Policy Matters - Medien im Politischen Entscheidungsprozess in Unterschiedlichen Politikfeldern

Abstract

While political communication research has paid much attention to the impact of the media on politics we know very little about their role in the policy process. This paper sets out to explore the role of the media in political decisionmaking: In what way do the media participate in the policy process? What are the mechanisms of media influences on policy? What are the conditions under which the media might be able to shape the policy process, and which conditions prevent the media to enter the arena? We suggest a policy field-specific approach that allows to understand the role of the media in the context of the complex influences that are at work in the policy process. Policy fields constitute arenas of networks of actors with competing interests, policy contents and cultures of bargaining, which depending on their specific constellation determine the kind and degree of media influence. Hence, it can be hypothesized that media influence on policy is not continuous, linear or general. Rather, we presume a volatile mediatization of the policy process. Media impact on policy comprises both changes in policy institutions and policy content. It can be assumed to be high under conditions of fragmented constellations of actors, the exclusion of actors who have a stake in the policy, lack of elite consensus, policy crises, and the goodness of fit between policy problems and media logic.