Abstract
Previous work on media and politics pays little attention to why politicians use the media in their work. This chapter addresses this topic in the context of lawmaking, a fundamental policy making process. The starting point of is the information and arena model: we study whether mass media are a source of information as well as an arena for political communication to Members of Parliament when they are considering bills. The analysis is based on in-depth interviews with legislators in the Netherlands, in the context of three case studies. We find that some politicians use the mass media as a source of information in the context of lawmaking, but that the media is not very frequently used as an arena for political communication.
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Melenhorst, L., Van Aelst, P. (2017). Why Do Politicians Use the Media When Making Laws? A Study On the Functional Use of Mass Media During Legislative Processes. In: Van Aelst, P., Walgrave, S. (eds) How Political Actors Use the Media. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60249-3_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60249-3_12
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