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Infotainment

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Infotainment———335

example, campaign activities can be organized via Rosenau, J. N., & Singh, J. P. (Eds.). (2002). Information
personal e-mail, discussion of issues and candidates technologies and global politics: The changing scope
can be conducted in chat rooms, and opinions about of power and governance. Albany: State University of
issues and candidates can be shared in individuals’ New York Press.
blogs. The Internet, combining the features of inter- Sterling, C. H., & Kittross, J. M. (1990). Stay tuned: A
personal and mass communication, makes exchange concise history of American broadcasting (2nd ed.).
of information among citizens a task that can be per- Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
formed in an easy and timely manner. Average citi-
zens can act like journalists to report and comment on
any political story. They are now both consumers of
and producers of political information. This kind of INFOTAINMENT
exchange enables individual citizens to rely less on
the analysis and interpretation of political information This relatively new concept has multiple meanings. It
provided by the mainstream media and to increase has been used to refer to such diverse content phe-
their ability to develop their own understanding of the nomena as soft news, personalization and human
information that can be meaningful to their decision interest in traditionally hard news TV formats; pro-
making. The information generated by “citizen jour- gram genres like talk shows that mix seriousness with
nalists” can sometimes present a serious challenge to fun, factual opinions with private feelings; the popu-
that of the elite media in terms of accuracy and speed. lar, lighthearted, or emphatic style of journalists; and
The Internet continues to grow and expand. Its further to the introduction of music, dramatization, and fic-
development comes with numerous implications for pol- tional elements in informational TV genres. It is
itics. Assessments of the magnitudes and the meanings mainly used in relation to television, but sometimes
of these implications are still in progress, and the effects the content of the tabloid press is similarly character-
of the Internet on politics can be revolutionary. ized. As such, infotainment is an ambiguous label for
The role of information technology in politics as out- the concept. It blurs the distinction between informa-
lined here illustrates that changes in information tech- tion (linked to knowledge and citizenship) and enter-
nologies can, in a profound way, affect the conduct of tainment (linked to fun, distraction, and passive
politics. The world in the 21st century has experienced consumption) and points at politicians going popular
and continues to experience a fast pace and a large scale by appearing (more) in entertainment-style programs.
of development and application of information tech- It is mostly discussed in relation to journalism and
nologies. It is true that, before the effects of existing usually does not (but could well) cover the informa-
information technologies on politics can be fully under- tional aspect in knowledge-testing quiz shows and in
stood, new technologies appear on the horizon. fictional drama like West Wing or Yes, Prime Minister.
Infotainment is used both as a normative concept—
Yang Lin a term of abuse, even—assuming and worrying about
a negative effect, and as an empirical concept to mea-
See also Media Events; Newspapers, Role in Politics; Radio, sure and make sense of what is supposed to be a trend.
Politics and; Television in Politics
The claim of negative effects appears in various guises:
from the “dumbing down” of the public, affecting our
sense of reality and promoting a cynical understanding
Further Readings of politics, to disengagement and, in the end, to the
Davis, R., & Owen, D. (1998). New media and American decline of our civic culture. The trend is blamed on
politics. New York: Oxford University Press. increasing commercialization and intermedia competi-
Graber, D. A. (2006). Mass media and American politics tion, having prompted more market-driven styles of
(7th ed.). Washington, DC: CQ Press. journalism and more audience-pleasing genres of TV
Hollihan, T. A. (2001). Uncivil wars: Political campaigns in programming. Moreover, to reach the same audience
a media age. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s. in a multichannel reality as before and to show empa-
Paletz, D. L. (2002). The media in American politics: thy, image, and authenticity in a more performance-
Contents and consequences (2nd ed.). New York: oriented politics, politicians have to use as many
Longman. platforms as they can find and try to bypass traditional
I-Kaid (Encyc)-45429.qxd 11/13/2007 2:57 PM Page 336

