Media dependent regulators: Media\u27s reported impact in the regulatory environment and related implications for agency practices and policymaking

This study investigates the previously unexplored role of media in the regulatory environment, and describes their integral role here. I demonstrate that in their representation of both objective facts and symbolic elements, media essentially create an image of the world, highlighting the salient aspects of the operative, political reality to which agency officials must respond, and so have a noticeable impact upon regulatory practices and policymaking, However, given that inundated agencies don\u27t have unlimited resources to seek out every possible problem in society, and because media are ‘imperfect guardians’ of the democratic process, regulators\u27 structural dependence upon the media ultimately may undermine their ability to recognize the needs of some overlooked constituencies and to address ‘real world’ concerns, thus potentially compromising the general public\u27s interest in subtle but significant ways. Using a qualitative questionnaire, taped interviews with fifty-one federal regulatory Clinton era officials (across seven independent regulatory agencies) were completed. I found that media are a pervasive lens through which regulators view their constituents, their work, and themselves as public agencies, and while different officials may use either an attributional or inferential strategy of interpretation, an agency\u27s response is not just a simple aggregate of the individual, idiosyncratic responses of its staff but is a set of unique, meaningful, patterned interactions relating to regulatory roles, processes and results. Indeed, I observed that federal regulators tend to be sophisticated consumers and creators of media, and often respond to media not because they necessarily believe what they see reported, but rather because they believe that other people will be influenced by and somehow act upon information conveyed, a “third person effect” dynamic. Reported effects in this capacity include media\u27s power to affect staff morale, deter illegal activities, redirect agenda priorities, and impact officials\u27 success in securing vital organizational resources