Two clashing logics: The influence of media logic and mediatized politics on decision making processes in governance networks

A wide literature on media argues that media have become very important in shaping our view of the world and on the political practice in democracies, and that media have to compete for the attention of a larger public which has resulted in biases in how news is reported. But despite the importance of media in the modern world and the large amount of literature on the media logic and the mediatization of politicians, there has been virtually no research about effects of these developments on complex decision-making in networks. This paper looks at how much media attention complex decision-making in networks receives, if we can see traces of media logic and mediatized politics and how these affect trust relations. It also looks at how network performance is influenced subsequently. We draw on a survey of project managers in the four largest cities in The Netherlands (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague) and managers from two consultant firms that are involved in similar projects (n=141). We show that if the media attention for the project has more characteristics of the current media logic, there is a negative effect on trust relations and on network performance.