Conclusion

We end with (a) a restatement of one of our starting points, namely the conflictual and non-coinciding developments in political communication; (b) an awareness of the need and opportunities for fresh directions in research; and (c) a question about what impact changes in the political communication environment will have on conceptions of democratic citizenship.

We are impressed by the tensions that exist between the positive opportunities afforded for promoting civic awareness and the downsides in the rush to embrace infotainment and the sway of politics-smearing journalism. Another tension lies in politicians' enhanced opportunities to promulgate their line and their vulnerability to the " framing" power of journalism. The quest for more control and pretesting in the court of public opinion is in part a symptom of that vulnerability. Still another pits " substance" against " perception, " with citizens' concerns to hold governments accountable for their delivery of economic and social fundamentals ranged against the fevered frenzies of a publicity process in which politicians struggle to manage impressions and journalists continually tell us what they are up to (Zaller, 1998). At one and the same time, more " top-down" and more " bottom-up" impulses are stimulated by media abundance, intensified elite professionalization versus increased populism. Overall, the third age is seemingly home to both Machiavellian[16] and discursive models of politics.

Such a situation is highly promising for research but demands imagination in tailoring it to these tensions and the new conditions. Without claiming to offer a full inquiry agenda, a few prospects and priorities occur to us.

1. More observational research is necessary to ascertain

how political communicators and media organizations are

navigating change, redefining their purposes, and

resolving their conflicts.

2. Among the field's master paradigms, agenda setting may

be most worth pursuing. Are media agendas diversifying

across the many different outlets of political

communication, and, if so, how are they being received

by the audiences of those outlets?

3. Key boundaries that previously shaped the political

communication field seem to be dissolving--for example,

between " political" and " nonpolitical" genres, between

matters of " public" and " private" concern, between

" quality" and " tabloid" approaches to politics, between

journalists serving audiences as " informers" and as

" entertainers, " and between " mass" and " specialist, "

" general" and " attentive" audiences. What will take

their place? A new set of boundaries or an altogether

less structured state of affairs? The situation calls

for imaginative tracking research on both media content

and audiences.

4. We know quite a lot about how politicians, journalists,

critics, and academics perceive the new-found political

communication system, but what do ordinary citizens make

of it? What impressions of how political communication

Political Communication, 16: 209-230, 1999

Copyright (C) 1999 Taylor & Francis

1058-4609/99 $12.00 +.00

Notes

1. For a discussion of the definition and implications of this notion, see Schulz (1997) and Blumler (1998).

2 Other commentators on the early postwar period concur. According to Mayhew (1997, p. 153), " The capacities of the public to formulate demands for policies in pursuit of collective goals, of political leaders to forge effective programs, and of adequate solidary ties to make the system work were taken for granted" at that time. According to Allen, Livingstone, and Reimer (1998, p. 71), society was imagined in films in the first decade after the Second World War " as largely based on shared values and a clear but accepted and just hierarchy of status and authority."

3. The concluding chapter of Berelson, Lazarsfeld, and McPhee (1954) illustrates the prevalence of functionalist optimism in this period. Despite empirical evidence of shortfalls of interest, knowledge, and rationality in the voting behavior of many individual Americans, they argued that the democratic system worked well by maintaining a balanced distribution of involvement and indifference, stability and flexibility, progress and conservation, and consensus and cleavage. In their words, " Where the rational citizen seems to abdicate, nevertheless angels seem to tread" (p. 311)!

4. For elaboration, see Blumler (1990), Swanson (1992), Kavanagh (1995), and Blumler and Gurevitch (1995).

5. The early writings of Blumler and McQuail (1968, 1970) documented the growth of a substantial number of so-called " vote-guidance seekers" in the viewing electorate.

6. See Smith (1999) for British examples.

7. The forging of New Labour under the Blair team is an example, followed by remodeling of the Conservatives as a more listening and caring party under William Hague.

8. This was similar to Gingrich's " Contract with America" and Labour's frequently repeated five binding promises in the 1997 campaign--to reduce National Health Service waiting lists, schoolroom class sizes, are youth unemployment, and so forth.

9. These are approaches that regard certain political institutions or events as " intrinsically important, " entitling them to " substantial coverage as of right" (Blumler, 1969, p. 100).

10. In the United States, however, the presidential debates of 1996 were followed by fewer viewers than in 1992.

11. Examples are crime, discipline in schools, quality of family life, parenting and upbringing of children, sexual mores and behaviors, abortion, gender and ethnic relations, and the legitimacy of certain leisure enjoyments, like gun clubs, fox hunting, pornography on the Internet, and smoking.

12. In their pioneering agenda-setting study, McCombs and Shaw (1972) found " a high degree of consensus among the news media about the significant issues" of the 1968 presidential campaign in the United States (p. 183).

13. British cases in point include issues centering on the environment, transport policy, energy policy, and food safety.

14. An example is www.moveon.org, which reportedly reached thousands of individuals fed up with the impeachment of President Clinton and dedicated to defeating those, standing for election in year 2000, who had pressed the charges in Congress.

15. Noting how proliferating cable news shows in the United States often flog high-profile political stories to death, Shepard (1999, p. 23) suspects that many viewers " overdose on the constant belaboring of any story, no matter how juicy."

16. We use this term not as a synonym for " cynical" or " manipulative" but rather to refer, in its deeper political theory meaning, to the publicity sphere as an arena shaped by a set of unavoidable constraints to which even idealists must submit in order to stand a chance of achieving their ends.