Rethinking the Mediatization of Politics: Politics and Policy, Government and Governmentality, Citizenship and Activism

• Datum: 25. April 2014 – 26. April 2014
• Location: London School of Economics and Political Science

Workshop of the ECREA Temporary Working Group “Mediatization”

Venue: Thai Theatre (unless otherwise noted), New Academic Building, Sardinia Street, LSE Campus, WC2A 2AE

The mediatization of politics was the beginning of mediatization research: In the 1990s and the following years, mediatization was mainly discussed as the adaptation of “media rules” or “journalistic logics” to the field of politics. Thus, most of the early theories of mediatization were related to this type of research. Since then, however, the field of mediatization research has opened up considerably. This makes it possible to rethink the mediatization of politics on a larger scale than previously possible.

The basic idea of the workshop is to reopen the discussion on the mediatization of politics by focusing more on questions of government/administration and governmentality. Politics is much more deeply influenced by mediatization than the first conceptualizations imply: It is not only the patterns of journalistic production that are important for reflecting on the mediatization of politics. We must also bear in mind that the whole path of (public) political opinion formation increasingly refers to information and decision-making processes based on technical media. However, such a statement does not only refer to more recent developments such as “open data” approaches or “e-government”. As early as the 1970s, political decisions were based on computerized information and technology-based communication networks. At the same time, various new forms of activism and citizenship became important counterpoints to traditional forms of politics – and again, they were and are highly mediatized. If we want to understand the mediatization of politics, we must also take into account such changes in government/administration and governmentality. Furthermore, it is necessary to analyse in depth how mediatization changes the practices of politics.

Invited Keynote Speakers:

Jay Blumler, University of Leeds, UK
Caja Thimm, University of Bonn, Germany
The workshop will take place at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

For more information, please visit the ECREA TWG “Mediatization” website.

April 25-26, 2014, London School of Economics and Political Science

Venue: Thai Theatre (unless otherwise noted), New Academic Building, Sardinia Street, LSE Campus, WC2A 2AE