Digitization and Digitalization of Political Communication: Consequences of Automated Algorithmic Mediation on the Visibility and Accountability of the Political

Abstract

This article examines the structural change in political communication resulting from digital media. Therefore, a rule-based and institutionalist perspective is adopted: Digital communication media such as social media platforms exhibit their own institutional logics and thus influence the rules by which political communication takes place. To substantiate this thesis, the terms used are first differentiated into technical possibility (digitization) and social realization (digitalization). Political communication is viewed as a mediation process. Alongside self-mediation by political actors and external mediation by journalistic-editorial media, a new type comes to the fore with digital communication media: automated algorithmic mediation. These distinctions give rise to several paradoxes that are relevant to a consideration of institutional consequences: Digitization lowers the cost of communication and enables more published messages, but at the same time hinders the chance of social perception and successful communication. Automated algorithmic mediation enables actors to address their messages to specific target groups in higher resolution and to connect with them, but digital forms of connectivity make it more difficult for messages to be represented and attributed to political actors, which is necessary for democratic processes. Technically enabled and socially demanded transparency goes hand in hand with efforts by political organizations to conceal or disguise their own actions. Digitization and automated algorithmic mediation thus lead to both new visibilities and new invisibilities of the political.