The narration of political spectacle
Considering the relationship between the media system and political power
Abstract
Within the field of communication, different theoretical currents enrich the debate regarding the junctures between the media system and the political arena. Various investigators have studied the mutual influence between political and media agendas, as well as the traces that this interaction leaves on news texts. Nowadays, defining media as a “political actor” seems like a truism. Nevertheless, the debate about its role in the political system has not been closed. And neither has the problematization of its condition as a “political actor”. In this context, a bibliographical revision is proposed, which allows one to reflect on the active participation of communication media in the political field. Concretely, the objective of this paper is, on the one hand, to systematize theoretical contributions to the media-politics interaction, and on the other, to inquire into the shape adopted by this tense relationship in the press coverage of public interest topics, paying special attention to the narration of news as spectacle.
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