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The Presidentialization of The Presidentialization of Politics in Democratic Societies: Politics in Democratic Societies: A Framework for Analysis

Thomas Poguntke and Paul Webb

in The Presidentialization of Politics: A Comparative Study of Modern Democracies

Discusses the conceptualization of the presidentialization thesis and presents a framework for analysis. It is argued that democratic political systems are coming to operate according to an ... More

Discusses the conceptualization of the presidentialization thesis and presents a framework for analysis. It is argued that democratic political systems are coming to operate according to an essentially presidential logic, irrespective of their formal constitutional make-up. Essentially, they are expected to move along a continuum from a partified to a more presidentialized mode of governance. The logic of presidentialization is revealed in the growing power and autonomy of political leaders within political executives and political parties, and in the emergence of increasingly leadership-centered electoral processes.While these developments, to some extent, reflect the fluctuating contingencies of particular personalities and short-term political contexts, they are more fundamentally explained by processes of long-term structural change affecting state and society. Such processes include the internationalization of political decision-making, the executive’s search for enhanced steering capacity over the state, the changing structure of mass communications, and the erosion of traditional political cleavages. Moreover, the chapter shows that trends towards presidentialization are likely to occur in both majoritarian and consensual democracies even though they will follow different logics.Less

A New Mental World

Ryan André Brasseaux

in Cajun Breakdown: The Emergence of an American Made Music

Records and radio built an industry around imagination. Media technologies created an auditory world where sound, language, and music expanded listeners’ mental worlds. The Cajun imaginary represents ... More

Records and radio built an industry around imagination. Media technologies created an auditory world where sound, language, and music expanded listeners’ mental worlds. The Cajun imaginary represents in this study the varied ways in which individuals understood their connection to a larger imagined community—America—through the soundscape generated by mass communication. This chapter examines those communication networks directing the flow of cultural exchange between Cajuns and mainstream mass media between 1946 and 1955. As this auditory sphere enveloped Cajun life, an emergent Cajun musical subgenre sprouted: Cajun honky tonk—small but amplified string bands featuring an accordion. The Opera, O.T., Khoury, and Folk Star labels are also discussed here in relation to the most famous and influential Cajun artists to emerge during the post-World War II era—fiddler Harry Choates and accordionist Iry LeJeune. The premise of this study is derived from conclusions of the landmark treatise The Psychology of Radio compiled in 1935 by Hadley Catril and Gordon Allport, who suggest that an individual’s engagement with mass culture within this universal network of sound could stimulate a “new mental world” for the listener.Less

The British Prime Minister: The British Prime Minister: Much More Than ‘First Among Equals’

Richard Heffernan and Paul Webb

in The Presidentialization of Politics: A Comparative Study of Modern Democracies

Reviews a wide range of evidence to demonstrate three things. First, election campaigns have become more candidate-centered, with parties offering leaders greater prominence in their election ... More

Reviews a wide range of evidence to demonstrate three things. First, election campaigns have become more candidate-centered, with parties offering leaders greater prominence in their election campaigns and the media devoting greater attention to them. This development seems to have taken place since 1960, which coincides with the spread of mass access to television in Britain, and the erosion of class politics. Second, today’s major-party leaders are in significant ways more strongly placed to exert intra-party power than they were in 1980, much as we might expect of electoral-professional organizations. Third, and perhaps most important, it seems likely that the potential for prime ministerial power within the state’s political executive has been enhanced because of structural changes that have generated a larger and more integrated ‘executive office’ under his or her control since 1970.Of course, these developments have occurred in the context of a highly partified form of parliamentarism. Thus, it is not contended simply that Prime Ministers have become completely indistinguishable from Presidents, but rather, that a number of changes have occurred that are mutually consistent with the working logic of presidentialism.Less

Introduction

D.L. D’AVRAY

in Medieval Marriage Sermons: Mass Communication in a Culture without Print

One answer to solve the historian's problem of the numerous manuscripts of 13th-century sermons is to orientate editorial work to historical research ideas. From the middle decades of the 13th ... More

One answer to solve the historian's problem of the numerous manuscripts of 13th-century sermons is to orientate editorial work to historical research ideas. From the middle decades of the 13th century, marriage sermons were ‘broadcast’ to a vast public, clerical but also and more especially lay. Preaching was becoming a system of mass communication, thanks mainly to the friars. Their model sermons were produced in many manuscripts and each sermon could be preached repeatedly to different audiences. Sermons tended to be about marriage when the Gospel of the marriage feast of Cana was read. Much of this marriage preaching would be about marriage as metaphor or symbol. The marriage symbolism of 13th-century sermons would have drawn strength from the social experience of all sorts of listeners. It was also supported by the positive treatment of ‘real’ marriage in the same or similar sermons. Finally, the symbolism was reinforced by the social practice of marriage.Less

