The Mediatization of Public Administration: A Scoping Review

Abstract

This article presents an exploratory study of the concept of political mediatization. Using the scoping review method, we survey academic writings on this subfield of political communication. This research aims to highlight the dominant topics covered in the literature on the mediatization of politics, identify gaps in research, and provide a better understanding of how studies on mediatization align within the broader literature on political communication. With this systematic approach, we aim to better conceptualize the mediatization of public administration by identifying consensus on the concept in the existing literature. The scoping review process indicates that: (1) Studies analyzing mediatization focus on political actors and institutions, and the junction between political mediatization and public administration is rarely studied; (2) Approaches used to study the mediatization of politics are mostly qualitative; (3) The mediatization of public administration has only been analyzed quantitatively in European contexts, and; (4) Indicators used to measure the degree of mediatization in public administration differ widely between studies.