ABSTRACT
This book has described the growing involvement of mass communication in a variety of political arenas, and the pursuit of what we might call performance politics at all stages in the process by which issues emerge in the public sphere to be debated, negotiated around and, on occasion, resolved. We have examined the use of public relations, marketing and advertising techniques by political parties, in campaigning and governmental mode (sometimes, of course, the two are indistinguishable). We have noted the enhanced role of opinion and media management in disputes between states, between workers and their employers, and between governments and insurgent organisations. We have considered the role of journalists and their media as political reporters, interpreters, commentators, and agenda-setters, observing how their relationship of inter-dependence with politicians has shaped the behaviours and professional practices of both groups. And we have reviewed the debate about the impact of these phenomena on citizens, on behalf of whom, finally, politics, the media and the democratic process as a whole are supposed to function.
