Political Communication in the Online World

Gerhard Vowe, Philipp Henn, Gerhard Vowe, Philipp Henn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317480013
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

As a consequence of the rapid diffusion of online media, the conditions for political communication, and research concerning it have radically changed. Is empirical communication research capable of consistently describing and explaining the changes in political communication in the online world both from a theoretical and methodological perspective?

In this book, Gerhard Vowe, Philipp Henn, and a group of leading international experts in the field of communication studies guide the reader through the complexities of political communication, and evaluate whether and to what extent existing theoretical approaches and research designs are relevant to the online world. In the first part of the book, nine chapters offer researchers the opportunity to test the basic assumptions of prominent theories in the field, to specify them in terms of the conditions of political communication in the online world and to modify them in view of the systematically gained experiences. The second methodological section tests the variations of content analysis, surveys, expert interviews and network analyses in an online environment and documents how successful these methods of empirical analysis have proven to be in political communication.

Written accessibly and contributing to key debates on political communication, this bookshelf essential presents an indispensable account of the necessary tools needed to allow researchers decide which approach and method is better suited to answer their online problem.

Part 1 Theoretical Approaches Revisited

1 The Traditional Paradigm of Political Communication Research Reconstructed

Philipp Henn, Olaf Jandura and Gerhard Vowe

DOI: 10.4324/9781315707495-1

Why Reconstruct the Traditional Paradigm of Political Communication Research?

How was political communication understood in previous research? This chapter will reconstruct the perspective researchers have used so far. Thus, we will identify which elements of political communication the research focused on, and how these were combined into a specific paradigm, a pattern of thought (Fleck, 1935/1979). This chapter is not concerned with presenting the state of empirical research. Also, it is not a summary of the following chapters, which take a closer look on specific theories and empirical evidence. Rather, the tacit premises and implicit assumptions behind the theoretical approaches and research designs will be highlighted in this chapter. Why is this necessary? Without it, it is impossible to precisely discern the changes currently taking place in research. These changes in research are driven by the fundamental changes the spread of online media brings to political communication. Identifying the starting point as precisely as possible is the only way to clarify what is currently changing the research and what a new paradigm of research might look like. Currently, we are experiencing a massive change in research: The traditional paradigm is still dominant, but new elements are already being implemented and used.

How Is the Traditional Paradigm Being Reconstructed?

This reconstruction is not easy, since the term political communication is generally vague in the relevant literature. Graphical representations of the fundamental relationships are rarely seen in textbooks, review articles, and handbook contributions, because they would require a precise definition of the various terms and their relationships (with the exception of McNair, 2011). Also, you will find relatively few metastudies or overviews that consider the research field as a whole (with the exception of Kamhawi & Weaver, 2003). Because of the conceptual blurring, a lot of interpretation is required to reconstruct the traditional paradigm of political communication research.

The concepts used in literature are different in many ways, but there is a common core that is reconstructed in this chapter. It will be referred to here as the traditional paradigm. The presentation of this paradigm is structured according to seven basic dimensions of communication (Dance, 1970; Merten, 1977).

Anomalies will also be analyzed, that is to say phenomena that do not fit into the traditional paradigm. These phenomena are closely connected to general trends of social change and occur in conjunction with the diffusion of the Internet. They do not show up consistently, but are always accompanied by conflicting trends and forces.

Facets of the Traditional Paradigm_ Seven Dominant Characteristics

The dominant characteristics in each of the seven dimensions and the trends of change that challenge the explanatory power of the traditional paradigm are clear from the overview below.

Table 1.1 Facets of the Traditional Paradigm

Dimension	Dominant Characteristic	Trends of Change
Context:In what context is political communication positioned?	Sphere of public political communication in liberal-democratic systems	Erosion of the boundaries between the spheres
Social:Politically, who communicates with whom?	Actor constellation of mass communication: fixed roles for politicians, journalists, and citizens	Pluralization of actors, increasing the flexibility of role requirements; hybridization of communication modes
Content:What is communicated politically?	Preference for issues of public interest	Differentiation of content: differences in the preferences
Temporal:When does political communication occur?	Synchronous reception as a dominant pace setter	Individualization of the temporal structure of reception
Spatial:Where does political communication occur?	Nation-states as areas of communication	Globalization and glocalization
Technical:How does political communication happen on a technical level?	Broadcasting technology as the basis for political communication	Digitization: convergence of broadcasting, telecommunications and computer technology into computer networks
Causal:What are the effects attributed to political communication?	Normatively assessed changes in individual perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors induced by political communication	Integration of levels of effects: linking micro-, meso- and macro-levels to an explanatory model

Context Dimension: Public Sphere in the Liberal-Democratic System as the Dominant Sphere

In what context is political communication positioned? This first question refers especially to the spheres in which political communication is embedded. Spheres should be understood as expectancy patterns, sets of rules for communication. They regulate the communication, especially accessibility and observability of communication.

