News Media Influence on Rail Infrastructure Policy: Tracing Mediatization Through ActorNetwork Theory

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This book offers scholars and industry practitioners in the arenas of policy analysis, politics and media communications a method for astutely guiding large-scale policy and projects through the complex and changing landscape of a 24/7 news media. It is underpinned by empirical research that identifies and endeavors to close a considerable gap in current understanding and practice. This gap represents a failure to recognise and respect many powerful influences and associations that surround a policy arena that has drawn the ire of the news media. The result of this failure is ineffective communication that does little to advance the policy piece and, in the worst instances, leads to policy immobilization or poor policy decision-making. The authors research spans a decade and two cities - Sydney, Australia and Montreal, Canada. The focus is on three metro-style rail infrastructure case study projects. One project is ongoing; one failed; and one is being upgraded, having recently reached fifty years of age. Through media, expert and public research this book builds an irrefutable case that the news media is highly influential to policy and that these influences are complex, messy and changing. Drawing significantly on Actor-Network Theory, Richardson identifies the influential actors and alliances at play when policy is subjected to media discourse, and he proposes a framework for tracing and managing them. In doing so, he demonstrates that such a framework is not only vital for the successful negotiation of policy and projects in the media but also to an (r)evolutionary recasting of public, expert and media actors in the development and decision-making process.

Reviews

This book employs the Actor-Network Theory (ANT) developed by Bruno Latour, Michel Callon and others in the analysis of two contemporary cases of local infrastructure planning the Metro projects in Sydney, Australia and Montreal, Canada. The author unearths and dissects coalitions of human and non-human authors, which are often invisible but nevertheless critical for the success or failure of such projects. An insightful read for every academic, practitioner and student fascinated by but also concerned about the 24/7 news cycle and its ambiguous impact on local politics nowadays. -- *reach out to Roumen when endorsements go out to confirm we can use this quote on the back cover * Roumen Dimitrov, Visiting Professor, University Pompeu Fabra, Spain, and Honorary Academic, UNSW, Australia *

Author Bio

Nicholas Richardson is a lecturer in Strategic and Creative Commercial Communications at the University of New South Wales, Australia. In previous lives he has written speeches for politicians and developed communications strategies for government agencies, NGOs and international companies.