Philip van Praag

Signs of Media Logic Half a Century of Political Communication in the Netherlands

Abstract On the basis of three elections, covering a period of fifty years, the authors aim at testing the increasingly popular hypothesis that political communication is driven by media logic and by political and media system characteristics. In short: sooner or later, the modes and styles of American media will appear in Europe too.The complex and volatile relationship between media and politics in the Netherlands in the last half century does show some, although not uni-linear signs of media logic. The strength of a public service tradition and a political culture of non-adversariality, however, seem to have stopped the developments short of a political communication style which is characterised by performance driven campaigning, horse race and poll driven reporting, orientation on the public as consumers, journalistic dominance, agenda setting and cynicism.

The real spiral of cynicism? Symbiosis and mistrust between politicians and journalists

The relationship among media, politicians, and the public has been studied a lot, especially how the media’s portrayal of politics affects people’s (cynical) attitudes. Scholars know little about the antecedent of this assumed spiral of cynicism: How cynical are politicians and journalists about each other and about politics? Based on a survey among Dutch politicians and political journalists, the research presented in this article tries to fill this gap. The results show that politicians are rather cynical about media and journalists, especially when they feel media are out to set the political agenda. Journalists are equally cynical about politicians as the latter are about themselves, but it is a relative cynicism since it is lower than that of the general public. Journalists are, however, convinced that most politicians are driven by what we call “media salacity,” a drive to get journalists’ attention and coverage, a conviction shared, surprisingly, by the politicians themselves.

News Content and Effects in an Historic Campaign

Abstract In the 1994 national election, parties and politicians in the Netherlands were, for the first time, confronted with a dual broadcasting system. Alongside the public service broadcasting channels, which by law and tradition had functioned as a politically balanced platform for political communication, a new commercial network had joined the broadcasting landscape. The commercial newscast, covering its first campaign, was expected to adopt a pragmatic approach, while the public service news was expected to continue a sacer dotal approach. We thus expected to find substantial differences between the two channels in the content of election news. Observation study and content analysis showed that there w ere fewer differences between the two channels than expected in the presentation of the election campaign. The public newscast showed an increasing trend toward reporting campaigns as hoopla and horse race and away from political substance. The commercial news did exhibit some features of a pragmatic ...

Turnout in Referendums: the Dutch Experience. An Analysis of Voter and Referendum Characteristics that Influence Turnout in Referendums

The debate over referendums in the Netherlands goes back to at least the early twentieth century. For almost eighty years the standpoint of most politicians was very reserved. As a consequence, until the 1990s only a few referendums were held. The low turnout in the local elections of 1990 caused a change in the climate of opinion. More and more politicians considered the referendum to be an instrument that could help solve the crisis in the relationship between voters and representatives (Van Holsteyn, 1996). The assumption was that referendums would not only give the voters a direct say in issues, but would also contribute to broad citizen involvement with politics by attracting voters who no longer participated in elections for the representative bodies.

The new cultural cleavage: immigration and the challenge to Dutch politics and media

Whether they are called citizens, consumers, publics or audiences, most people have historically tended to be, to a greater or lesser degree, on the receiving end in their relationship with politics and media. Certainly, they could vote out politicians every four or so years and they could stop reading a newspaper or switch off a television channel, but that was usually where their vertical power vis-a-vis decision makers and definers of reality ended. In recent decades, there have been sizable changes in Western Europe in how people relate to political parties and the media.