When the Watchdog neither Barks nor Bites:Conceptualizing the Coverage of Media Policy

• In Event: How Media Cover Media Policy: Understanding Media Policy Bias and Media Policy Silence

Abstract

Stories of the influence of ownership and institutional structures on the journalistic coverage of media industries abound. Bagdikian (2000), for instance, argues that journalists possess amnesia and “internalized bias” when covering media industries. Surprisingly, however, there has been a lack of recent scholarship on the issue of bias and absence in coverage of the media. This observation rings particularly true when examining the coverage of media policy. We argue for the need to nuance the standard assumption that concentrated ownership stymies critical coverage of media policy and reflect on the need for a more robust conceptual framework. To do so we review possible approaches to media policy coverage, bias, and silence. By drawing upon critical political economy of the media, new institutionalism in organization studies and strategic narrative theory, we develop a new approach in order to conceptually situate and to provide insights for empirical analyses of media policy coverage.

Authors

• Christopher Ali, University of Virginia

• Manuel Puppis, U of Fribourg