A Hedge Between Keeps Friendship Green: Concurrence and Conflict between Politicians and Journalists in Nine European Democracies

Current analysis of political communication is hugely engaged in the study of the linkage between media and politics as ingrained in the structure of media systems (Hallin and Mancini, 2004, 2012). This work has not only enhanced comparative research, it also triggered a lively debate about the categories and the nature of typologies of political communication systems. However, what has been neglected in this research is the subjective dimen- sion of political communication; this concerns the idea that the interaction between two groups of interdependent actors — politicians and journalists - is governed by mutual perceptions and professional norms. These orien- tations are referred to as ‘political communication culture’ (Blumler and Gurevitch, 1995; Pfetsch, 2004, 2014a). One specific, yet crucial, aspect of political communication culture relates to the attitudes that under gird concurrence or conflict in the relationship between politicians and journal- ists. In our study we analyze perceived conflict and cooperation between journalists and politicians and link the orientations to interpretations of the actors’ roles. We take a systematic comparative approach through inves- tigating how orientations towards conflict and concurrence vary across nine European democracies: Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Our research contributes to the debate on the power relations between politicians and the media, which for a long time has drawn on normative arguments about who leads the dance on the floor of political communication.