Cover not available
Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 9:1 (2010) ► pp.29–49

Experts in political communication

The construal of communication expertise in prime time television news

| Aalborg University

A central journalistic counterstrategy to the communicative ‘professionalization’ of politics consists in a use of political communication experts who comment on political moves and analyse the strategies behind them. This study investigates how the media uses political communication experts in prime time news programmes from the 2005 parliamentary election campaign in Denmark. To this aim, the knowledge positions ascribed to the experts as well as the articulation of the expert voice with the news genre is analysed. Furthermore, the qualitative analysis is combined with quantitative data on the amount of political communication experts and their professional background. The study situates the analysis within a public sphere perspective on the power relations between politics and media, and discusses implications of the findings for a well functioning public sphere.

Keywords: political communication, public sphere, communication experts, pundits, discourse analysis, spin, knowledge positions, news genre
Published online: 9 April 2010
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.9.1.02hor
References
Arnoldi, Jakob.
2005 Den offentlige ekspert. København: Forlaget Samfundslitteratur.Google Scholar
Albæk, Erik, Munk Christiansen, Peter & Togeby, Lise
2002 Eksperter i medierne: dagspressens brug af forskere 1961–2001. København: Hans Reitzels Forlag.Google Scholar
Blumler, Jay G. & Gurevitch, Michael
1995 The crisis of public communication. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blumler, Jay G. & Kavanagh, Dennis
1999 The Third Age of Political Communication: Influences and Features. In: Political Communication 161, 209–230. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brewer, Paul R. & Sigelman, Lee
2002 Political Scientists as Color Commentators. Framing and Expert Commentary in Media Campaign Coverage. In: Press/Politics 7 (1), 23–35.Google Scholar
Calhoun, Craig J.
(ed.) 1992 Habermas and the Public Sphere. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cappella, Joseph N. & Jamieson, Kathleen H.
1997 Spiral of Cynicism: The Press and the Public Good. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chouliaraki, Lilie & Fairclough, Norman
1999 Discourse in Late Modernity. Rethinking Critical Discourse Analysis. Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Esser, Frank, Reinemann, Carsten & Fan, David
2001 Spin Doctors in the United States, Great Britain, and Germany — Metacommunication about Media Manipulation. In: Press/Politics 6 (1), 16–45.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel
1969/1972 The Archaeology of Knowledge. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman
1995 Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Longman.Google Scholar
2003 Analysing Discourse. Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Galtung, Johan & Ruge, Mari H.
1965 The Structure of Foreign News: Journal of Peace Research 21, 64–91. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gee, James Paul
2005 An Introduction to Discourse Analysis. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Gould, Philip
1998 The Unfinished Revolution: How the Modernisers Saved the Labour Party. London: Little, Brown & Company.Google Scholar
Gutmann, Amy & Thompson, Dennis
2004 Why Deliberative Democracy. Princeton University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gülich, Elisabeth
2003 Conversational techniques used in transferring knowledge between medical experts and non-experts. In: Discourse Studies 5 (2), 235–263. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kotthoff, Helga
1997 The interactional achievement of expert status. Creating asymmetries by “Teaching Conversational Lectures” in TV discussions. In: Helga Kotthoff & Ruth Wodak (eds.): Communicating Gender in Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 149–172. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kragh, Anne Sofie
2004 Fogh — historien om en statsminister. København: People’s Press.Google Scholar
Kress, Gunther & Van Leeuwen, Theo
2001 Multimodal Discourse: the Modes and Media of Comtemporary Communication. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen
1962 Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Neuwied: Hermann Luchterhand Verlag.Google Scholar
1992 Faktizität und Geltung. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Hallin, Daniel C. & Mancini, Paolo
2004 Comparing Media Systems. Three Models of Media and Politics. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Horsbøl, Anders
2004 Diskursiveringer af politisk anderledeshed — en diskursanalytisk undersøgelse af offentlig meningsdannelse ud fra et debatforløb i de østrigske medier. Institut for Sprog og Internationale Studier, Aalborg Universitet.Google Scholar
2006 From our plan to my promises. Multimodal shifts in political advertisements. In: Inger Lassen, Jeanne Strunck & Torben Vestergaard (eds.): Mediating Ideology in Text and Image. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 149–172. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Iedema, Rick
2001 Resemiotiation. In: Semiotica 137 (1/4), 23–39..Google Scholar
2003 Discourses of Post-Bureaucratic Organization. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jønsson, Rasmus & Larsen, Ole
2002 Professionel politisk kommunikation: et studie af 20 dages valgkamp. København: Akademisk Forlag.Google Scholar
Köpl, Regina
2007 Spin-Doktoren, Lobbyisten und andere unternehmerische Geister in der Politikvermittlung. In: Erich Fröschl, Helmut Kramer & Eva Kreisky (eds.): Politikberatung. Zwischen Affirmation und Kritik. Wien: Braumüller, 125–137.Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C.
1983 Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lilleker, Darren G.
2006 Key Concepts in Political Communication. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Lilleker, Darren G. and Negrine, Ralph
2002 Professionalization. Of What? Since When? By Whom? In: Press/Politics 7 (4), 98–103.Google Scholar
Loftager, Jørn
2004 Politisk offentlighed og demokrati i Danmark. Aarhus Universitetsforlag.Google Scholar
Louw, P. Eric
2005 The Media and Political Process. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Luhmann, Niklas
1996 Die Realität der Massenmedien. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lund, Anker B.
2002 Den redigerende magt. Nyhedsinstitutionens politiske indflydelse. Aarhus Universitetsforlag.Google Scholar
Machin, David & Niblock, Sarah
2006 News Production: Theory and Practice. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Martin, James R. & Rose, David
2003 Working with Discourse. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
McNair, Brian
2000 Journalism and Democracy. London: RoutledgeGoogle Scholar
Nowotny, Helga
2000 Transgressive Competence. The Narrative of Expertise. In: European Journal of Social Theory 3 (1), 5–21. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Patterson, Thomas
1993 Out of order. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
de Vreese, Claes. H.
2005 The Spiral of Cynicism Reconsidered. In: European Journal of Communication 20 (3), 283–301. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Scollon, Ron
2001 Mediated Discourse: The Nexus of Practice. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Street, John
2001 Mass Media, Politics and Democracy. Houndsmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thompson, John
1995 The Media and Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Weiss, Gilbert & Wodak, Ruth
(eds.) 2003 Critical Discourse Analysis. Theory and Interdisciplinarity. Basingstoke: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Wodak, R. & Chilton, P.
(eds.) 2005 New Agenda in (Critical) Discourse Analysis: Theory, Methodology and Interdisciplinarity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 4 other publications

Bro, Peter
2012. LICENSE TO COMMENT. Journalism Studies 13:3 ► pp. 433 ff. DOI logo
Hamo, Michal
2015. “I have nothing to do but agree”. In Follow-ups in Political Discourse [Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 60], ► pp. 57 ff. DOI logo
Hopmann, David Nicolas & Jesper Strömbäck
2010. The rise of the media punditocracy? Journalists and media pundits in Danish election news 1994—2007. Media, Culture & Society 32:6 ► pp. 943 ff. DOI logo
Svenkerud, Sigrun Wessel & Brit Bolken Ballangrud
2019. Kvinnelige og mannlige professorerssynlighet i mediene. Norsk medietidsskrift 26:4 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 2 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.