Mediatization is emerging as an influential new concept that places the media at the centre of all kinds of important cultural, political and social developments. However, it has so far attracted little critical evaluation. In this article the authors identify three areas of concern, namely, how causal processes are thought about, how historical change is understood, and how concepts are designed. It is hoped this article will contribute to the development of mediatization by generating critical debate and reflection, to prevent the term from being applied so inconsistently and indiscriminately that it becomes a 'concept of no difference'.

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A B S T R A C TThis article considers the methodological implications of using digital newspaper archives for analysis of media content. The discussion identifies a range of validity and reliability concerns about this increasingly prevalent mode of analysis, which have been under-appreciated to date. Although these questions do not deny a role for the use of proxy data in media analysis, they do highlight the need for caution when researchers rely on text-based, digitalized archives.

This article compares the complex dynamics involved in the production and reception of a newspaper article. This case study is used as the basis for a broader discussion of the encoding and decoding of meaning via the news media. The article recommends that closer attention needs to be given to the linkages between these moments in the mass communication process, and the temporal contexts within which they occur.

This paper presents findings from the first systematic appraisal of mainstream news reporting of the appointive government in Britain. Such a perspective is urgently needed in the light of the expanded role and influence of ‘Quasi‐Autonomous Non Governmental Organisations’ in public affairs. This paper provides an overview of long‐term trends in media reporting of general principles of quasi‐government and an examination of the routine coverage of public bodies that can be classified as quangos. These related exercises show that the ‘new managerialist’ ethos that fuelled the recent expansion of the appointive state finds little endorsement in general media discourses about the quango state, but is often implicitly reflected in journalists' treatment of specific organisations and their work. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications

Social scientists perform a multi-functional role as researcher, teacher and expert. The academic conference provides an opportunity for all these roles to be engaged and as such is a political and social site where meaning is debated and new research born. The conference is also attractive to journalists as news fodder. This article considers the relationship between journalists and social scientific organizations in the context of a professional conference and seeks to explain the tensions that exist. It concludes that the two cultures of journalist and academic are in conflict where they converge.

This article examines the rise of the UK Independence Party in Britain, and how this 'revolution' has been reported by mainstream news organisations. As a case study of the media and populism, UKIP's rise tends to confound rather than confirm some of the patterns and trends found in previous studies. There is little evidence that 'media logic' has worked to the party's advantage and the recent increase in the intensity of media coverage of UKIP is principally explained by the 'political logic' of its continued electoral advances, changes in communication policy, and a reorientation in the public relations strategies of the party and its opponents.

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