In this paper, we investigate how public organizations, through their senior managers, perceive media-related activities and to what extent these perceptions support the existence of a ‘media logic.’ We interviewed 64 managers from 40 Swedish government agencies and compared their perceptions related to media with their perceptions related to the corporate logic, which has become vital in public sector contexts. The findings reveal that media and media-oriented activities are understood as contextual, contingent, and driven by individual events. In contrast to the understandings of management and strategy (i.e. corporate logic), which was much more coherent, universal, and aligned to sectoral conditions. Accordingly, media are generally more open for interpretations, local adaptations, and contextualization, making it difficult to provide clear-cut answers to what media means for public organizations. Our study suggests that public managers understand media in a manner that challenges the media logic rationale. We also challenge an institutional logic argument that institutional structures surrounding public organizations are, in general, to be seen as open for strategic responses. Our results point in another direction. The way managers understand different institutional structures, such as those associated with media, are, to a much greater extent, characterized by uncertainty linked to a lack of necessary knowledge about what constitutes the underlying qualities of the structures at hand; and by ambiguity about what meanings to mobilize and follow when institutional structures are to be introduced into specific organizational contexts.
Media are important for public managers, and media-related issues receive much attention. However, the reasons why the media matter are less evident, and the attention is sometimes misleading. This begs for more reflexivity among managers to avoid misguided priorities.
Several professional groups question the focus on media, and this creates tensions between these groups and managers. This underscores the need for a reflexive approach to avoid recurring conflicts.
There is extensive variation between institutional structures in terms of clarity, origin, and coherence. This requires managers to be sensitive to how different structures relate to their organizations’ core assignments and responsibilities when they evaluate and implement responsibilities and routines and distribute resources in response.
For public organizations, media and journalists have become an increasingly prominent and integrated part of their daily activities (
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To be able to theorize these transformations, scholars have used the concepts
This line of reasoning equates mediatization with marketization, globalization, and other institutional transformations (
The tendency to oversee media’s qualities is unfortunate. It brings with it the risk of not understanding the role media have in public organizations if media are ascribed characteristics they lack. But also – equally important – critical implications may be missed if characteristics of
The notion of logics holds unique characteristics compared with other institutional forms such as ideas, frames, orders of worth, or conventions, and they risk losing their power and relevance as an analytical tool if they aren’t separated from other phenomena lacking these characteristics (
In this paper, the qualities of media are at the center and how they are identified, understood, and possibly acted upon in and by public organizations (in our case, government agencies). To be able to provide a detailed analysis, we map the understandings of media, and we compare them with the understandings of the corporate logic (i.e., managerial practices, structures, and values; see
Our study incorporates two streams of research. First, research on media and how we can understand their consequences for public organizations assists in testing the assumption that media’s values and practices will be understood – at least conceptually – in a relatively uniform way among the managers we interviewed. Second, our insights offer a nuanced perspective on the peculiarities of public sector governance. To a significant extent, the institutional logics surrounding public organizations are treated as complex and conflicting but still relatively open for strategic responses. Our study points in a direction where such an approach can be questioned, especially when some characteristics of the institutional environment in which the organizations are embedded lack the qualities they have been a priori ascribed.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: In the next section, we give an overview of previous research on mediatization and the media logic in the literature on public organizations, with particular attention to studies focusing on how public organizations and their members understand and act upon media and media-related issues. This is followed by a discussion of how public administration scholars have approached the institutional logic framework. Next, we present our methodological considerations and the approach we took when analyzing the empirical material. The results section is divided into two parts: 1) how the managers understood media and media-related activities, and 2) how they understood the hierarchies and managerial practices, structures, and values (i.e., qualities connected to the corporate logic). In the discussion section, we use the results to question the validity of the media logic concept. We also discuss the implications of our results for future research on media and public sector governance.
