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This article looks at the role of media in political decision making by making use of Parson’s concept of political power. It enables a look at how media is both an essential resource of political power and a crucial factor in the environment in which political power works. Drawing on a qualitative interview sample of 60 elite decision makers and an elite survey (N = 419), Finnish decision making is found to be quite thoroughly mediatized. Mediatization is differentiated in distinct actor profiles found with Latent Class Analysis of the survey data. The most prominent pattern seems to be that mediatization correlates with other power resources. Those who have official status and are actively involved in policy networks also make use of media resources, and to differing extents adapt their actions to the demands of the media. However, there are also groups of decision makers who still seem to be quite independent of the media.

Conversation" has become a fashionable metaphor for thinking about journalism and its role in social life, particularly with the rise of the public journalism movement. This article reports the ndings from an experiment in which the metaphor was taken as a practical model for producing more citizen-oriented content for reporting. Experiences from citizen focus groups acting as the source of reporting are analysed and their challenges for journalistic practice are highlighted. The article concludes by comparing the lessons of using the "conversational method" with some recent scholarly re ections about the role of conversation in journalism.