Specialist media and publics in political communication

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The research project focusses on the impact of specialist media for the structure of specialist publics in political communication as well as on the differences between selected policies. Thereby the level below the extensively researched general mass media and the media public produced by them is emphasized. Specialist media and publics generate social intermediation by enabling mutual observation and communication for a restricted audience. In the field of political communication, they are constituted by policy-networks, in which political decisions are prepared or implemented.Methodologically, the research project is based on an analysis of four policy areas: On the one hand, agriculture and health policies stand for rather corporatist structures of mediation. On the other hand there are family and network policies, which represent a more open type of policy areas. In a first step the specialist publics of the elected policy areas and their relevant specialist media are gathered by using a semi-standardized interview. As a result, a list of the most frequently used and most deemed relevant specialist media is created. Their topics and actor structures are examined in the second stage through a content analysis. Step 3 delivers a systematization of the specialist media based on their medial and organizational characteristics and their functions for the specialist publics in the examined policy areas. Thus, the research project gives an important input to the communication and political science debate on new forms of interest intermediation in postcorporatism.