Research on mediatization appears in several disciplines and takes several approaches, but in research on public organizations, the institutional approach is predominant (
Theoretically, the argument for such transformation is straightforward and in line with a general theory of institutions and institutional logics (
Regarding responses, research shows that these tend to be much more ad-hoc and crafted on daily basis than the theory suggests – that is, there does not seem to exist a uniform, coherent, and consequent way of dealing with media-related issues that could be explained by the existence of factual media exposure (
A third anomaly in previous research is the difficulties scholars experience in showing a common understanding among actors of what media
In sum, existing research gives little support to the notion that media is manifested in public organizations as identifiable, coherent, persistent, and encompassing media logic.
In research on public organizations, scholars have used institutional logics as an analytical concept to investigate how institutional conditions are manifested in public administration and addressed and related to by actors (
Research shows that institutional logics gain their influence through the frames they offer, including goals, means, and principles for organizational activities, as well as motives and bases for the legitimacy of these activities. The influence of institutional logics also rests on their durability and their repeated actualization in different contexts (i.e., a logic is hardly sensitive to specific cultural and organizational contexts). In other words, institutional logics are rather persistent over time and space, and to the extent that they change or differ, it is with limited variations and often without radical consequences (
The frames logics offer are inherent in the overarching belief systems of modern societies, which, in most writings, include seven societal institutions: the market, the state, democracy, the corporation, the family, the profession, and religion (Friedland & Alford, 1991;
Among the logics that emerge from the different belief systems, institutional researchers consider the
There are obvious differences between logics, and they govern actors in different directions. At the same time, all logics share a set of qualities that set them apart from other types of institutional forms such as ideas, conventions, or orders of worth. These shared qualities were well captured by Pahnke and her colleagues (2015) when they showed how a logic can be identified on the basis of three elements: basis of norms (i.e., who qualifies as a member of an organization and on what basis, who provides legitimacy to the organization’s activities, and who has the authority to make decisions); basis of strategy (i.e., accounts concerning an organization’s identity and specific strengths in relation to the organization’s goals, ambitions, preferences, performance, efficiency, and related concepts); and basis of attention (i.e., how success is understood, the focus, how to achieve desirable ends, and how to evaluate an organization’s activities).
Thus, when two logics exhibit significant differences in how they guide and shape the behaviors of organizations and individuals within societies, their underlying structures (i.e., basis of norms, basis of strategy, and basis of attention) remain comparable.
To summarize, the literature offers a detailed picture of the interactions between media and public organizations, and it is evident that media interferes with public organizations in multiple ways. These results notwithstanding, finding extensive proof of a media logic is difficult – at least if we take the logic concept seriously. The empirical results provided by previous research confirm that media are important to public organizations and their managers; however, it seems that organizations’ responses associated with media exhibit different qualities and follow different paths than those suggested by the concept of media logic.
The assumption guiding this study is that media do not qualify to be defined as a logic. This means that rather than another investigation of how media interferes with public organizations, we will investigate the qualities of media and how public organizations, through their senior managers, perceive them. First, however, we outline the context for our empirical study in the next section.
Sweden offers a highly relevant context for investigating how media are identified, understood, and possibly acted upon, and to what extent these understandings support the idea of a media logic. Sweden can be defined as a most likely case, since there are several conditions rewarding actors who develop deep understandings of how media work. This is of particular relevance for managers in government agencies.
In line with other Nordic - but in contrast to many other - countries, the media system in Sweden relies on universally available communication systems, strong public service media, regulative support for extensive access to information, and far-reaching professionalization of journalism. This means that there is strong institutional support for independent media organizations ( Swedish agencies possess a high degree of autonomy in relation to their principals, and contrary to their Scandinavian equivalents; for instance, Swedish ministers are prohibited from interfering in the agencies’ day-to-day activities or decisions. In addition, the Swedish government makes their decisions collectively, and therefore individual ministers are less prone to take responsibility for mishaps or failures. This means that ministers have a greater possibility to push sensitive issues towards the agencies to avoid scrutiny and critique ( Swedish agencies are connected to various actors, interests, and settings, as many agencies have sectoral responsibilities. This gives them a central position, and they face high expectations of being responsible for whole policy areas, which most often include conflicting activities and priorities. These factors increase the possibilities for Swedish agencies to gain attention from media and journalists (
To gain variety in tasks as well as settings, we included managers from 40 government agencies in our selection, representing nine COFOG-divisions (
We included managers from the first and second tier, as this category of managers has a significant influence on defining and formulating how agencies understand themselves, their operations, and preferred means of achieving the multiplicity of their goals and responsibilities. They are also the most likely people to have experiences from media interactions. This gave us an opportunity to ask detailed questions about their understandings of authority, hierarchy, and media (
The use of interviews was motivated by the fact that words and accounts are central to institutions’ construction and maintenance. How actors describe and talk about their work, their organizations, and society is a central source for those who want to capture institutional orders (
The interviews were transcribed into anonymized accounts. First, we used MaxQda 2018 software to identify two types of accounts: 1) those related to media and the agencies’ media- related activities, and 2) those connected to the corporate logic and the agencies’ hierarchical and managerial practices, structures, and values.
