PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

This article deals with the distinction between the production and the presentation of political decisions. which is a basic distinction in the field of political communication. It reconstructs the role of this distinction in the process of political communication. Assuming differentiated specialized communication in the political system and in the media system, the asymmetrical distinction between production and presentation appears to be a useful formula for the self-description of the political system. On the one hand, it emphasizes the dependence of the political system on public opinion; on the other hand, it plays down this dependence compared to real" political decision-making. At the same time, the distinction between production and presentation is operative in every political communication. without any prior precedence of the one side of the distinction over the other. This is especially relevant with regard to the relation between the center and the periphery of the political system. We have chosen the public discussion on the war against Iraq in 2003 to illustrate both aspects of the distinction.