The base of the traditional paradigm of political communication research is a strong legal sphere model—not only in Germany. It is strictly divided between three spheres, each with their own logic (Habermas, 2006): Based on this sphere model the traditional paradigm is characterized by a five-stage order of preference for contexts. This results in a funnel of attention: Long before the spread of the Internet, this narrowing of context has certainly been identified as a problem in research literature. Other contextual factors besides politics have been taken into account on various occasions (Norris, 2000; Schulz, 2014). The fixation on both liberal-democratic systems (Moy et al., 2012) and election campaigns (Nimmo & Swanson, 1990) have been criticized. Finally, this focus on public political communication has certainly not happened unanimously. For example, the importance of private and semi-public communication for media effects has been highlighted by Lazarsfeld in the Two-Step Flow (Lazarsfeld, Berelson, & Gaudet, 1944). Also, social network research highlights other forms of communication (Huckfeldt & Sprague, 1995; Katz & Lazarsfeld, 1955).

• In the traditional understanding of political communication, the focus is on the sphere of public political communication. The other spheres play a minor role: Governmental communication is only interesting as a source (public relations of governments) and private communication only as a scope of effect.
• In the sphere of public political communication, the focus of the traditional paradigm is on mass media communication. Other forms of public political communication, such as public meetings in the form of party or parliamentary sessions, garner much less notice (Neidhardt, 1994).
• Traditional research follows the relevance criteria of mass media, as it focuses on specific situational contexts of political communication with a high news value, such as elections (Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2014), referendums (de Vreese & Schuck, 2014), conflicts, scandals, coups, international crises, and wars (Robinson, 2014). Other situational contexts—especially the political communication of normal situations—are less investigated (Blumler & McQuail, 2001).
• Traditional research focuses on the context of liberal democratic political systems (Ferree, Gamson, Gerhards, & Rucht, 2002). Other political systems, such as authoritarian and totalitarian systems, fade into the background (Moy, Bimber, Rojecki, Xenos, & Iyengar, 2012).
• Lastly, traditional research primarily takes the political context into account; little note is made of other contexts of political communication, such as the socio-cultural context (social change), the economic context (liberalization), and the scientific and technical contexts (scientification).

• Public political communication is political communication that is widely accessible (public space) and generally observable (public eye). Other areas of public communication comprise, for example, public economic communication or public sports communication.
• Governmental political communication is political communication where state actors decide who is allowed to observe and participate. In many areas, governmental political communication is subject to secrecy requirements and is thus located in an arcane sphere.
• Private political communication is political communication where private actors decide who is allowed to observe and participate.

At the moment, the attention funnel and, in particular, the sphere model have proved inadequate in dealing with the increasingly diverse political communication relationships. There are a growing number of anomalies, that is, phenomena that cannot be explained or even perceived in the context of the traditional paradigm. This is especially evident since the practices of political communication lead to an erosion of the strict separation of spheres. Private, semi-public, public, and governmental political communication blend into one another, especially in the routine use of online media (see Chapter 9).

Social Dimension: Mass Communication as the Dominant Actor Constellation

How has research analyzed who communicates with whom politically? The question revolves primarily around which actor constellation research has focused on. Actor constellations should be understood as relationships that are stabilized through role requirements. Two variables affect the actor constellation: Other characteristics of the two variables recede into the background for the traditional paradigm and remain blurred. For example, other types of actors play a subordinate role: government bodies, private sector organizations that only communicate politically sporadically (such as companies), or disorganized groups of people (such as crowds), individuals in roles other than their civic role (such as consumers), households, and computers and computer networks. Similarly, other constellations play a minor role in research. These constellations are based on other modes of communication, such as interpersonal political communication (“one-to-one”) or political group communication (“few-to-few”) (Livingston, 2004). In these communication modes, actors switch their communicative roles. During a conversation, a participant may take on the role of speaker, listener, and observer until another takes over. The switching of roles happens quickly and often. By focusing on the role distribution of mass communication, it can be overlooked that the actors are able to take other communicative roles. Thus, citizens are not only recipients, but also sources and intermediaries; political organizations can be intermediaries or recipients; and political organizations and citizens can communicate directly and bypass the mainstream media completely (see Chapter 4).

• What types of actors communicate politically? In the traditional paradigm, there are mainly three types: (1) politicians in established political organizations that concentrate their activity in the public sphere, that is, intermediaries such as political parties, associations, and electoral candidates; (2) professional journalists in media organizations, in particular news agencies and television stations, press publishers; (3) and groups of citizens, that is, groups of individuals involved in political roles.
• In what constellation are these actors found? In the traditional paradigm, the actors are connected to each other in a relationship of political ma...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Frontmatter Page
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Introduction: Political Communication Research in the Online World—PHILIPP HENN AND GERHARD VOWE
• Part I Theoretical Approaches Revisited
• Part II Research Designs Revisited
• Conclusion: Political Communication Research in the Online World—PHILIPP HENN AND GERHARD VOWE
• Notes on Contributors
• Index