Political Communication and Policymaking in the Age of Digital Media

Transformation of the media landscape in the past few decades has profoundly affected the business of governing and policymaking (Grossman 2022). The process of steering public attention by governments and competing political actors has thus become much more complex (Langer & Gruber 2021). This, in turn, might have affected governments’ capacity to generate public support for policy decisions, possibly preventing some policies, or increasing implementation costs. Conversely, other actors might now have greater discursive power (Jungherr et al 201) to influence those decisions and the public’s reactions. To study these transformations, we want to focus, in a comparative fashion, on the discursive power of governments, competing actors and journalists in governing and policymaking. The main factor behind this transformation is the increasing hybridization of contemporary media systems, with old media logics now coexisting with new ones (Chadwick 2017). The rise of digital media means that we can no longer assume the existence of a common national public sphere (Bennett & Pfetsch 2018). Moreover, these transformations have profoundly affected gatekeeping and, thereby, the communicational pre-eminence and ‘indexing power’ of incumbent governments vis-à-vis other actors. Government- or policy-critical discourse can be voiced much more easily in the hybrid media system, including alternative visions – fake or not – of government or policies. ‘Legacy’ media, in this context, may feel compelled to follow statements, people and debates in new or social media, thereby echoing those trends and importing them into the more traditional media world. Conversely, this media environment might provide certain actors, especially in increasingly polarized political contexts or in crisis contexts such as the recent pandemic, with the opportunity to mobilize their core constituents’ support more easily. The characteristics of these trends and their consequences are not well understood. A first question concerns this apparent decline of government’s discursive power vis-à-vis other actors. While processes of agenda-setting and framing appear to be more competitive, there is little unambiguous evidence about this, especially across cases, in terms of systems and policy domains. Relatedly, we need to know more about how this is linked to the changing roles of professional journalism. A second, equally important, dimension concerns the impact of these changes. To what extent do these processes challenge governments’ discursive power and empower other elites – and with what consequences? A third question concerns differences across policies, given that not all policies will get same amount of media attention nor will all be equally sensitive to the consequences of (negative) media coverage. Some policies may raise more legacy or social media interest or might be more vulnerable to mobilization by a range of competing actors, resulting from historical factors, cleavages or organizations. A fourth question concerns governments’ and other elites’ responses to a changing media environment. Are new patterns of elite communication emerging? Which forms do they take? Finally, and crucially, how do these different processes and trends vary across countries and/or media systems? This Workshop invites contributions trying to address any or several of these questions.