Week 2: Political communication and news management

This week we have studied political communication and the concept of spin in relation to news management. The key reading, ‘Spinning the war’, focused on the manipulation of press pools by the military to achieve certain political agendas. Similarly, the found reading, ‘packaging politics’, explores the mutual-beneficial relationship between politicians and journalists.

Both texts expose an imperative, mutual-beneficial relationship between the media and politicians. Tynan explains the significance of public relations and how it’s now so embedded in the conduct of the modern warfare. Because of the strict rules and restrictions on media coverage, only certain aspects of the war were reported. Citizens weren’t informed that around 200,000 Iraqis were killed. The restrictive reporting meant that the journalists “became functionaries” (Tynan., 2011: 151), solely reporting the successful aspects of the war, showing the military and country leaders in a positive light. This positive press was traded for the opportunity to gain first-hand information for reports that other journalists could not obtain. In regards to packaging politics, this relationship forms an alliance as the journalists choose a certain political party to represent and support and this subtly influences the bias in the news they produce. They stay loyal to their local monopoly.

This week’s lecture made me think differently about the relationship between the media and its producers. I’ve learned that there are cynical hierarchies formed to put across an agenda for personal gain. Tynan elucidates that there were hierarchies which formed the press pools during the Gulf war. This controlled management of information flow was heightened by all the positions being filled by American journalists, leaving only one position for the entire international media contingent left. This results in a bias media as the military censored the reporters’ work before it had even left the war zone. Comparably, my found reading also explains how strict control enables those in superior positions to “regulate the flow of political information” (Franklin., 1994: 5). I understand that this control of media content is an issue because it’s destructive to democratic integrity of news, resulting in the public no longer being able to create uninfluenced opinions of political matters.

In terms of my own research, I’d focus on discourse within certain monopolies and news companies. I’m interested to explore whether new digital media and convergence has effected the way significant figures interact with consumers and whether it’s now easier in modern society to reinforce dominant ideologies.