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Media, Power, Citizenship: The Mediatization of Democratic Change

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Media, Communication and the Struggle for Democratic Change

Abstract

The chapter investigates the concept of mediatization as a theoretical framework to understand the dynamics of democratic transitions and democratization conflicts in an era of hybrid media ecologies. Existing literature on mediatization has focused on advanced Western democracies and the transformative power that media and communication technologies have on democratic politics, assuming an increasing dominance of ‘media logic’ in the political process. Drawing on evidence from Egypt, Kenya, Serbia and South Africa, this chapter extends this debate to transitional politics, arguing that mediatization in emerging democracies is a multi-faceted and often ambiguous process that is used as a resource both for citizen empowerment and authoritarian manipulation, thus at times serving to strengthen democratic transition, at others to undermine it.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Media and Communication, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Katrin Voltmer

  2. Department of Media, Journalism and Film, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, UK

    Lone Sorensen

Authors
  1. Katrin Voltmer
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  2. Lone Sorensen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Katrin Voltmer .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Katrin Voltmer

  2. Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Christian Christensen

  3. University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Irene Neverla

  4. University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Nicole Stremlau

  5. Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany

    Barbara Thomass

  6. University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

    Nebojša Vladisavljević

  7. University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    Herman Wasserman

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Voltmer, K., Sorensen, L. (2019). Media, Power, Citizenship: The Mediatization of Democratic Change. In: Voltmer, K., et al. Media, Communication and the Struggle for Democratic Change. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16748-6_2

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