political period that included national elections to explore how populism as a term, label, or topic was used and/or co-opted to create and negotiate political EU representations. Building on a historical perspective and using critical thematic analysis, this article argues that populism was used in the media and by the media as a discursive mechanism of political positionality and/or delegitimisation or criticism of political actors, agendas, or moves, thus making populism and the EU co-constitutively used as embodying political antipodes and making the EU work as a discursive buffer concerning populism in the country. </span></div>

Transformations in Local Social Action in Portugal

The decentralization of social functions to municipalities, also known as municipal decentralization, triggered new contexts of practice in municipal social intervention. Municipalities are now dealing with more work and a focus on working in partnerships, which calls for greater dynamism of the local social action teams. This process has pushed the social workers to practices that alternate between mediation through the construction of access to a universal standard of social rights and the development of social intervention models with specific access to certain contexts and social groups. The objective of this paper is to envision new forms of standardization of social action within the framework of municipal decentralization, combining place-based perspectives with community and structural social work. What can we learn from social workers’ perspectives on the context of social functions in order to envision forms of place-based standardization of municipal social action? We seek to analyze the professional visions of local social action systems reform, discussing new contexts of practice; new place-based functions; and their correlation with political mediation for universal and intermunicipal social rights, instrumental dimensions of concrete work, and dimensions of value attributed to practicing social work. We organized the research according to the phenomenological paradigm, mobilizing the qualitative method and the multiple-case study. Based on evidence from the discourse of all professionals involved in the study, the findings indicate that the transformations of local social action systems, associated with the processes of social functions decentralization, imply greater comprehensiveness of social intervention, the ability to work in partnerships, and new place-based approach matrices, but they also present challenges for social workers in terms of multilevel governance that may favor the standardization of access to better social well-being between municipal territories.

CHALLENGES FOR THE POLITICAL COMPETENCE OF CITIZENS IN THE CONTEXT OF UKRAINE'S EUROPEAN INTEGRATION

The article aims at identifying the latest challenges for the political competence of Ukrainian citizens in the context of European integration. Russia's large-scale aggression is certainly becoming a major challenge for citizens, those who are forced to save their lives under daily cruise missile attacks launched from a terrorist country. At the same time, the war leveled differences between the regions on the issue of European and Euro-Atlantic integration, consolidated Ukrainian society around democratic values and democratic choice. Political competence of citizens is defined as a complex socio-political phenomenon that allows assessing the rationality and effectiveness of government actions and exercises the right to change government. Applying the institutionalism of rational choice, it has been determined that it is the ability of citizens to make democratic choices in difficult conditions that is a convincing evidence of a high level of political competence. Based on the method of historical institutionalism, the completion of the post-Soviet transformations stage is noted. Ukrainians have made their choice in favor of democracy. At the same time, new challenges arise for the citizens’ political competence. They are institutional in nature and are associated with the activities of such institutions as elections (electoral campaigns at the national and local levels), mass media, the institute of political education, civil society, and so on. It is proved that the political competence of citizens is manifested in the electoral process, but is not limited to just participation in voting. It consists in the implementation of a control function – a critical and rational assessment of the actions of public authorities and the opposition. This is the reason for the role of mass media and civil society. The challenges to the activities of the mass media institute are the mediatization of politics (media shows, media scandals) and, at the same time, attempts by the public authorities to restrict freedom of speech. Such restrictions, which are absolutely justified under martial law, potentially pose a threat minding a return to the authoritarian model in the relations "Power – Mass media – Society". Special attention is paid to the role of the institute of public intellectuals in the process of forming the political competence of citizens.

POLITICAL REPRESENTATION: HISTORICAL SOURCES AND INSTITUTIONAL DETERMINANTS

The article identifies historical sources for studying the phenomenon of political representation and its institutional determinants. The idea of political representation has been most developed in modern European philosophical and political thought. It is directly related to the formation of the institution of parliamentarism. The social contract theory became the basis of parliamentarism and representative democracy. It is the parliament that has long determined the institutional determinants of political representation, including parliamentary election patterns and political parties. In modern conditions, the institutions of mass media and public intellectuals also play an important role for political representation and representative democracy. Thanks to the Internet, the scale of citizens' participation in political communication, and therefore their political participation, has significantly expanded. The mass media institute creates conditions not only for informing citizens, but also for their interactive participation in the decision-making process of the bureaucracy. The role of the mass media institute during electoral campaigns is also ever grows. In the process of mediatization of politics, the institutional determinants of political representation are transformed – from opposition activities to political parties and parliaments. Mass media shape public opinion, determine the agenda, influence the interpretation of the public good and evaluate the activities of political actors.

MIDDLE CLASS IN UKRAINE: GOVERNMENT OR OPPOSITION?

MIDDLE CLASS IN UKRAINE: GOVERNMENT OR OPPOSITION?

Legislative production and political mediation: indications in the Chamber of Deputies

Este artigo apresenta uma análise da produção de indicações pelos deputados federais no intervalo 2007-2018. A indicação é um dispositivo legislativo que se caracteriza como sugestão, por meio da qual os parlamentares solicitam ao poder executivo " e outros órgãos administrativos " a realização de obras públicas, a regulação ou a prestação de serviços. Além de apresentar um panorama sobre a produção de indicações no período mencionado, defende-se no artigo a hipótese de que os deputados mobilizam as indicações em busca da distribuição de benefícios concentrados para, com isso, auferir ganhos eleitorais. Defende-se, também, a hipótese de que os deputados governistas, por terem expectativas mais positivas em relação ao acolhimento de suas sugestões pelo governo, são mais profícuos na produção de indicações. Para testar as hipóteses, o artigo conta com 19.058 indicações devidamente categorizadas. Os dados mostram que, de fato, os deputados federais fazem um uso ostensivo das indicações visando transferir benefícios para seus distritos e, ainda, que os deputados governistas são mais propensos a emitir indicações do que os não governistas.