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.It is no morein a position to facilitate wide access, engagement and deliberation thanpublicly-funded institutions.Online forms of journalism, traditional, citi-zen or blogger based, have yet to produce a long-term sustainable businessmodel (Cohen, 2002; Singer, 2003; Scott, 2005; Freedman, this volume).Third, there is an assumption that ordinary citizens want to consumeand engage with their news and politicians online.The majority do not.Lusoli et al.(2006) found that only 42 per cent could name their MP andonly 8.5 per cent are net enthusiasts when it comes to political engage-ment.Of those members of the public that do contact their MP, 48 percent did so by phone, 20 per cent by letter, 11 per cent in person, and 12per cent by email (Lusoli and Ward, 2005).According to Ofcom (2007b),in 2006, only 6 per cent of the UK public got their news from the internet,as opposed to television (65 per cent) or newspapers (14 per cent).Infact, most studies note that online news consumption and politicalparticipation is closely correlated to an existing predisposition to participate Fenton-3900-Ch-07:Fenton-Sample 12/08/2009 4:53 PM Page 124124 NEW MEDIA, OLD NEWSin real-world politics (Davis and Owen, 1998; Norris, 2001; Bonfadelli,2002; Jensen, 2006).Fourth, such visions assume that journalists andpoliticians deliberately chose not to engage with ordinary citizens buthave spare capacity to do so.As the discussion below points out, this isfar from the case.Thus, the attempt to conceive of ICTs as making anintervention in this way ignores the many other social, organizational,commercial and communicative obstacles to such forms of direct publicengagement with politicians and journalists (see also critiques in Polat,2005; Brandenberg, 2006; Dahlberg, 2007).Analysis of how new media is influencing news media and politicsshould, instead, begin by looking at current accounts of contemporarypolitics and news production.It should focus on the existing commu-nicative practices of such professions and how new media may or maynot be altering those practices.This recombinant and social shapingapproach (Lievrouw and Livingstone, 2006: 4) views ICTs as more of amutual shaping process in which technological development and socialpractices are co-determining.Such socially-shaped adoptions of newmedia are, consequently, also likely to impact on the way politicians,journalists and their publics engage.As the next section will argue in greater detail, the over-riding pres-sure being felt by politicians and journalists is that of greater produc-tivity wrought by the cultures of the new capitalism (Sennett, 2006).Weber (1948) first conceived of the modern state and its governingprofessions as being increasingly directed by rationalization and the iron cage of bureaucracy.Many core elements of the traditional ironcage are to be found in contemporary commercial and public organi-zations of all sizes.Although structures and forms of labour haveevolved considerably during the twentieth century, key elements of functional rationality are ever present.For Ritzer (1998, 2004),Sennett (2006), Jamieson (1989), Carrier and Miller (1998), the com-bined logics of modern markets and bureaucracies offer up a range ofcontemporary variations.Each observes the shift of capitalist democ-racies to new forms of work and consumption but continuingdemands for hierarchies and workforce control, predictability andquantification, efficiency and productivity.At the same time, each alsorecognizes new features influencing many newer professions in an eraof globalization, post-Fordism and consumption.Transnational corpo-rations get ever larger and more fragmented.Employees have to movejobs and learn new skills with greater frequency. Institutional knowl-edge and craftsmanship , being able to build up experience and skills,and to spend time developing something well, is in decline (Sennett,2006: 127): In a speeded-up institution, however, time-intensivelearning becomes difficult.The pressures to produce results quicklyare too intense [& ] so the work-place time-anxiety causes people to Fenton-3900-Ch-07:Fenton-Sample 12/08/2009 4:53 PM Page 125125POLITICS, JOURNALISM AND NEW MEDIAskim rather than to dwell. The emphasis is always on change, the new,speed, the consumer, and quantification of results the audit society(Power, 1997) (see Freedman and Phillips, this volume).These issues also affect those at the organizational top who, in turn,have to accommodate a variety of alternative bosses, from anonymousinternational investors to auditors and consumer-citizens.They mustthemselves be flexible, adaptable, more productive, offer constantchange and new ideas (see Hay, 2007).Those in official power give it upto an array of external bodies, experts and corporations.According toSennett (2006), it is by such means that power becomes disconnectedfrom legitimate authority in contemporary hierarchies.Running throughout this literature are two other themes integral tothe discussion ahead: technology and virtualization.For all theseauthors technology enables and facilitates new forms of rationalizationand market flexibility.Information and communication (as opposed toindustrial) technologies offer greater predictability, cost efficiency, flexi-bility, quantification, alternative hierarchies, organizational expansionand forms of non-human control of human activity (see also Piore andSabel, 1984; Murray, 1989; Lyon, 1995; Herman and McChesney, 1997).As Ritzer states (1998: vii), McDonaldization involves an increase inefficiency, predictability, calculability and control through the substi-tution of non-human for human technology.At the same time, technologically-facilitated rationalization also con-tributes to a very modern by-product that Carrier and Miller (1998) label virtualization.There are many elements of this such as the imposition of abstract theory and auditing on states and corporations.Another is theweakening of direct social ties; something Sennett (2006) develops ingreater detail.Social relations involve time and investment, make difficultmanagement decisions more complicated, and are thus an impediment tothe new flexible, ever-moving workforce.Anonymous, computer-mediatedtransactions are more cost-efficient than personal relationships.Anotheris the rise of symbolic promotion.Companies, public institutions and indi-viduals have to promote themselves and their products as consistent,ordinary and reliable but also, ever-new, changing and extraordinary (seealso Wernick, 1991; Corner and Pels, 2003).Forms of virtualism, not to beconfused with postmodern accounts of hyperreality, develop their owndriving logic for individuals.Thus, the successful professional, operating in the culture of the newcapitalism needs to: be numerically and technically proficient, be flexi-ble and adaptable, be able to learn new skills and theory, operate innew work environments and with weaker social ties, increase personaland organizational productivity, and be able to promote themselves andtheir products.As argued below, each of these elements, tied to rational-ization and marketization, can be linked to the adoption of new Fenton-3900-Ch-07:Fenton-Sample 12/08/2009 4:53 PM Page 126126 NEW MEDIA, OLD NEWStechnologies within the professions of journalism and politics
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