Title of proposed workshop (2002 Joint Sessions) : Antipolitics and The Media Name of workshop directors : Daniel Gaxie and Carlo Marletti Name and address of institutions : Département de Science Politique, Université Paris I, 17, rue de la Sorbonne, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France and Dipartimento Studi Politici, Università di Torino, Via Maria Vittoria 19, 10123 Torino, Italy. Telephone numbers : Daniel Gaxie : 33 1 40 46 28 28 Carlo Marletti : 39 11 81 94160 Fax Numbers : Daniel Gaxie : 33 1 40 46 31 65 Carlo Marletti : 39 11 88 21 23 e-mail addresses : Daniel Gaxie : gaxie@univ-paris1.fr Carlo Marletti : marletti@cisi.unito.it
Antipolitics and The Media Workshop proposal for the 2002 Joint Sessions of the ECPR Daniel Gaxie, Carlo Marletti The growth of mistrust of politics, politicians, political parties and leaders is one of the most prominent features of several contemporary democracies. This trend is for instance well documented in Italy and "antipolitics" has aroused Italian political scientists' or sociologists' interest for several years (Mastropaolo, 2000). A similar process is perhaps starting in France and a French-Italian research group has been created and will soon published a collective book on the subject. The trust in democratic institutions, regime and government has been widely studied in Western Europe, Post Communist Countries or United States, mainly through quantitative analyses (see Mishler and Rose, 2000, and their bibliography for example; Hofferbert and Klingemann, 2000). We now need to focus on attitudes towards politics and policies and to rely on a more diversified range of sources. Hostility towards politics and some of its statistical correlations have been measured by opinion polls in some countries. Numerous researches have also inquired into various phenomena that enhance this hostility, specially political scandals, corruption (Mény, 1992; Lascoumes, 1997 and 1999), judicial activism (Briquet, 2000; Belligni, 2000), mass unemployment or rise of extreme right wing parties (Mény Surel, 2000). The workshop would give the opportunity to see if distrust of politics can be observed in other or in all European countries. In spite of all these studies, we may think that insufficient attention has been paid to the contribution of media to the spread of antipolitical feelings. One may wonder about an antipolitics bias in the way through which the media build and display political events. The growing predominance of economic stakes, the quest for audience, the links between some newspapers or TV channels and political forces may lead the media to emphasize spectacular aspects and thus to draw a reductionist view of political activities. We need an accurate and comparative observation of the relative weight given by media to scandals, briberies, bribes, political trials or hidden financing of electoral campaigns and political parties and their impacts. We must also take into account the tendancy of some media to emphasize private aspects of the life of the main political leaders and the willingness of these leaders to use these new channel of political communication, notably under the influence of their specialized advisers. The effets of these trends are not clear and media studies draw some rather contradictory conclusions which would be fruitfully discussed through new approaches from the publics. The workshop would also try to improve our comprehension of political journalism in a comparative perspective. Sociology of journalism sometimes highlights various collusions between politicians and journalists (Champagne, 1990). On the other hand, scholars, sometimes the same ones, have argued that politicians and journalists struggle to represent public opinion and that the latter are thus inclined to adopt antipolitics stands (Champagne, 1990; Neveu, 1989). It would therefore be interesting to have accurate comparative quantitative, qualitative and case studies data about the way media inform their
