Policymaking, Ideational Power and the Role of the Media
| Date | 01 May 2022 |
| Author | Robert Gillanders,Mounir Mahmalat,Declan Curran |
| DOI | 10.1177/1478929920968348 |
| Published date | 01 May 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1478929920968348
Political Studies Review
2022, Vol. 20(2) 250 –264
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1478929920968348
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Policymaking, Ideational Power
and the Role of the Media
Declan Curran , Robert Gillanders
and Mounir Mahmalat
Abstract
The ideational power framework developed by Carstensen and Schmidt has sought to make
explicit the manner in which ideas can exert an influence over policy outcomes. However,
one key feature of this theoretical framework has not yet been adequately conceptualised: the
communicative process through which policy entrepreneurs convey their ideas to the general
public. This article focuses on one specific form of communicative discourse as a means of
generating widespread public support for a given policy proposal: public discourse via the
media – be it print, broadcast or social media. We argue that the ideational power literature
should recognise the media as a powerful entity in its own right rather than merely depicting
the media as an implement for political communication. We contend that the ideational power
framework could usefully incorporate a characterisation of the media that has recently emerged
from political communications research: the hybrid media system. In order to illustrate how the
communicative process inherent in ideational power can be understood in terms of a hybrid
media system, we undertake a comparative review of two empirical studies which assess political
discourse during the 2016 US presidential election from the perspectives of ideational power
and hybrid media systems.
Keywords
ideational power, policy change, political communication, hybrid media system
Accepted: 4 October 2020
Introduction
The role of ideas – that is, causal beliefs about economic, social and political phenomena – in
influencing policymaking and political change has garnered an increasing amount of atten-
tion over the last two decades in research emanating from the fields of political economy,
public policy and political science. In the course of these related strands of research, idea-
tional processes have been found to be influential in the setting of policy agendas, in shaping
the content of reform proposals and in underpinning reform imperatives.1 Building on this
ideational scholarship, the emergence of the concept of ideational power offers an
DCU Business School, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland
Corresponding author:
Declan Curran, DCU Business School, Dublin City University, Dublin 9, Ireland.
Email: declan.curran@dcu.ie
968348PSW0010.1177/1478929920968348Political Studies ReviewCurran et al.
research-article2020
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