Model 2

This model presumes that the media sets the political agenda from the middle "up" for politicians and from the middle "down" for the public. The media is guilty of producing shallow entertainment out of factual information, and of personalizing politics because of the needs of TV and associated pressure to present visually striking people.

But where can testing evidence of change in the media landscape be found? The media has been important since the dawn of a politically active public (...). We are currently living through one of these changes. This change is characterized by an expansion and alteration in form and content. In 1980 (Germany), for example, there were 272 national magazines; by 1990 this number had grown to 546. In 1980 there were 745 specialist journals, by 1990 the number had risen to 866. The number of advertising journals rose from 350 to 1,000 during the same period.

My decision to mention the print media first is no accident. Indeed, it is important to bear its expansion in mind when considering this model. The number of TV channels available in Germany in 1980 could be counted on one hand: 2 national stations and 1 regional station. By 1990 the number of commercial radio stations had grown to over 150, and between 20 and 30 TV stations were being offered by cable and satellite stations. Over the last few years - between 1989 and 1994 - the amount of TV watched on a daily basis had risen by 18.5 percent for adults and 26.7 percent for children - with children under 14 watching 179 minutes of TV per day on average. It must be pointed out here, however, that the number of intense viewers is growing and, while a great number of TV sets may be on, it is not the case that they are being watched. In many households the TV set forms a sort of visual backdrop to everyday life. Commercialization has forced a dramatic change in the form and content of television programs. Even the national non-profit making stations have been unable to resist the change (decline?) in standards.

The affect of all this on politics has been dramatic. Bernd Guggenberger believes: "The visualization of politics is all pervasive." Indeed: "The media acts as a giant magnifying glass. The politics and policies being followed by the political parties has never before been the subject of so much coverage and instant broadcasting. The price for this expansion, however, is at the expense of a loss in intensity and loyalty. A further price is a growing loss of permanence and predictability, something that is apparent in the increasing number of floating voters. The media are just as powerful as they are uncontrollable in accelerating and encouraging trends. As the classic media for portraying winners, television is responsible for instigating an 'upward spiral of success' no matter how questionable with regard to democracy it might be. It's no longer just a matter of: Nothing is as successful as success, but rather: Nothing is as successful as the suggestion of success. For all intent and purpose, the reality depicted by the media is, indeed, taken as being reality."

With remote controls came flicking through the channels. Switching from one channel to the next, from one action scene to another is characteristic of the way in which many young people watch TV and live their lives. The parallels between the arrival of the remote control and the increase in floating voters would seem clear. Researches into electoral behavior like to talk about a growing electoral volatility, that is, the floating voter, who votes one way and then another. Indeed, this corresponds to the volatility of today's media and its tendency to flee from one issue to the next. Increasingly, newspapers and magazines are turning their backs on continuing one firm political line and lines are being blurred. "A form of post-modern journalism has grown up, which thinks itself progressive". (...)

If truth be told, however, many of these changes have come about because of a media-created order of its own - an order that is hostage to visual images. This pressure to come up with interesting visual images (combined with a lack of journalistic imagination) has led to a situation in which the news is forced to show the same tired images of politicians getting in and out of cars, attending press conferences, shaking hands and cutting ribbons to mark the opening of yet another building. Agenda-setting research is being replaced by an issue-attention cycle, which assumes that the media has created its own order as to the life cycle of a given issue: From the lead-up stage to the discovery stage, from the peak of the story to its downturn and finally onto an after-problem stage. Moreover, media science has been investigating "news value criteria", which dominates the way in which political reality is presented. News broadcasters focus on event categories such as negativism, surprise, personalization, elite status, social relevance and cultural closeness. Yet were the editor to approach the news without these criteria, without the set routines and standards "he/she would hardly know which way to turn for excitement".

What is more, the media has largely established itself as the main communicator within political parties, on top of its already firm position as communicator between party and public. Party magazines have faded away or are fading away; party meetings struggle to provide their members with new information about policies. Members learn about almost everything that is going on via the media - whether there is a new policy or whether just the same old arguments about personalities and positions are being discussed.

The media moulds the message, but a hierarchical order remains within the media itself. The senior national newspapers, that is, the quality papers set the tone for other journalists in addition to the political elite. (...). Oberreuter's criticism of the media [goes] further: "Mediaization of politics means that the media, especially television, has made politics subject to the order that it has created". Therefore the best way of describing this media-led democracy is as follows: Politics has submitted to the media. A television democracy has been created out of a spectator democracy.