Initially, we listed all words included in the corpus and selected words associated with the two accounts using previous studies (see Norms (i.e., who qualifies as a member of the agencies and on what basis; who provides legitimacy to the agencies’ activities; and who has the authority to make decisions) Strategy (i.e., accounts concerning the agencies’ identity and specific strengths in relation to the agencies’ goals, ambitions, preferences, performance, efficiency, and other related concepts) Attention (i.e., how success is understood, what to focus on, how to achieve desirable ends, and how to evaluate the agencies’ activities)
Based on the arguments of Pahnke and her colleagues (2015), we consider these categories as representing a minimum of requirements for an institutional structure to be referred to as logic. After this, we compared the accounts within and between the interviews to address whether they adhere to the definition of a logic (
| Accounts | Media | Corporate |
|---|---|---|
| Rests on texts, images, preferences, values, practices, and working routines that help organizations to become a part of news-producing processes. Journalists, PR- consultants, communication practitioners with specialized practical skills are legitimate actors | Rests on hierarchy and bureaucracy where top management sets rules and norms for efficient firm employees to secure status, resource management, and increase size of the organization. Stakeholders and shareholders are legitimate actors | |
| Messages, Media, News, Communication, Visibility, Dramaturgy, Timing, Editors, Journalists, Newspapers, Radio, TV, Format, Content, Listeners, Readers, Viewers, Press | Order, money, planning, performance, price, problem, process, production, recruitment, results, resource, routine, count, numbers, strategy, structure, governance, follow-up, development, business plan, tools, well-functioning, annual report |
Quotes and examples used in the following section were translated from Swedish to English by one of the authors. The translations are not literal, as we needed to comply with requirements on confidentiality and anonymity.
Accounts of media and management were well represented in the material, and the two were evident aspects of the respondents’ understandings of the agencies, their activities, and decisions, as well as the field.
We begin by describing how our respondents understood media along the three dimensions: norms, strategy, and attention.
Our respondents believed that one must have personal experience working with media and communication to become a valuable employee. General competencies were expected, and the required knowledge was developed by practice rather than formal education. It was also commonly pointed out that the necessary skills varied and were perceived as negotiable. Thus, gaining employment did not automatically require previous engagement with matters of relevance for the respective agency.
Relatedly, the value of media and communication competencies of the people working at the agencies was unclear, even though the agencies commonly expected such competencies, by those involved with communication as well as other members. Media-related competencies, our respondents argued, were difficult to specify, and it was therefore difficult to know whether expected outcomes were met. So, rather than showing results, the attention given to media seemed to be a preference, or as a general director said:
It is part of the mission to have a media role if you are the head of such a large agency … so you have to do it. Then, of course, some people are passionate about it and prioritize it, others see it as a, well, necessary evil in the worst case. Or at least something that one should devote oneself to. But of course, it’s only wrong if you prioritize it so much that other aspects [of being a agency] fall by the wayside. (#52)
People who had media activities as their main responsibility had little internal legitimacy, as others tended to consider them as detached from the agency’s core. Instead, this group searched for legitimacy in other places, for instance, in relation to members with similar responsibilities in other agencies. The acceptance or recognition of media activities was fluid and often based on the expectations of different external audiences.