public about politics and policies, empirical evidences and theoretical discussions about the various factors which rule their practical behaviors and analyses of their effects on the attitudes of their various publics towards the public realm,. One may also wonder if and why political journalists are led to give greater importance to politics or to some aspects of it and to somehow neglect policies. If it is true, we have to see if and how it may influence their audience's views of politics. We must also look for and discuss the proper methodologies to ascertain such an influence. A workshop on antipolitics and the media may interest specialists of media studies and political sociologists. Colleagues like Alfio Mastropaolo (University of Turin), Franca Roncarolo (University of Turin) and Erik Neveu (Institute for Political Studies of Rennes) have already told us that they are interested by the project. We think that Dominic Wring (University of Loughborough), Brian Mc Nair (University of Stirling), Lisbet Van Zoonen (University of Amsterdam) and Bob Franklin (University of Sheffield) could also participate in the workshop and we think about getting in touch with them. For media or communication specialists, the workshop may give an opportunity to rise new questions about the sociology of journalist profession or the political impacts of the media. Political sociologists who are studying political legitimacy, political mobilizations, crisis of representation or decline of politics could have a better view of the role of the media in theses processes and take more into account the main results of media researches. The workshop would give the opportunity to link media studies which are mainly focused on the content of the media and political science or political sociology which give a greater importance to the attitudes and behaviors of the publics and to the various organizations which try to mobilize them. References. - Belligni Silvano, Magistrati e politici nella crisi italiana. Democrazia dei guardiani e neopopulismo, Alessandria, Universita del piemonte orientale, Working Paper N.11, 2000, 48 pages. - Briquet Jean-Louis, La guerre des justes. La magistrature antimafia dans la crise italienne, Communication devant le groupe de recherche franco-italien sur l antipolitique, Turin, 2000, 15 pages. - Champagne Patrick, Faire l opinion. Le nouveau jeu politique, Paris, Minuit, 1990, 312 pages. - Gaxie Daniel, L antipolitique ordinaire, Communication devant le groupe de recherche franco-italien sur l antipolitique, Turin, 2000, 35 pages. - Hofferbert Richard I., Klingeman Hans-Dieter, Democracy and its Discontents in Post-Wall Germany, Paper prepared for the 18th Congress of the IPSA, Québec City, 2000, 26 pages. - Lascoumes Pierre, Elites irrégulières. Essai sur la délinquancez d affaires, Paris, Gallimard, 1997, 303 pages. - Lascoumes Pierre, Corruptions, Paris, Presses de sciences po, 1999, 163 pages. - Marletti Carlo, ed., Politica e società in Italia, Milano, 1999, 2 vol., 1006 pages. - Marletti, Media e antipolitica, Paper for the meeting of the French-Italian research group on antipolitics, Turin, 2000, 4 pages. - Mastropaolo Alfio, Antipolitica all origine della crisi italiana, Napoli, L Ancora del Mediterraneo, 2000, 156 pages. - Mény Yves, La corruption de la Républqiue, Paris, Fayard, 1992, 352 pages. - Mény Yves, Surel Yves, Par le peuple, pour le peuple, Paris, Fayard, 2000, 326 pages.
- Mishler William, Rose Richard, Political Support for Incomplete Democracies : Realist vs. Idealist Theories and Measures, Paper prepared for the 18th Congress of the IPSA, Québec City, 2000, 37 pages. - Neveu Erik, «L heure de vérité» ou le triangle de la représentation, Mots, N020, Septembre 1989, 57-72.
Daniel Gaxie is professor of political sociology at Paris I University (Department of political science) and Director of the Political Research Center of the Sorbonne (associated to CNRS). He has notably published Le cens caché ("the hidden census"), 3rd edition 1993 and La démocratie représentative (Representative Democracy), 3rd edition 2000. He is presently engaged in a research program on the sociology of political ethnomethods which aims at understanding how ordinary citizens cope with the political realm. He delivered a paper on political disenchantment based on qualitative inquiries at the Congress of French Political Science Association in 1999. He is a member of the French-Italian Research Group on Antipolitics and the author of a chapter on ordinary antipolitical feelings of the forthcoming collective book of this group. Carlo Marletti is professor of Sociology and Dean of the Political Studies Department at the University of Torino. He has carried many researches on media, specially on the relationships between media and politics. He has published Media e Politica ("Media and Politics"), 1984. He his editor and co-author of Politica e Societa in Italia ("Politics and Society in Italy"), 2 vol., 1999. He delivered a paper on Media e Antipolitica ("Media and antipolitics") at the meeting of the French-Italian Research Group on Antipolitics at Turin in September 2000 which will be published in the above-mentioned book.