Types and Shifts of Media Power. A conceptual analysis illustrated by 50 years of political communication in the Lowlands

With a strong derogatory undertone, political communication in many western democracies has been described as more and more driven by media logic. In a fragmented electoral and media landscape, the political process in such a logic is steered more by the practices and activities of journalists. Political actors adapt their performance to the needs of time, place and formats of the media. In media logic, power is shifting from politics to media, journalists dominate the political communication process: they set the agenda, decide the tone, and frame the issues and political actors; often in terms of conflict, strategy or entertainment.

The critique about such a trend worded in such neologisms as mediacracy, tvdemocracy, mediatization, but basically about the increasingly problematic relationship between media and politics is often inspired by US, and partly by UK, research. Both countries fall within Hallin and Mancini s liberal model of political-media systems. The implicit assumption is that countries characteristic of the model of consensus politics either blindly follow the media logic or simply convergence with the liberal model. Such an assumed trend also suggests that in the good old days things were different and that in countries with different media and political systems history still follows the same uni-lineair path. We will put both assumptions to the test.

In this paper we analyse and compare the changing relationship between politics and media in two countries, Belgium and the Netherlands, which for a long time have been seen as prime examples of consensual democracies with a dominating role for the political parties in the communication process. Recently both countries have begun to radiate more the characteristics of an adversarial political communication system in which media are blamed and shamed for misusing their position of relative power. Are we witnessing a trend towards media logic in the Lowlands and, if so, how similar or different does this trend develop in both countries? First we will define and conceptualize the somewhat diffuse term media logic. Secondly, the concept will be empirically tested. The analysis presented in the paper is both historical describing the changes in the relative power of media and politics over time analytical pinpointing and explaining differences and similarities as well as topical an in-depth comparison in the way the media portrayed and, up to a point, dominated the respective 2003 election campaigns in the two countries.