In general, our respondents expressed uncertainty about how to evaluate media activities. They were perceived as providing a support function not strongly connected to the main responsibility of the agencies. As such, they were difficult to consider legitimate:
We measure PR value … we have news coverage every day of what’s being written about us … to keep us up to date. We have developed support and help for the business [agency’s core personnel] when meeting the media … We are very aware of that [the media]. Then it’s difficult to answer how other people in our organization see it. (#30)
Similar reflections were made when our respondents discussed relations to principals and stakeholders, pointing out that agencies were expected to represent issues for which their principals were responsible and also take part in other agencies’ media activities relatively often. These activities were frequently infused with issue-specific values not necessarily reflecting the responsibilities of all involved. Thus, recognizing the agencies’ core activities as legitimate stood, at times, on relatively fictitious and diffuse grounds – especially when the legitimacy was connected to the agencies’ orientation on media matters.
Internally, the value of media orientation was perceived as subjective and connected to unpredictable assessments. It was an area shrouded in a certain degree of mystification. When our respondents described how they dealt with media-related activities and responsibilities, they described a decentralized, unclear, and diverse set of activities. It was evident that the interviewees’ perception of their agencies’ media work was difficult to grasp:
I find it a bit difficult to evaluate the role played by the media. But you can say in general that in this brand building that the agency is engaged in, the media are perceived as something very important. You [the agency] work more and more with information and communication strategies and visibility in different ways … Then I find it a bit difficult to evaluate, in step two, how it affects my everyday life. Does it make my work more difficult or easier? (#14)
When our respondents discussed who had the right to make decisions regarding media, it was evident that they could be made by various actors within and from outside the agencies, making it difficult for members to clearly see where authority was located and how it was articulated. Those who were assigned to make decisions on media-related issues appeared to be distributed across different departments, units, and functions, resulting in ambiguous authority structures. Such distributed decision-making makes the foundation for authority unstable and even arbitrary. So, even if authority structures were based on explicit expectations, responding to ‘authority’ seemed to be voluntary. The authority structures were distributed and were ‘everywhere and always’ – meaning that media aspects were seen as omnipresent and open for many interpretations.
A central aspect of this omnipresence was that the authority structures seemed ambiguous and infused with what was perceived as journalistic values, while at the same time, they followed shifting public preferences concerning what was acceptable. Deciding what these external authority structures were or what or whom they represented seemed difficult, as these structures appeared both as recurring (circular) and with a certain persistence, as well as event- driven, subjective, and time-limited. The latter characteristics were partly dependent on having different audiences and value systems involved in influencing central decisions and decision-making processes:
The behavior [of the agency] is very much driven by communication outside the agency’s activities … And it’s becoming more and more evident. It’s also a very strong force for forming opinions or views. The media sets the agenda very much for what issues become a part of typical political reforms and, thereby, media aresues become tbe agency’s issues. (#64)
The sense of identity at the agencies mainly connects to external nongovernment actors (mainly media) through such notions as visibility, reach, impact, and agenda-setting. Strategizing identity was based on showing that agencies did the right things by following shifts in public and media reasoning about the agencies’ activities. A director-general commented:
Organizations that work through the media and advocacy become ‘stronger’ [more oriented towards adaption of their identities to various external impulses] in some way in this. I think I have several examples. The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency is one such organization that I think has become much worse. I think it’s being worse, it’s very subjective. I think many authorities are actually becoming less clear and more compliant in the wrong way in this media world. (#62)
Considerable resources were mobilized in media-related identity work; but it was a work that was difficult to connect to any clear, specified outcome. Within the media accounts, the agencies focused on an identity that represented an abstract category containing different things at different times: an identity that represented a variety of goals, such as securing public access to information, secrecy, attention, scrutiny, and status.
