Genre and the Mediation of Election Politics

  • Kay Richardson
  • Katy Parry
  • John Corner
Chapter

Abstract

This book’s focus on the role of traditional (mass) and new (online) media in the unfolding of events across the general election period will be developed in the present chapter through an exploration of forms of mediation beyond news, in non-journalistic genres across the mediascape. The relevance of this study follows from its approach to the positioning of ‘politics’ within the broader context of political culture, rather than the more specific one of political knowledge. To introduce a cultural framing in this context is to recognise that public interest in political affairs has a variable character, and that citizens access the ‘political’ in different forms and at different levels. Undoubtedly, they access politics as information and opinion, mediated ‘officially’ via news journalism and associated editorial comment, and less officially via online sources, in ways explored by other contributors to this volume. They also access it through comedy programmes, drama, newspaper cartoons, reality television, blogs, online forums, Twitter streams and satiric newspaper columns, many of which are designed to offer pleasure as much as, or more than, to enhance their understanding of the electoral stakes and perhaps mobilise them to electoral action.

Keywords

Political Culture Election Politics Soap Opera Daily Mail Election Period 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Kay Richardson, Katy Parry and John Corner 2011

Authors and Affiliations

  • Kay Richardson
  • Katy Parry
  • John Corner

There are no affiliations available

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