336———Inoculation, Political

informational genres, where critical journalists are Blumler, J., & Kavanagh, D. (1999). The third age of
more interested in their failures than what constitutes political communication: Influences and features. Political
their personal charm. As such, infotainment is sup- Communication, 16, 209–230.
posed to be the result of changes in both media and Brants, K. (1998). Who’s afraid of infotainment? European
politics. Whether it increases and has a bad effect is, Journal of Communication, 13(3), 315–335.
however, contested. Brants, K. (2004). Politische Kommunikation im Zeitalter
As to the trend, infotainment is not a present-day von Big Brother [Political communication in the age of
phenomenon. The popular style of the U.K.’s “penny Big Brother]. In J. Nieland & K. Kamps (Eds.),
Politikdarstellung und Unterhaltungskultur. Zum Wandel
dreadfuls” in the 19th century and the mixing of fact in
der politischen Kommunikation [Political representation
fiction in some of the U.S. muckraking in the first half
and entertainment culture: Changes in political
of the 20th century (e.g., the works of Truman Capote)
communication] (pp. 93–116). Köln: von Halem Verlag.
and the new journalism (e.g., Tom Wolfe’s essays) in
Delli Carpini, M., & Williams, B. (2001). Let us infotain
the second half, have all met with the same critique. you: Politics in the new media environment. In W. Lance
With more channels and increasing competition for Bennett & R. Entman (Eds.), Mediated politics:
audiences, genres that popularly package serious infor- Communication in the future of democracy (pp. 160–182).
mation have become successful, as have more emphatic Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
journalistic styles. Comparative longitudinal research, Franklin, B. (2004). Packaging politics: Political
however, that could substantiate whether there is a communications in Britain’s media democracy. London:
cross-cultural trend that substantive information is Arnold.
being “sauced over” by a gravy of personal feelings and Schudson, M. (1999). Social origins of press cynicism in
dramatic encounters and that politicians are to be found portraying politics. American Behavioral Scientist, 42(6),
more where the fun is in TV is far and few between. In 998–1008.
fact, the little research there is gives at best a mixed pic-
ture: politicians appear in talk shows, but they generally
prefer and still do appear mostly in serious program-
ming, and though the style and format of TV news has INOCULATION, POLITICAL
been popularized, the informational level of TV news,
current affairs programs, documentaries, and talk Inoculation theory was devised by William McGuire
shows has not necessarily declined. in the early 1960s as a strategy to protect attitudes
That people do not learn from infotainment, or from change: to confer resistance to counter-attitudinal
learn the wrong things with a negative effect, has been influences, whether such influences take the form of
even more strongly contested. By focusing on and direct attack or sustained pressures.
framing politics in terms of the scandalous, the petty Inoculation consists of two elements: threat, which
intrigue, and the personal might lead audiences to raises the prospect of persuasive challenges to existing
sideline the hard stuff of policy and decision making attitudes and is designed to get a person to acknowl-
while perceiving politicians as predominantly self- edge the vulnerability of his attitudes so that he will
interested, as yet there is no unequivocal evidence of be motivated to strengthen them; and refutational pre-
a direct causal link between infotainment and political emption, which raises and refutes specific arguments
cynicism or disengagement. Instead, research seems contrary to attitudes and is designed both to provide
to indicate that especially the less politically inter- specific content a person can use to defend her atti-
ested and lower educated learn from it, recall that tudes and to provide her with a model or script for
information better and use it in electoral choices. defending attitudes.
Studies by McGuire in the 1960s proved, convinc-
Kees Brants ingly, that inoculation works. More recent research by
Pfau and colleagues indicates that inoculation works,
in part, through the dual mechanisms of threat and
Further Readings refutational preemption, as McGuire posited, but also
Baum, M. (2002). Sex, lies and war: How soft news brings by eliciting anger, enhancing attitude accessibility,
foreign policy to the inattentive public. American Political altering associative networks about an attitude object,
Science Review, 1, 91–109. and enhancing attitude strength or certainty.

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