An intervening intermediary: Making political sense of media influence

Abstract

This theoretical chapter puts political actors’ news use into a broader political science context. Despite increasing acknowledgement of the media as a political institution and actor, media influence on politics should be distinguished from other types of influence typically studied by political scientists. Media influence is not about what the media “gets”, but rather about how news intervene in the political processes that determine the distribution of power between other political actors and institutions. We call this the second layer of media’s political influence, and argue that studies of media and politics should to a larger extent use theories about the strategies and motives of political actors as a starting point in order to contribute to the explanation of who gets what, when, and how.