Moving Beyond the Single Mediated Arena Model: Media Uses and Influences Across Three Arena’s

This chapter draws on multiple interview-based studies of 180 United Kingdom political actors over two decades. It argues that research on media uses and influences on politicians needs to be conceived beyond a single mediatized arena model. Rather, these functions operate across three overlapping communicative spaces: the more private policy arena, the heavily mediatized political arena of a parliament, and the larger public arena (or public sphere) beyond. How political actors use and are influenced by media/journalists varies across these three arenas. After setting out the arenas and findings the model is further illustrated with two short case studies: the election of David Cameron to head of the Conservative Party (2005) and the issues around European Union membership and the recent Brexit vote (2016).