ABSTRACT
Researchers have long been interested in the interplay between media and politics. Depictions of journalists as watchdogs and of the media as a fourth estate illustrate the strong links between media and democracy. 2 Ideas on media logics even question whether it is possible to regard the two as different domains (Street 1997). Indeed, politics has always dealt with communication, even to the extent that it has been argued that politics is communication (Esser 2013). Many studies have discussed how politics and political actors adapt to the rules and formats of news media. For example, Kepplinger (2002) concluded that, while the quantity of information-related activities in the German Parliament increased sharply following the rise of modern mass media, the quantity of decision-making activities remained fairly constant. Studies have also shown that politicians have adapted to the dramatisation style used in media discourses, the increasing prominence of short sound bites, and the visual and entertainment formats used to obtain media coverage (Altheide 2004). In his study on personalisation and polarisation, Asp (1986) demonstrated that politicians phrase their statements so that they have a better chance of media coverage. Indeed, researchers have used the media logic concept as an analytical tool to discuss the interdependence between media and other social institutions. Nowadays it is argued that politicians express themselves in short “tweetable” phrases, such as former Swedish Minister of Finance Anders Borg’s comment on the ‘wolf pack behaviour on the market’ which went viral instantly. This is even acknowledged by mass media outlets, for example, in CNN’s statement that rightwing U.S. politician Sarah Palin “represented a brand of conservative politics that was Twitterable [sic]” (Granderson 2011: para. 3).
