WHOS AFRAID OF INFOTAINMENT

Many authors in Europe and the USA claim that commercialization and co mpetition in broadcasting lead to a downgrading of political informati on and, even worse, to a crisis in political communication highlighted by the increasing reliance of television news media on entertainment formats. The justification for this 'infotainment scare' is put to the test by an overview of research on politics in television news in a n umber of(Northern) European countries, a first-hand research project o n the campaign communications in the 1994 elections in the Netherlands , and a discussion of the implicit and explicit assumptions the scare is based on.