Reflecting on what allows the agencies to perform well and with what means, the respondents frequently referred to sensitivity and the ability to adapt. Such sensitivity allowed, for instance, a more flexible connection between media and communication departments and the agencies’ core activities; the ability to be selective about the context in which to be visible and which discussions to be a part of; and the possibility to prioritize different expectations. The agencies considered the outcome of their own operations as something that must be perceived as distinctly different from other agencies or actors occupying the same policy area. Such a strategy was described as having a continuous and flexible connection with different audiences and contexts:
You could say … that we are open to the media, and open in general. And that we have been invited to come to different places … so we spend quite a lot of time and resources on communication and an active communication department and active press service … It’s grateful to be a big agency that is well known. We never have a problem reaching out in different venues if we want to. (#24)
Thus, in the realm of the media accounts, the agencies’ strengths were expressed in terms of responsiveness to issues, questions, or expectations expressed by and through different types of media and other nongovernment actors such as opinion-makers, experts, and industry partners.
Success was described as avoiding failures rather than achieving specific (media-communication) goals. Yet, others considered their agencies’ success in terms of becoming and staying invisible. Especially in a context of external accountability for one’s own actions and decisions, success was equal to sidestepping media scrutiny. However, the approach was contested – both within and between agencies. The contestation was expressed partly by referring to different regulatory frameworks and partly by pointing to the difficulty of navigating the many different media orientations permeating the agencies. Having a clear idea about media success was complicated – both in the contexts in which the goals were originally formulated, as well as among communication professionals and managers:
So in terms of time, this year I have spent a lot of time on internal work. Far too little on external contacts and the media, I would say … And especially if I compare my time at [name of agency] where the media was a very large part. I hope to be able to turn that around, because I would like to spend more time, perhaps not on media, but on communication. And that is my message to the Head of Communications, so that he knows that I want to do that. So, we’re trying to think much more strategically about how to get out there [to the media]. (#54)
Consequently, the agencies saw the nature of success as continuously redefined. This was also evident not least from the agencies’ limited interest in documenting and formally evaluating their media activities. The interviews often revealed that as the values and priorities of the media were both hard to predict and subjective, it was difficult to find common ground for deciding whether the activities could be considered successful.
In the same manner as with the media accounts, we looked for accounts connected to the corporate logic as our respondents understood it.
The corporate accounts contained specific skills and competence that employees working within areas as management, accounting, and law should possess, and competence connected to specific tasks and practical experiences based on formal and documented training was central. Professionals whose expertise allowed mutual coordination with other professions within the agencies were prioritized. Furthermore, presumptive members were expected to have acquired verifiable skills that were relevant to predefined requirements. A second-tier manager described the profile of the people that work in her department:
[We are] … business developers, analysts, and then I have a bunch of controllers, who are either business controllers or financial controllers. Then I have [people in] the quality area as well. These are also a form of controllers. And then there are some little bit loose ones – i.e., those [who work with] processing cases and disclosing information. Those have legal expertise and are linked to the regional manager. (#54)
In addition, it was also required from members that they understood how government agencies worked as an organization in terms of delivering on their goals and expected results. This required high levels of formal education, but new organizational members were also expected to learn on-site, which required extensive socialization.
The agencies were considered to receive recognition and legitimacy through formalized and standardized professional performance evaluations, and cooperation with stakeholders was understood as creating complexity and thereby downplaying the need for uniqueness. Responsibility and autonomy were connected to formal structures and goals and within the resources and framework that the government set. What was defined as important and relevant was based in formal structures and policies. Thus, perceiving different parts of the agencies and their activities as legitimate included compliance with predefined performance standards, norms, and measurements that other parts and professions recognize. The typical description of this includes dictating clear, explicit, and hierarchical priorities and ‘autonomy under responsibility’.
Our interviewees stressed clarity in identifying the appropriate course of action, which other actors to consider, and to whom to relate. Even if internal legitimacy was recognized as the most important, other actors were mentioned, including the government and instances for control and evaluation, as well as professional associations, research institutes, and consultants.
Who decides on different matters (and on what basis) was considered relatively easy to predict, and it provided stability. The respondents argued that the authority structures were recognized throughout the agencies, especially in relation to economic and technical issues, such as financial flows and the production of services.