The Politics of “the Masses” in the Televisual and Atomic Age: Theories of Mass Society, Mass Culture, and Mass Communication

Hideaki Fujiki

in Making Audiences: A Social History of Japanese Cinema and Media

This chapter focuses on the three influential scholarly and critical discourses on “the masses” during the postwar period: mass society theory, mass culture theory, and mass communication theory. It ... More

This chapter focuses on the three influential scholarly and critical discourses on “the masses” during the postwar period: mass society theory, mass culture theory, and mass communication theory. It argues that while these three discourses had different backgrounds, they shared a common base insofar as they all inherited concerns about “the masses” from the prewar period and were defined by a search for the possibility of a “democratic subjectivity” (minshu) that could resist systemic power in the postwar context. For many scholars and critics, television and nuclear power were both symbols of a newly emergent, large-scale, and systemic form of social power, which became so deeply embedded in everyday life that it became taken for granted and hence determined the thought and behavior of “the masses.” Thus, for these scholars, it was imperative to find possible methods of resistance. This situation, the chapter also elucidates, significantly differed from the US academic situation, where mass society theory, originating in Europe, attempted to expose mass society as a social form ultimately inducing and bolstering fascism, while mass communication research tended to explicitly or implicitly align itself with the aims of US governmental power within Cold War politics.Less

China's Telecommunications History and Policy Trajectory

Eric Harwit

in China's Telecommunications Revolution

This chapter begins by putting the Chinese case in the context of telecommunications development trajectories. It briefly considers policies in other countries where growth was in many cases slower, ... More

This chapter begins by putting the Chinese case in the context of telecommunications development trajectories. It briefly considers policies in other countries where growth was in many cases slower, and where government intervention (except in the cases of Japan and South Korea) was less effective. It then examines historical development in the Chinese sector from the Qing dynasty to the beginning of the reform era, ones that set the stage for effective industrial policy beginning in the early 1980s. The chapter then turns to the post-1976 reform period in China, and chronicles the ways the government developed policies to foster the industry. It discusses policies employed that were strikingly similar to those seen in Japan during the 1950s and 1960s: favourable grants and loans, effective tax policies, shielding of the sector from international competition, and other strategies that encouraged the industry to rapidly expand.Less

Radio's Students: Media Studies and the Possibility of Mass Communication

in Radio's America: The Great Depression and the Rise of Modern Mass Culture

This chapter investigates the possibility that radio allowed at least a few speakers access to the public arena. Paul Lazarsfeld's own focus on radio evolved through the late 1930s. Researchers ... More

This chapter investigates the possibility that radio allowed at least a few speakers access to the public arena. Paul Lazarsfeld's own focus on radio evolved through the late 1930s. Researchers around the country gravitated to Lazarsfeld's Office of Radio Research and developed a form of social pragmatism. Herman Hettinger shared Lazarsfeld's hope that mass communication could amplify particular voices, enabling them to be better heard across the country, and to enhance society. Hettinger's vision of radio presented an overlapping alternative to the social pragmatism that dominated academic studies of media. Theodor Adorno suggested that even as radio came to the forefront of American mass culture, there were multiple possible interpretations of that rise and of the possibility of mass communication. To most students, radio proposed a way to enable at least a select few speakers to reach the vast audiences of the twentieth century.Less

Constituting the Modern Nation

Robert Colls

in Identity of England

This chapter focuses on the ways in which the nation has been represented in modern times as a whole entity — through a political constitution, and through the growing power of mass communications. ... More

This chapter focuses on the ways in which the nation has been represented in modern times as a whole entity — through a political constitution, and through the growing power of mass communications. Both systems put the representation of the many in the hands of the few. Both forms of representation — constitution and communication — could be said to be liberal and modern.Less

The Imperial Politics of the Press

Simon J. Potter

in News and the British World: The Emergence of an Imperial Press System 1876-1922

This chapter focuses on the fact that despite the continued commercialisation, the press remained inextricably tied with the world of politics. It discusses that directs subsidisation of newspapers ... More

