From Watchdog to Watched Dog: Oversight and Pressures between Journalists and Politicians in the Context of Mediatization

摘要

Political control is one of the central andconditioning aspects of the relationshipbetween journalists and politicians.Through the perceptions of journalistsand politicians, this article analyzes thevalidity, characteristics, and functioningof one of the principal mechanisms of politicalcontrol: the journalistic oversight ofpolitics, which is linked to the watchdogtheory and political pressures on the media.In addition, the degree of mediatizationof politics is measured with regardto media autonomy. The methodology isbased on in-depth interviews of 45 participantsin Spain. The results indicatethe pre-eminence of political pressuresthat are principally exercised via indirectmeans (i.e., communications officesand media enterprises). The latter are avehicle for channeling political control,which reveals the weight of the factorsassociated with political economy in therelationship between journalists andpoliticians. Finally, the low incidence ofjournalistic oversight of politics reveals areduced level of mediatization in Spain.