Media Framing and Public Attitudes Toward Biofuels

This study investigates the relationship between media framing and public opinion on the issue of biofuels—transportation fuels made from plants, animal products, or organic waste. First, the paper investigates how media framing of biofuels has changed since the issue regained national prominence in the early 2000s. Through a detailed content analysis of newspaper coverage, the paper documents an increase in negative frames between 1999 and 2008, especially frames focusing on the negative economic effects of biofuels on consumers. Second, using data from a 2010 Internet survey of a random sample of the U.S. public, the paper analyzes the relative influence of these new media frames on public attitudes toward biofuels compared with other common predictors of public opinion, such as party ID, regional economic interests, and personal identity as an environmentalist. In general, the results confirm that public attitudes toward biofuels appear to be shaped by these new media frames, especially among those who indicate a high degree of attention to the media, suggesting the relative importance of framing effects on policy attitudes for environmental and energy policies in general.     

Interest groups in the media: Bias and diversity over time

A prominent presence in the news media is important for interest groups. This article investigates the development in the diversity of interest group media attention over time. The analysis draws on a dataset of 19,000 group appearances in the Danish news media in the period 1984–2003. It demonstrates how diversity has risen continually over time, leading to a media agenda less dominated by labour and business and more by public interest groups and sectional groups. This development is related to the increasing political importance of the news media and the decline in group integration in public decision‐making processes. The article also shows how the development of group appearances is closely related to changes in media attention towards different policy areas.     

Public opinion for sale: The role of policy marketers in Greater Yellowstone policy conflict

This article develops a macro-level theory of framing to explain the intractable or ‘icked’ nature of environmental policy. Using conflict in the Greater Yellowstone Area (GYA) as a case study, we review how proposed solutions – technical, scientific, and economic – and cultural issues often lead to inadequate policy solutions. We then propose that interest groups, the media, and elected officials do not act solely as linkage mechanisms, but, rather, as policy marketers who market public opinion to citizens. The macro-level trends of a marketing culture in tandem with the rise of consumerism are explored in the context of GYA politics. Finally, we describe how our proposed macro-level theory of framing points to a rich research agenda for empirically testing questions about issue framing, policy marketers, and public opinion formation in environmental policy conflict.     

Balancing constituency and congruence: How constituency involvement affects positional congruence between organized interests and the general public

This article asks to what extent and under which conditions interest groups are congruent with public opinion. We argue that interest groups can be caught in a balancing act between engaging with their constituency on the one hand and aligning their position with the broader public on the other hand. We contribute to previous studies by arguing that the effect of interest group type on congruence is moderated by the degree to which constituencies are involved in advocacy processes and the salience of policy issues. We test these expectations by analyzing 314 media claims made by Belgian interest groups regarding 58 policy issues. The results demonstrate that citizen groups with formal members are more prone to share the position of the broader public compared to concentrated interest groups such as business associations, especially if they involve their members in advocacy activities and when issues are salient in the media.     

Assessing JPAM after 20 Years

JPAM aims to be the principal research journal for public policy scholars. A citation analysis of JPAM and competitor journals for the period 1986–1995 shows that JPAM's most frequently cited articles are cited more often than those of other broad policy journals, about as often as those in journals on specific policy areas, except for health policy, and less often than principally methodological journals. JPAM does meet its goal of serving as an outlet primarily for public policy scholars and it covers a wide range of policy topics. A survey of subscribers shows correspondingly broad interests and that members rated the journal among their most valued. However, few articles are frequently cited, very few of the citations appear in major journals, and the range of disciplines represented is narrow. Some suggestions are offered for strengthening the journal. © 2002 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Representation and Collaboration: Exploring the Role of Shared Identity in the Collaborative Process

Public managers must regularly engage and interact with stakeholders in the external environment to deliver meaningful policy outcomes. Examining the motivations behind such behavior is a critical component of understanding management in the modern era. Some studies suggest that actors with similar interests are more likely to form collaborative partnerships. Using an original mail survey of 150 American Indian education directors in public school districts, this article examines how shared identity and individual attitudes affect levels of interaction with Native American communities. Findings suggest that public school officials who share both a racial and a tribal/co‐ethnic identity with Native American nations in their service area have higher levels of interaction with these groups than public school officials who are either members of Native American nations outside their service area or non‐Indian. This research has broad implications for incorporating theories of representation and social construction into our understanding of collaboration.     