Another salient feature of the authority structures was their strong connection to what was understood as tangible and real. Even when the accounts referred to somewhat abstract ideals, they seemed to be recognizable within and across the agencies. Personified by senior representatives, the authority structures represented specific norms, policies, and laws that were easily identifiable, accessible, and interpretable in relation to the agencies’ internal goals and priorities. As such, they could be delegated and validated in different parts of the agencies and at a more aggregated level.
In terms of identity, the respondents pointed out that their own agencies primarily align with other agencies, describing features such as functionality, cost-effectiveness, and performance. Characteristics distinguishing agencies from each other were not necessary nor explicitly expected. Identity was rather based on widely accepted properties and qualities that were resilient over time. A director-general commented on his agency’s autonomy to shape the nature of its responsibilities:
The more structured, and the larger these structures become and the more intertwined they are with other activities, the less leeway and space there is to let personal experiences and views shape the work [and identity of the agency]. (#63)
The agencies were recognized as embedded in larger governing structures that emphasized efficiency. Even if the agencies were individually evaluated in relation to what they were set to perform, the identity issues were described as taking place within a broader governing regime.
Accordingly, the agencies’ identities within the corporate accounts were described as rational and linked to the identities of other agencies. They were also non-negotiable and relatively stable over time. There was relatively little space for a re-evaluation and re-definition of an agency’s purpose, internal organization, procedures, and practices.
Defining core qualities and competencies was related to planning and execution. The agencies were described as being confined by the generally accepted operational framework:
We set up a whole new division of operations and financial management. And then we’ve invested a lot in the HR side, so we’ve also now actually developed our own performance management system … It’s a bit different from how many government agencies work. But I think it’s definitely within the framework of how a government agency [as an effective organization] should work. (#55)
Another aspect of the corporate accounts related to breaking down and specifying (in detail) goals and tasks. This, in turn, presupposed that the goals were widely accepted and agreed upon. However, strength also related to an agency’s connection to other agencies’ efforts and work. To be capable of delivering on one’s own goals, the agencies’ must be involved in collective and collaborative relationships and structures.
The respondents were in agreement on the importance of smooth, predictable, and efficient execution of the agencies’ internal goals to reach success – mostly within a context of being a part of the public sector and its governing structures. To succeed was to achieve goals that reflected what an agency’s constituencies considered an expected outcome, which limited the agencies’ room to avoid or redefine what to do and how. Even if individual departments of an agency had their own goals and were internally evaluated in relation to these goals, success rested on structured and formal assessment, where standardized processes and routines were expected to reflect the agency’s aggregated responsibilities. The quantitative focus of the evaluation and evading subjective parameters, such as feelings, estimations, and hunches, also strengthen the clarity of assessment. What the agencies’ personnel consider to be the core of their attention was thereby closely connected to tangible goals, professional norms, standardized administrative procedures, and other measurables.
Media were important when managers described, explained, and reflected on their agencies and operations, and media-related issues received much attention. Dealing with media was regarded as a natural phenomenon, with the active incorporation of media into decision-making and planning was deemed inevitable. More specifically, the media accounts included general preferences and values, and were related to common practices. Managers understood media as linked to a particular set of norms, values, and preconceived assumptions that went beyond the discretion of the individual manager and agency. These norms, values, and assumptions specified the forms, activities, and procedures an agency should adopt in order to appear as a member-in-good-standing of its class (cf.
