Eva Mayerhöffer

National or Professional? Types of Political Communication Culture across Europe

Which professional and political orientations of journalists and political actors shape the milieu of political communication in Western European democracy? Which are the typical features and clusters of the subjective basis of the media-politics relationship within and across nations? Do certain structures of the media and political system resonate with the attitudinal underpinnings of political communication? These questions are at the core of this chapter, which seeks to bring together all aspects of the empirical study of the political communication culture that we have introduced thus far. Now we determine and compare the attitudes and role perceptions of politicians, political spokespersons and journalists aiming to map out particular national cultures of political communication. We further develop a heuristic of the grouping of these milieus in the nine countries of our study and establish whether we can distinguish the milieu of political communication in Southern Europe from the approaches that are taken in the Northern part of the continent or in the German-speaking countries.

Public Agenda-Setting between Media Logic and Political Logic

The fact that political parties and to some extent also the various parts of the executive and the legislative branch have more or less consistently tried to increase their strategic capacity to influence the public agenda is largely undisputed (Norris, 2000; Louw, 2005; Negrine, 2008). This development is seen to have taken off in the 1990s (Norris, 2000) as part of the adaptation to the “imperatives of the professionalization” of political advocacy and publicity, which constitutes one of the most prominent dynamics of the politics-media relationship in the current “age” of political communication (Blumler and Kavanagh, 1999, p. 214). Other aspects of the professionalization trend notwithstanding, the accelerated pursuit of agenda-setting through the management of communication content (issue selection, priming, framing, simplification, personal focus, negative campaigning, etc.) and media relations (network-building, selective liaising with journalists, leaking, event creation, damage control, etc.) can be said to constitute the core of current communication strategies employed by political actors.

Contexts of the Media-Politics Relationship: Country Selection and Grouping

The comparative study of political communication culture rests on the assumption that national milieus of the media-politics relationship are in one way or another related to the structure of media and political systems. In our comparative study we do not expect possible differences in the attitudinal patterns across countries to occur because the actors are, for example, Danish, Spanish or German nationals. More specifically, individuals have been socialized by their historically conditioned political and media institutions and therefore act and interact under different systemic constraints. Therefore, national contexts consisting of media and political system features are related to the orientations of actors of political communication. Moreover, we can also assume that the broader political culture of a country—that is, the way people relate to politics and democracy—influences the conduct of public communication and therefore may constrain political communication culture. For instance, less support for political institutions may strengthen the polarization of mediated political communication because of sharper political conflicts and ideological confrontation.

Democratic Demands on the Media

Undoubtedly, democratic ideals are central to discussions of political communication culture. In democratic societies, these ideals are embedded in the professional norms of the media and political elites. Today there is greater consensus than ever regarding fundamental democratic ideals that pertain to the media, even on a global scale. We acknowledge the need for freedom of speech and of the press, the significance of transparent political processes and the value of an informed citizenry.

Public Opinion Polls as an Input Factor of Political Communication

Public opinion polls are an integral part of political communication as they serve as an input factor for both the messages of politicians and their spokespersons, as well as the political reporting of the media. For political actors, the information about the opinions of citizens transmitted by polling has become an important factor to be taken into account when making decisions and communicating with citizens, while for political journalists, polling results have become a newsworthy piece of information (Stromback, 2012a; Holtz-Bacha, 2012). Politicians, journalists, professional communicators and citizens live in a world in which polling results have de facto become the predominant representation of public opinion (Raupp, 2007).

A Hedge between Keeps Friendship Green — Concurrence and Conflict between Politicians and Journalists in Nine European Democracies

Current analysis of political communication is hugely engaged in the study of the linkage between media and politics as ingrained in the structure of media systems (Hallin and Mancini, 2004, 2012). This work has not only enhanced comparative research, it also triggered a lively debate about the categories and the nature of typologies of political communication systems. However, what has been neglected in this research is the subjective dimen- sion of political communication; this concerns the idea that the interaction between two groups of interdependent actors — politicians and journalists - is governed by mutual perceptions and professional norms. These orien- tations are referred to as ‘political communication culture’ (Blumler and Gurevitch, 1995; Pfetsch, 2004, 2014a). One specific, yet crucial, aspect of political communication culture relates to the attitudes that under gird concurrence or conflict in the relationship between politicians and journal- ists. In our study we analyze perceived conflict and cooperation between journalists and politicians and link the orientations to interpretations of the actors’ roles. We take a systematic comparative approach through inves- tigating how orientations towards conflict and concurrence vary across nine European democracies: Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Our research contributes to the debate on the power relations between politicians and the media, which for a long time has drawn on normative arguments about who leads the dance on the floor of political communication.