Representation beyond people: Lobbying access of umbrella associations to legislatures and the media

Lobbying access to policy discussions determines how political interests are voiced and potentially exert influence. This article addresses whether access to the national legislature and the media favors umbrella organizations, which represent interests of their member groups. It theorizes that the role of umbrellas goes beyond signaling a large individual membership or constituency of people, but that umbrellas are distinct in transmitting interests from other organizations. This function is expected to be valuable in exchanges with legislators who seek efficiency, input legitimacy, and policy implementation, but less valuable in the media arena. Using a new data set on lobbying by 286 groups on 12 issues in the United Kingdom and Germany, the article serves support for this theory: Umbrellas enjoy higher legislative access, but lower media access than groups without member organizations, irrespective of their individual membership or claimed constituency. The findings have implications for how we understand and study political representation.     

Organised interests in the media and policy congruence: The contingent impact of the status quo

While a multitude of studies have investigated the link between opinion and policy, we have little knowledge of how and when organised interests affect this linkage. We argue that the alignment of organised interests affects opinion–policy congruence by influencing the weight decision-makers attach to citizen preferences. Moreover, we propose that alignment between majorities of groups and the public matters the most when status quo bias must be overcome for the public to obtain its preferred policy. We test our theoretical claims drawing on a comprehensive media content analysis of 160 policy issues in Germany and Denmark. Our results present a more sceptical picture of the ability of groups to suppress the opinion–policy linkage than the one frequently presented in the academic literature and public debate. We find that the capacity of groups to affect whether policy is congruent with the majority of the public is restricted to situations where the public supports a change in the status quo. In these cases, policy is less likely to end up reflecting public opinion if the majority of interest groups do not support the public position. In cases where the public is supportive of the policy status quo, the position of interest groups does not affect the likelihood that policy will eventually reflect the preferred position of the public. Our findings expand existing knowledge of organised interests in the study of policy representation and have important implications for understanding democratic governance.     

The Effects of Congruence in Policy Priorities on Satisfaction with Democracy

There is widespread agreement that better policy representation increases citizens’ satisfaction with democracy. Previous research on this topic has generally focused on ideological congruence between citizens and representatives. In this article, it is argued that public–elite agreement on policy priorities is another essential aspect of policy representation, but has been largely overlooked in this context. Citizens whose issue concerns are higher on elites’ agendas should be more satisfied with the functioning of democracy. This hypothesis is tested by linking voter survey data to candidate survey and news media content data from the 2009 German Longitudinal Election Study. The results show that citizens whose issue concerns are salient amongst party candidates and in the media campaign coverage are indeed more satisfied with democracy in their country. This effect exists not only for congruence with the party for which individuals voted, but also for agreement with the other parties.     

It's (Change in) the (Future) Economy,Stupid: Economic Indicators,the Media,and Public Opinion

Economic perceptions affect policy preferences and government support. It thus matters that these perceptions are driven by factors other than the economy, including media coverage. We nevertheless know little about how media reflect economic trends, and whether they influence (or are influenced by) public economic perceptions. This article explores the economy, media, and public opinion, focusing in particular on whether media coverage and the public react to changes in or levels of economic activity, and the past, present, or future economy. Analyses rely on content‐analytic data drawn from 30,000 news stories over 30 years in the United States. Results indicate that coverage reflects change in the future economy, and that this both influences and is influenced by public evaluations. These patterns make more understandable the somewhat surprising finding of positive coverage and public assessments in the midst of the Great Recession. They also may help explain previous findings in political behavior.     