However, specific aspects of the media accounts need to be addressed before we can assess the institutional status of these accounts. First, our material was filled with remarks on the agencies’ media activities as a clearly inescapable yet contested practice – a practice that had low internal legitimacy and that received relatively weak support from several professions occupying the agencies (
More generally, the managers’ understandings of media appeared fragmented and vague, because the managers had difficulties addressing media within a coherent referential framework – not least in terms of how agencies should use, evaluate, legitimize, staff, and relate their media activities and practices vis-à-vis the rest of their operations. For example, the managers in our study demonstrated difficulties in explaining how and why values connected to journalistic preferences (
The unclear and ambiguous institutional underpinning of the media accounts becomes even more apparent when we systematically compare these accounts with the managers’ understandings of their agencies’ hierarchical and managerial practices, structures, and values. Even though both types of accounts bear witness to institutionalized characteristics, they differ significantly regarding integration, internal coherence, and persistency (
| Dimension | Attributes | Media accounts | Corporate accounts |
|---|---|---|---|
| Membership criteria | Less clear qualification and criteria for evaluation. Semi-profession. | Clear qualification and criteria for evaluation. Specific skills. Formal profession. | |
| Legitimacy | Variation in who legitimized and on what basis. Subjective and event-driven. Low degree of standardization. Variation between contexts. | Predictable who legitimized and on what basis. Objective and continuous. Standardized. Comparable between contexts. | |
| Authority structure | Based in fantasy and loose structures (cognition). Difficult to recognizable and access. Can’t be delegated. Informal and vertical. | Based in reality. Based in fixed structures (law, strong norms). Accessible. Recognizable. Can be delegated. Formal and hierarchical. Easily identifiable. | |
| Identity | Distinct and discrete. Unique. Floating and disconnected from others. Departing from informal requirements. Negotiable. | Not distinctive. Comparable. Embedded and inter-connected. Based in formal requirements/assignments. Not negotiable. | |
| Strengths | Avoiding comparison and evaluation over time. Flexible connection to core activities. Selective and adjustable. | Performing individually as a part of a collective in relation to ideal type. Substantial performance. Accountable. | |
| Success | Less focus on standardized, shared practices, structures and values according to predefined standards/criteria. External validation by multiplicity of constituencies. Unclear what success is. | Following standardized, shared practices, structures and values according to predefined standards/criteria. Skills constantly mobilized and structured to be measured and evaluated both by central internal and external constituencies. | |
| Prioritized assets | On subjective, temporal objectives. Success is dependent flexibility and shaping external perceptions. Opportunities. Here and now. | On formal objectives. Success is dependent on following instructions not to modify them. Long-term. Essence over own organization. |
Using the basis of norms, strategy, and attention to assess the characteristics of the two types of accounts left us with an understanding of the media accounts as rather fuzzy and ambiguous, not only within individual agencies but also at an aggregate level. Instead of a coherent referential framework, our respondents connected media and the agencies’ media activities to different institutional contexts where they were given different meanings. For instance, by connecting the media accounts to the political sphere, the managers emphasized media in terms of news, news production, and public debate; elsewhere shifted their focus to branding and positioning; and by referring to agencies’ embeddedness in bureaucratic structures, stressed the importance of media in the context of public information and openness. Thereby, media accounts were linked to a vast range of concepts, aims, forms, contents, and patterns of communication (
In contrast, accounts capturing the managers’ ideas about management, hierarchy, and authority resonated well with the corporate logic – characteristics broadly accepted and described both in general writings on logics (
Our study provides empirical support for refuting the omnipotent existence of a clear and consistent media logic. More specifically, our findings reveal that public managers understand and rationalize media in a manner that makes it challenging to provide clear-cut answers to what media means for their organizations. The qualities associated with media are evidently different from the ones that are commonly taken for granted among scholars, and accordingly, we need another understanding of media, both of their specific and institutional form and of how they are manifested in public organizations. Compared with the coherent referential system that seems to encompass the corporate logic – also with its roots in another context – the understandings of media and media-oriented activities appear as far more contextual, contingent, and driven by individual events. Therefore, media are generally more open for interpretation, local adaptations, and contextualization than would be suggested by the media logic rationale (
In a broader sense, our study contributes to a further understanding of what it means for public organizations to handle increased uncertainty. The institutional structures surrounding public organizations are primarily treated as complex and conflicting but still relatively open for strategic responses. Our study points in another direction. The way managers understand and respond to institutional pressures, such as those associated with media, are, to a much greater extent, characterized not only by uncertainty linked to a lack of necessary knowledge about what constitutes the underlying qualities of the institutional structures at hand; but also by ambiguity about what meanings to mobilize and follow when these structures are to be introduced into and acted upon in specific organizational contexts (cf.
The project was funded by The Swedish Research Council, grant number 2014-01507.
No conflicts of interest.