The Varying Mechanisms of Media Access: Explaining Interest Groups’ Media Visibility across Political Systems

Abstract

A growing body of studies analyzes interest groups’ media visibility. Yet little is known about how the drivers of media access may vary across different interest group systems. This article focuses on two major mechanisms through which organizations can gain media visibility: media management efforts and the newsworthiness of elite actors. We hypothesize that media effort explains interest groups’ media access more strongly in competitive, pluralist interest group systems and that insider (i.e. “elite”) status does so more strongly in hierarchical, corporatist systems. We analyze surveys and media data on interest groups in the pluralist United Kingdom, the moderately corporatist Denmark, and the more strongly corporatist Finland. As hypothesized, media effort is most effective in the UK and weakest in Finland. However, we find only weak support for the insider status hypothesis: there is some evidence of the expected cross-country differences, but the effects are small and unrobust.

Toimittajien kokema lobbaus suomalaisessa politiikan uutisoinnissa

“…Journalistit ja uutismedia hyödyntävät eturyhmiä uutis ja tietolähteinä, lainaavat näiden näkemyksiä, kuvailevat eturyhmien toimintaa ja luottavat niiden asiantuntijuuteen erilai sissa yhteiskunnallisissa kysymyksissä (Vesa ja Binderkrantz 2021, 1226. Journalistisessa työssä valtaa on siirtynyt yhä enemmän poliittisen viestinnän ammattilaisille sekä intressi pohjaiselle uutisoinnille (Malling 2019, 194).…”

Lobbyierende Kantone

“…Indem das immer gleiche Argument im Diskurs immer wieder bekräftigt wird, erhält es überproportionales Gewicht. Maximierung qua Überzeichnung, lässt sich dies auf eine griffige Formel bringen (Binderkrantz et al, 2017(Binderkrantz et al, , 2020Vesa und Binderkrantz, 2021). Andere verweisen auf Maximierung qua Zusammenschluss.…”

Do communicators take over? Mediatization and conflicts in civil society

“…This process has seen more organizations adapting to media logic to meet their goals (Esser & Strömbäck, 2014;Ihlen et al, 2021;Shanahan et al, 2011). Studies have suggested that interest groups access media and policy makers through various media efforts, and that their success is related to employing staff for this work (see e.g., Binderkrantz, 2005;Binderkrantz et al, 2015;Grafström et al, 2015;Staggenborg, 1988;Vesa & Binderkrantz, 2021). Regarding this kind of policy work, much research has focused on CSOs' choice of strategy (see, e.g., Beyers, 2004;Binderkrantz, 2005;Trapp & Laursen, 2017), but less is known about the professionals making these strategic decisions.…”