The 21st century has already seen dramatic changes affecting both journalism and politics. The rise of a range of new digital and networked communication technologies combined with the stagnation and decline of many traditional mass media has had a profound impact on political journalism. This is a handy, relevant resource for scholars of political journalism and critical media studies worldwide, as well as for news and public affairs practitioners who stand to gain from a nuanced understanding of the factors, both obvious and overlooked, that are shaping political journalism today, writes Joseph Peralta

Peralta, Joseph

LSE Research Online

2014-7-1Book Review: Political Journalism in Transition: WesternEurope in a Comparative Perspective edited by RaymondKuhn and Rasmus Kleis Nielsenblogs.lse.ac.uk /lsereviewofbooks/2014/07/01/book-review-political-journalism-in-transition-western-europe-in-a-comparative-perspective-edited-by-raymond-kuhn-and-rasmus-kleis-nielsen/The 21st century has already seen dramatic changes affecting both journalism and politics. The rise of arange of new digital and networked communication technologies combined with the stagnation and decline of manytraditional mass media has had a profound impact on political journalism. This is a handy, relevant resource forscholars of political journalism and critical media studies worldwide, as well as for news and public affairspractitioners who stand to gain from a nuanced understanding of the factors, both obvious and overlooked, that areshaping political journalism today, writes Joseph Peralta.Political Journalism in Transition: Western Europe in a ComparativePerspective. Raymond Kuhn and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen (eds.). I.B. Tauris.November 2013.Find this book: The recent verdicts on the News of the World phone hacking scandals have allbut assuaged media reformists. They have breathed new concerns around theextent of unchecked newsgathering methods, whose harm remains damning,unfathomable, and undiscovered. The trial has highlighted the tenablerelationships between political sources, journalists, and media organisations, aswell as the pressure under which the latter must consider their commercial andmoral impetuses in order to survive within a very competitive, globalised market.Political Journalism in Transition: Western Europe in a Comparative Perspectiveuncovers how political journalism functions today at the intersections of mediamanagement, digital technology, and politics amidst shifting levels of publicinterest. Whether it was the Leveson Inquiry, the coverage of the recentEuropean Parliament elections, or the ousting of longtime executive editor of theNew York Times Jill Abramson, Political Journalism in Transition puts forward a comparative analytical frameworkthat sits squarely within these timely issues. Editors Raymond Kuhn and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, both leadingscholars of political communication and political journalism, have built upon their previous work around newsmanagement, media policy, new technologies, and civic participation, and have assembled a body of work thatemphasises the interdisciplinary nature of these shifts currently redefining political journalism as it unfolds today.The authors demonstrate that while economic, political, and technological factors have brought about changes inpolitical journalism that similarly run across Western European countries – accelerated news cycles, the shiftingbalance of power between journalists and political sources, the rise of political communication professionals, and thepressure to produce competitive content over a range of platforms including digital media – the inextricable culturaldifferences that have defined media development and journalistic relationships within each country have providedcontinuity for national variations in political journalism to exist. This argument thus challenges the assumption of anunderlying convergence towards a single model of political journalism in the West.The 5 national case study chapters that make up the first half provide an introspective look on how the theme ofchanges and continuities play out within each country. There is not much of a debate here: chapter authors on1/3France (Kuhn), Italy (Cornia), Germany (Reinemann and Baugut), Denmark (Blach-Orsten), and the United Kingdom(Davis) each makes a case that the national variations in the institutional configuration imply against thisconvergence. This understanding is important, that given the rise of global media conglomerates wherenewsgathering practices and journalistic cultures bleed across borders, political journalism is still very much shapedby national variations.A reading of this first half explains why sensational tabloid journalism has not caught on in France as it has in theUnited Kingdom, how the journalistic focus on German political parties – and not individual politicians – hastempered media partisanship, and why online journalism has struggled to take root in Italy but is currently upendingthe Danish independent news regime towards a more competitive, commercialised one. These national casestudies are rich, accessible, and revelatory, especially for readers and scholars who may not be as familiar or asnuanced with their understanding of the within-country forces that influence each country’s respective media modeland political journalistic culture.Journalist following the plenary session from the press room. Credit: European Parliament CC BY-NC-ND 2.0No book about political journalism in Western Europe is complete without a chapter on European Union politicaljournalism, which