This chapter focuses on the fact that despite the continued commercialisation, the press remained inextricably tied with the world of politics. It discusses that directs subsidisation of newspapers remained common and that political partisanship dominated over the editorial pages to influence the domestic and, crucially for their purposes, overseas news selected by newspaper editors. It also investigates British mass communication and constructive imperialism. It also examines the imperial press system and tariff reform. It discusses the Canadian-American reciprocity and the press.Less

Preaching and Printing: Early Modes of Mass Communication

in Why Europe: The Medieval Origins of Its Special Path

This chapter discusses preaching and printing—two significant phenomena of mass communication involving orality and literacy. Medieval preaching tended toward mass communication wherever there were ... More

This chapter discusses preaching and printing—two significant phenomena of mass communication involving orality and literacy. Medieval preaching tended toward mass communication wherever there were special preaching campaigns. The sermon preaching a Crusade was a decisive turning point in this regard. It not only addressed a large local audience but reached a like-minded public outside that narrower group. Mass communication based on literacy emerged from the replication of written texts. Reproduction using printing techniques, as opposed to copying manuscripts, heralded a revolutionary innovation. China invented printing long before Europe did, and it spread from there to other East Asian countries.Less

Relevance Theory and Mediated Mass-Communication

Charles Forceville

in Visual and Multimodal Communication: Applying the Relevance Principle

The examples analyzed in classic RT pertain to face-to-face communication, that is, a situation in which one communicator speaks to a single addressee standing next to her. The shift from this ... More

The examples analyzed in classic RT pertain to face-to-face communication, that is, a situation in which one communicator speaks to a single addressee standing next to her. The shift from this situation to mass-communication affects several dimensions of RT. In this chapter, the central RT tenet that relevance is always relevance to an individual is discussed in light of the fact that mass-communicative audiences consist of (very) many individuals. Concepts affected pertain to the recognition and fulfillment of the communicative and informative intention and to the cognitive environment (≈ background knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, etc.) of the numerous individuals in the envisaged audience, who after all may not share the ideological assumptions of the communicator. Moreover, mass-communication is usually mediated. Some of the technical, financial, institutional, and ideological consequences of mediated mass-communication for RT are sketched.Less

Integrating media effects research and music psychology

Mark Shevy

in The Psychology of Music in Multimedia

The ‘media effects’ paradigm of mass communication research has produced a substantial body of knowledge about the psychological impact of audiovisual media. Although music exists in virtually every ... More

The ‘media effects’ paradigm of mass communication research has produced a substantial body of knowledge about the psychological impact of audiovisual media. Although music exists in virtually every type of audiovisual media, relatively little media effects research has focused on the psychology of music. Better integration of media effects research and the study of music psychology would mutually benefit both disciplines. This integration can be established by investigating music in relation to media effects antecedents (causes) such as the attributes of media users, media content and form, and interactivity. Integration can also be achieved by considering the role of music in theories and models used in media effects research. Examples of these theories and models include social cognitive theory, uses and gratifications, limited capacity of cognition, affective disposition, and excitation transfer.Less

Saving the World: Beginnings of Communication for Development

Emile G. McAnany

in Saving the World: A Brief History of Communication for Development and Social Change

This chapter traces the beginnings of the field of communication for development (c4d), from the very early years of development aid with Harry S. Truman's “Four Points” speech to Congress in 1949 ... More

This chapter traces the beginnings of the field of communication for development (c4d), from the very early years of development aid with Harry S. Truman's “Four Points” speech to Congress in 1949 through the 1960s and the early definition of the modernization-diffusion paradigm that set the direction of c4d for at least two decades. It also examines the three founding texts of c4d: Daniel Lerner's The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East (1958), Everett Rogers's Diffusion of Innovations (the 1962 first edition), and Wilbur Schramm's Mass Media and National Development: The Role of Information in Developing Countries (1964). Finally, the chapter looks at the major histories of the general field of communication study to better understand how the beginnings of the c4d field grew organically from the first period of mass communication studies in the United States. It concludes that c4d is intimately tied to the emerging mass communication field in the context of the cold war and national and international institutions providing funding for development and communication projects.Less

The Attrition of the Liberal Regime in Italy

Charles S. Maier

in Recasting Bourgeois Europe: Stabilization in France, Germany, and Italy in the Decade after World War I

This chapter examines the attrition of the liberal regime in Italy. The inability to reestablish a stable centrist majority in Italy brought not only a shift to the right, but also destruction of the ... More

