Operationalizing Mediatization: The Case of Public Bureaucracies

• In Event: Advancing Mediatization Research

Abstract

How do we theorize media influence on contemporary institutions? Although the omnipresence and pluralism of media in modern society is a vital insight, this paper criticizes current strands of mediatization theory for being too vague and all embracing; lacking the tools to distinguish media impact from other intertwined societal forces. We argue that narrow operationalization paves the ways for both complex and consistent analysis, providing informed discussions about how mediatization interfere with and modify other meta-processes.

The paper builds an argumentation stipulating how mediatization processes should be defined and analyzed in one particular type of institutions: public bureaucracies. It argues that a bottom-up grounded-theory approach is needed to grasp the non-linear processes of mediatization in this type of organizations. Based on extensive fieldwork, the chapter develops a typology to conceptualize how rule-based public organizations adapt to and adopt the news media’s implicit “logic of appropriateness”: (1) The news rhythm and (2) news formats, but also (3) how and why being in the media is valued by civil servants, and (4) how this reallocates resources and responsibilities within the organization.

We then discuss how mediatization of public bureaucracies overlap with broader trends linked to the many reforms of the public sector, most notoriously new public management and an alleged politization of public administration. The vital question is whether we see a direct impact of a media logic on public bureaucracies, or whether the adaptations to the media rather is an intermediate effect of top down initiatives from the political executive. The paper hypothesizes that the many reforms putting flexibility and changes to the fore, have contributed to the willingness of public bureaucracies to adapt to the media. We further argue that even if the mediatization of politics is a central factor explaining civil service practices, mediatization has a direct impact on public administration in its own right. We find a type of administrative loyalty aiming to forward and protect a traditional bureaucratic rationale. Rather than strictly building the media image of the political government per se, bureaucrats have their own reasons for prioritizing the media.

Authors

• Kjersti Thorbjornsrud, U of Oslo

• Oyvind Ihlen, U of Oslo

• Tine Ustad Figenschou, University of Oslo