begins the latter half of the book dedicated to cross-national themes. Oliver Baisnée writes acandid analysis of EU reporting, one that he calls “boring” and lacking as a source of journalistic interest not only toeditors but also to the public.The declining number of EU correspondents and the misalignment of their coverage with their home media’sjournalistic and economic priorities all have direct implications on political apathy and the overall “democratic valueof news.” One could present, however, the intense coverage of the eurozone crisis and the rise of eurosceptic blocsafter the most recent European Parliament elections as antithetical to his premise. But these are to Baisnée’s point:EU political journalism remains an “elite” niche, without enduring political personalities and arcs that grab 24-hournews cycle headlines, at least until the next round of austerity measures or MEP elections. (A simple Google Trendsanalysis suggests that the topic of “European Parliament” only seems to spike during the MEP elections).Cushion’s chapter on independent public media, entitled “Do Public Service Media (Still) Matter?”, presents a strongcase for a well-funded, regulated public broadcasting service as a means to an informed citizenry. Not to beconfused with state broadcasters aligned with a sitting government (and thus are subject to political agenda-setting2/3(p. 23)), public service media delivers the “democratic value” of news and current affairs programming.Cushion clearly singles out the “American exceptionalism” in this regard, wherein the objective of impartiality isslowly crumbling under the pressure of operating within a market-driven, largely unregulated media domain. As aresult, relative to its Western European counterparts, the American public service media, delivered through theCorporation for Public Broadcasting which underwrites the National Public Radio (NPR) and Public BroadcastingService (PBS), is slowly proving to be indefensible against federal budget hawks and public disinterest.The author could have supplemented his cross-national comparison on the levels of public media funding andchanges in the amount of time spent on news and current affairs programming with data on people’s awareness andfavorability of their own public media channels. Given that public broadcasting heavily relies on public funds –whether through licence fees or pledge drives thinly-veiled as 60s music infomercials – the answer to whether publicbroadcasting still matters or not is served by asking if the people who provide it financial sustainability still support it.Two immediate observations can be made about the book. First, while readers interested in political journalism indeveloping countries might be disappointed with its geographic scope, the book’s implied emphasis on usingnuance is a useful tool in understanding the complexities associated with media development. For instance, as thesame change forces shape the fragile state of media regime in Iraq – where the proliferation of satellite stations andonline news has resulted in a diverse media sector post-2003 invasion – the nation’s tumultuous political andeconomic situation have incessantly shifted the involved actors. This lesson was lost on the US-led media reformefforts, whose aim to turn what was once a state propaganda instrument into an independent, democratic mediasystem has been constantly undermined by issues around funding and licensing, regulation, and the generalscepticism towards media’s legitimacy, rooted in years of authoritarian control.Second, social media evangelists might be a little underwhelmed by the supporting role the platform plays in thisvolume. While the book indeed identifies the transformative role of digital technology in newsroom practices, it alsogives concrete proof of an uneven adoption of social media and online-only outlets as the main sources of news andcurrent affairs, even amongst citizens of highly-digital nations of Western Europe. This assumptive role avoids theneed for the book to prove a causal effect between online news provision and civic participation, a relationshipwhich remains unsettled at best, murky at worst. This critical distinction invites a thoughtful pause amongst readerswho are under the belief that only technology will save the dying news industry at the end of the day.Political Journalism in Transition remains one of the most comprehensive, interdisciplinary comparative analysis ofpolitical journalism that is currently in print. Any analysis that features these confounding and intersecting historico-political elements could have easily resulted in a heady, impractical work, but this bipartite anthology offers acomplete resource that is straightforward and digestible. It is a handy, relevant resource for scholars of politicaljournalism and critical media studies worldwide, as well as for news and public affairs practitioners who stand to gainfrom a nuanced understanding of the factors, both obvious and overlooked, that are shaping political journalismtoday.————————-Joseph Peralta is a New York City-based research and policy analyst whose diverse interests range from politicsand media communications, to governance in the age of emerging technologies and ICT for development. Hereceived his MPA in Public Policy and Management degree from the London School of Economics. He tweetsat @_JoeyPeralta. Read more reviews by Joseph.Copyright 2013 LSE Review of Books3/3

Book review: political journalism in transition: Western Europe in a comparative perspective edited by Raymond Kuhn and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

LSE Research Online