ABSTRACT
Relationships between the media and political actors are of central importance in contemporary democracies. The growth of public relations in governmental systems is irreversible and it has become a crucial 'part of the infrastructure of modern political communication'. In the United Kingdom (UK), two distinct groups of communication professionals coexist: Government Information Officers (GIOs) and ministerial Special Advisers (SpAds) who are personally appointed by a departmental minister. In recent times UK research on government communication has raised concerns about the 'politicisation' of the civil service and concomitantly that the neutral GIO is being undermined or supplanted by the partisan SpAd. With the establishment of a devolved governing administration in Northern Ireland - and this is true to an extent in the other devolved UK national regions of Scotland and Wales - significant power has moved from civil servants to locally elected ministers and their support network.
