Abstract

This article makes an empirically based contribution to the general debate on the mediatization of politics by looking at the Finnish policy networks as a particular context in which the general processes of mediatization are recognized and where the influences of mediatization are negotiated. Drawing on a qualitative interview sample of 60 elite decision-makers and an elite survey, three themes related to mediatization are highlighted: the role of trust in policy networks, the dynamics of the mutual professionalization of media and politics, and the differentiation of network rationality and media rationality. These findings are at the same time evidence of a general process of mediatization and of how local conditions shape that process.