Political Communication and the Media

Abstract

Fifty years ago, A. F. Davies told students of Australian Democracy that since the 1930s Australia had moved from ‘an intimate to a mass, from an oral to a literate, style of politics’; that notwithstanding the rise of radio and the emergence of television, newspapers continued ‘to play a uniquely important role’, supplying ‘politicians with most of their stimulus’ as they ‘define[d] and order[ed] the public debate’; and since there was ‘no separation of “quality” and “popular”, nor of party [or] readerships’, the press had succeeded in imposing on politics ‘an impressive uniformity of perception’ (1958, 150). Over 20 years later, Aitkin and Jinks (1980, 113) told students the media were ‘important’ and ‘likely to affect how we look at politics and engage in it’. And another 20 years later, Rod Tiffen, a leading figure in the study of Australian media and politics, told his student readership: ‘Politics as we know it is inconceivable without the news media’ (Tiffen 2004, 201).

For comments on an earlier draft I am grateful to Sean Scalmer, Rod Tiffen, IanWard and the editor. A number of colleagues answered my questions about their published work and/or the teaching of media and politics courses in their departments.