D. Oegema

Loss of Parliamentary Control Due to Mediatization and Europeanization: A Longitudinal and Cross-Sectional Analysis of Agenda Building in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands

The central question in this study is whether the power of the media agenda over the political agenda has recently increased. The agenda-building dynamics are established using cross-country time-series data on four issues, covering fifteen and eight years respectively of British and Dutch parliamentary debates and newspaper articles. Structural equation models show that the parliamentary agenda is more influenced by the media agenda than the other way around, and that the power balance has shifted even more in favour of the media. It is additionally found that media power is especially associated with issues within the European domain. This study contributes empirically to the ‘mediatization’ debate in a EU context, which is largely limited to the realm of theoretical speculation. The reciprocity between the agenda of politicians and public opinion is a major theme in political science. Research results indicate that political parties often adjust their policies to public opinion. 1 Conversely, public opinion is sensitive to political events and popular leaders, 2 at least when the issue at hand is considered to be sufficiently important. 3 It has long been recognized that mass media play a vital role in forging the links between politicians and citizens in modern democracies. 4 Politicians, often ignorant of public preferences, monitor the media for a proxy measure of the public mood. 5 Citizens would hardly be aware of political policies and performance, were it not for the media. 6 The media offer a forum for political profiling on behalf of politics, as well as for the exchange of * Department of Communication Science, Free University Amsterdam. This article is part of the doctoral dissertation of Lonneke van Noije (expected in 2007) under the supervision of Jan Kleinnijenhuis and Dirk Oegema. Lonneke van Noije is currently engaged as a researcher at The Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP). Earlier versions were presented at the International Communication Association, New York, 2005, and at Elections, Public Opinion and Parties at the School of Politics and International Relations, Nottingham, 2006. The authors are indebted to Wouter van Atteveldt and Ivar Vermeulen for their help with data retrieval and processing. They also thank the Journal’s reviewers for refining the argument throughout the article. 1