This chapter examines the attrition of the liberal regime in Italy. The inability to reestablish a stable centrist majority in Italy brought not only a shift to the right, but also destruction of the parliamentary regime. Struggles for hegemony put an enormous strain on liberal institutions. The Fascists imposed an unofficial terrorism, followed by a legal but coercive regimentation upon the political arena, mass communications, and the labor market. These developments emerged from the inner decay of liberalism as much as from any conquest from outside. The chapter first considers the political ecology of fascism in Italy before discussing the liberals' search for order from the time of Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti to Benito Mussolini.Less

Toward a Synthetic Framework

Jun Liu

in Shifting Dynamics of Contention in the Digital Age: Mobile Communication and Politics in China

In line with the existing scholarship that underlines the relevance of communication, this chapter outlines a framework that integrates knowledge from the fields of communication studies, sociology, ... More

In line with the existing scholarship that underlines the relevance of communication, this chapter outlines a framework that integrates knowledge from the fields of communication studies, sociology, and political science and that centralizes and sensitizes communication enabling an interrogation of contentious collective action and, not least, the possible influence from ICTs. Without a scrutiny of the various forms of communication and metacommunication in contention, I specify, it would be hard to rationalize the relevance of digital communication technologies in contentious collective action. Issues of methodology are also discussed in Chapter 2.Less

Globalization, Discourse, and Development Communication: UNESCO as Prime Mover

Emile G. McAnany

in Saving the World: A Brief History of Communication for Development and Social Change

This chapter examines the role of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in crafting the modernization-diffusion paradigm and making it a dominant theory in ... More

This chapter examines the role of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in crafting the modernization-diffusion paradigm and making it a dominant theory in the field of communication for development (c4d). It first provides a background on how UNESCO got into the communication business before explaining how the modernization-diffusion paradigm reached a wider audience by relating it to the nature of the UN system as an early form of globalization. It then discusses how UNESCO helped to define and then implement the paradigm by focusing on one of its major media projects to illustrate how practice and theory are mutually reinforcing: the use of radio, as a mass communication medium, in combination with the power of group discussion in promoting change in rural India. This chapter shows that institutions—in this case, UNESCO—play an important role in the development of a paradigm and its diffusion.Less

The Media in Social Development in Contemporary Africa

Paul Tiyambe Zeleza

in Media and Identity in Africa

This chapter deals with the developmental implications of contemporary mass communication media in Africa. In examining the intersections between the media and development, it is important to analyse ... More

This chapter deals with the developmental implications of contemporary mass communication media in Africa. In examining the intersections between the media and development, it is important to analyse the role of media, and to distinguish their various forms, as well as to identify and unpack the paradigms of development. Of media's many roles, four can be singled out for emphasis. First, media serve as vehicles for the transmission of ideas, images and information. Second, they are a communicative space for public discourse and of the discursive public. Third, media are an arena of sign-communication and sign-communities. Finally, they constitute a process for performing social identities and identifying social performances. Three media forms are distinguished: mass communication media, interpersonal media and ‘small’ media.Less

The postwar reconstruction of the urban public sphere

PHILIP J. ETHINGTON

in The Public City: The Political Construction of Urban Life in San Francisco, 1850-1900

This chapter examines the emergence of new structural features of the urban political public sphere in San Francisco, California in the immediate post-Civil War years. It highlights the entry of ... More

This chapter examines the emergence of new structural features of the urban political public sphere in San Francisco, California in the immediate post-Civil War years. It highlights the entry of women into the public sphere and analyzes the attempt to shape the electorate through complex registration and election laws. The chapter also discusses the availability of new forums of mass communication to further restructure the possibilities of mobilization.Less

Radio's Democracy: The Politics of the Fireside

in Radio's America: The Great Depression and the Rise of Modern Mass Culture

This chapter evaluates radio democracy. The new radio democracy relied on mass communication and listeners' abilities to personalize it in order to adapt broadly democratic principles to fit a mass ... More

This chapter evaluates radio democracy. The new radio democracy relied on mass communication and listeners' abilities to personalize it in order to adapt broadly democratic principles to fit a mass society. Radio's democracy offered those listeners a way to count in the world and in public discussion. Franklin Roosevelt's radio presence provided crucial raw materials out of which many listeners constructed broadcasting's political meanings for the 1930s and beyond. Roosevelt was hardly the only politician seeking to connect with listeners through the air. His intimate radio style had created a personal bond; it drew Reese Farnell to the government and won his loyalty for Roosevelt. Broadcasting helped develop an environment in which listeners could easily watch, listen to, and cheer or boo the political process. The radio democracy that emerged from the 1930s was one often practiced apart from other people, in which democratic participation could mean private spectatorship.Less