Presentation about the article "Political Communication: old and new media relationships", by Michael Gurevitch, Stephen Coleman and Jay G. Blumler, presented during the Political Communication course, in my World Internet Studies Masters in ISCTE-IUL.

1. POLITICAL COMMUNICATION:
OLD AND NEW MEDIA
RELATIONSHIPS
Michael Gurevitch, Stephen Coleman and Jay G. Blumler
Mariana Pontual Braga e Álvares
October 2019

2. OLD AND NEW MEDIA
RELATIONSHIPS
We have always to keep in mind that every new technology
brings huge transformations in the society. Technology is
not "good" or "bad" for democracy. There is no space for this
kind of determinism.
There are more things in common between TV and the
Internet in the political communication field that we can
imagine.
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3. 1.
QUIZ: TV X INTERNET
Be kind, engage with this game! :)

4. 1. Depoliticization
4
_____ shifted the focus of political
discourse from issues to
personalities.

5. 1. Depoliticization
5
_____ shifted the focus of political
discourse from issues to
personalities.
Answer: TV.
The educational value of election campaigns, which
was once regarded as a key benefit of televised
politics, was allegedly diminished by this focus on
spectacle rather than ideas (p. 166).

6. 2. Public X private
6
_____ transferred politics from the
public arena to the living room.

7. 2. Public x private
7
_____ transferred politics from the
public arena to the living room.
Answer: TV.
By bringing politics into the home, television undoubtedly
contributed to the expansion of the audience for politics.
(...)At the same time, the multiplication of television and
other media outlets offering diverse contents has allowed
viewers to escape from political content into a vast range of
diversionary offerings (p. 166).

8. 3. Polarization
8
_____ creates more scope for
selectivity and more opportunities
for group herding and opinion
polarization.

9. 3. Polarization
9
_____ creates more scope for
selectivity and more opportunities
for group herding and opinion
polarization.
Answer: Internet.
Whereas televised coverage diminished partisanship by
reducing possibilities for selective exposure, the new media
makes it easier to establish partisan patterns of media
access by creating more scope for selectivity (p. 175)

10. 4. Protagonism
10
_____ moved from the role of
"observer" of events and emerged
as definer and constructor of
political reality.

11. 4. Protagonism
11
_____ moved from the role of
"observer" of events and emerged
as definer and constructor of
political reality.
Answer: TV.
Television moved into the center of the political stage,
assuming a “coproducer” role of political messages
instead of the earlier journalistically sanctioned
“reporter” role (p. 166).

12. 5. Inequality
12
Reflect patterns of social inequality,
with poorer, less educated people
least likely to have access to or
skills in _____.

13. 5. Inequality
13
Reflect patterns of social inequality,
with poorer, less educated people
least likely to have access to or skills
in _____.
Answer: Using the internet.
The growing importance of the online environment could serve
to strengthen the voices of the privileged, leaving citizens with
limited resources reliant upon a narrowing range of mass-media
sources providing shallow political information (p.174)

14. 6. Power
14
_____ and politics became indeed
complementary institutions,
existing in a state of mutual
dependence.

15. 6. Power
15
_____ and politics became indeed
complementary institutions,
existing in a state of mutual
dependence.
Answer: TV.
As the medium became settled and ubiquitous, it
came to seem as if politics in electoral democracies
could not take place without or beyond the
mediating gaze of television (p. 165).

16. 2.
INTERNET > TV
So as we can see the TV and the Internet have
similarities, but the media ecosystem is
changing with the growing presence of the
Internet in our lives.

17. PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN NEWS
IN 2008
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18. ALL KINDS OF NEWS
IN 2017
Source: Reuters
Institute Digital
Report News 2017 -
75,000 online news
consumers in 38
countries

19. TV remains a significant
medium for political
communication and news in
general. But we can see an
ecological reconfiguration,
with recasting roles and
relationships within an
evolving media landscape.
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20. 3.
CONSEQUENCES
It is to the new pressures facing each of
the key players in political
communication that we now turn.

21. 1. CONSEQUENCES FOR CITIZENS
❑ Have to deal with information overload, uncertainty about
what to trust and the fact that communication resources are
not distributed equally (the online environment serve to
strengthen the voices of the privileged);
❑ A disorientating sense of being technologically connected, but
politically disconnected fuels civic disengagement.
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22. 2. CONSEQUENCES FOR THE
MASS MEDIA
❑ Need to redefine the nature of their contribution to the
political public sphere beyond "simply telling the story" and
according to their public service function;
❑ Journalists have a unique opportunity to provide authoritative
interpretation and filter the vast amount of data, news, rumor,
and conversation that is accessible, with a view to presenting a
broad and balanced account of political events and ideas.
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23. 3. CONSEQUENCES FOR
GOVERNMENTS/POLITICIANS
❑ Adopt an increasingly responsive mode rather than the
proactive, agenda-setting role they would prefer;
❑ Need to construct sincere, authentic personas capable of
inspiring trust and generating conversational interaction
places, since political discourse is taking a more vernacular,
quotidian form.
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24. 4.
CONCLUSION
The new features of political
communication present challenges for
media policy makers.

25. CONCLUSION
The future of this ambivalent relationship between television and politics, and of
political communication more generally, entails normative policy choices. Contrary to
the forceful rhetoric of technological determinism, new means of producing,
distributing, receiving, and acting upon information do not in themselves shape or
reshape the media ecology. Unanticipated and misunderstood, technological
innovations not only disrupt settled cultural arrangements but also appear to possess
teleological propensities of their own. In the early days of television—and before it,
radio and the printing press—many commentators assumed that culture could not
withstand their inherent effects. But this is a mistake: technologies are culturally
shaped as well as shaping. In these first years of the twenty-first century, policies to
shape the new media ecology in a democratic direction are still in their infancy. It is
high time for such a policy to be devised, debated, and implemented (p. 176).
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26. 26
THANKS!
Any questions?