The Mediatization of Foreign Policy, Political Decision-Making and Humanitarian Intervention

"By investigating the mediatization of foreign policy comparatively, Brommesson and Ekengren make an important contribution to empirical research on the mediatization of politics and, not least important, its scope conditions. For anyone interested in the mediatization of politics, this book should be considered required reading." (Jesper Stromback, Professor of Journalism and Political Communication, University of Gothenburg, Sweden) "This important book takes mediatization theory out of its clouds of abstraction, and shows how media logic is conditioned by the complex contexts in which foreign policy is made and publicized. This careful comparison of three nations and two different foreign policy crises shows how media logic works in different cases. The authors develop a dynamic theory that will be used by scholars in the future. This is a must read for students of foreign policy and media." (Lance Bennett, Professor of Political Science and Communication, University of Washington, USA)

This book examines under what scope conditions foreign policy actors adopt media logic. First, they lay out the general adaptation of media logic in the general debate of the UN General Assembly 1992-2010.This book examines under what scope conditions foreign policy actors adopt media logic. The authors analyze media logic under three specific scope conditions: uncertainty, identity, resonance. First, they lay out the general adaptation of media logic in the general debate of the UN General Assembly 1992-2010. They then explore the adaptation of media logic in Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom concerning the cases of humanitarian intervention in Côte d’Ivoire and Libya, both in 2011. The results indicate the need to move beyond the assumption of a general process of mediatization affecting politics in total. Instead, they point in the direction of a nuanced process of mediatization more likely under certain scope conditions and in certain political contexts.