Making Austerity Popular: The Media and Mass Attitudes toward Fiscal Policy

What explains variation in individual attitudes toward government deficits? Although macroeconomic stance is of paramount importance for contemporary governments, our understanding of its popular politics is limited. We argue that popular attitudes regarding austerity are influenced by media (and wider elite) framing. Information necessary to form preferences on the deficit is not provided neutrally, and its provision shapes how voters understand their interests. A wide range of evidence from Britain between 2010 and 2015 supports this claim. In the British Election Study, deficit attitudes vary systematically with the source of news consumption, even controlling for party identification. A structural topic model of two major newspapers' reporting shows that content varies systematically with respect to coverage of public borrowing—in ways that intuitively accord with the attitudes of their readership. Finally, a survey experiment suggests causation from media to attitudes: deficit preferences change based on the presentation of deficit information.     

The survival of interest groups: evidence from Germany

Abstract

Interest groups are important intermediary organisations that function as a transmission belt between societal interests and political decision-makers. However, while some interest groups survive over decades, others only last a few years. This article argues that the survival of interest groups depends on their ability to mobilise resources which is crucially affected by interest group type and the public salience of an interest group’s policy domain. The theoretical expectations are tested based on a novel dataset mapping the survival of 1699 interest groups registered at the German Bundestag between 1974 and 2012. Using event history analysis, it is shown that interest group type and public salience indeed affect whether interest groups survive. Sectional groups last significantly longer than cause groups, and interest group survival increases with the public salience of their policy area. The results have major implications for our understanding of interest groups and political representation in contemporary democracies.     

National Parliamentary Control of European Union Affairs: A Cross-national and Longitudinal Comparison

The article tests the argument that group–membership relations vary between public interest groups and other types of groups. While public interest groups draw their members from diffuse constituencies supporting the causes of the groups, sectional groups exhibit a closer correspondence between the interests advanced and the members recruited. According to the literature, differences can therefore be expected both in the patterns of membership recruitment and in the degree of membership influence in groups. The analysis draws on a survey of all national interest groups in Denmark. It demonstrates that public interest groups differ from other groups in their patterns of membership recruitment. However, it finds no tendency for public interest groups to be either less or more democratic than the average group.     

The influence of business associations on legislation: The case of Kenya

Interest groups seek to influence public policy. Business associations specifically seek to influence policy related to the environment in which their members operate, with the intention of making it easier for the members, and the wider private sector, to “do business.” Scholars question whether interest groups are influential and, if so, the degree to which their activity influences public policy. Even if they do influence public policy at the margins, it is questionable how effective they are in influencing legislation. As a result, there is little exploration of the factors that may determine whether business membership organizations (BMOs) are likely to be successful. This paper explores the efforts of two BMOs in Kenya to influence legislation: In one case, the BMO persuaded the government to introduce legislation to regulate an activity that had previously not been subject to legislation; in the other, a BMO sought to persuade the government to amend its own proposals to replace existing legislation with new legislation. In both cases, we find evidence that the BMO was successful, though one BMO was significantly more successful than the other. We review the factors perceived by the BMOs to have led to their success. Neither was in a position to rely on economic or other power to strong‐arm the government. Both followed a predominantly insider strategy though with occasional media back‐up. Both were successful on the more “technical” issues. Key factors include the use of a champion, engaging across government, supplying information, and providing evidence and good argumentation.     

Interest Group Access to the Bureaucracy,Parliament, and the Media

A key issue for interest groups and policymakers is the ways through which organized interests voice their interests and influence public policy. This article combines two perspectives on interest group representation to explain patterns of interest group access to different political arenas. From a resource exchange perspective, it argues that access to different political arenas is discrete as it is determined by the match between the supply and demands of interest groups and gatekeepers—politicians, bureaucrats, and reporters. From a partly competing perspective, it is argued that access is cumulative and converges around wealthy and professionalized groups. Based on a large‐scale investigation of group presence in Danish political arenas, the analyses show a pattern of privileged pluralism. This describes a system where multiple political arenas provide opportunities for multiple interests but where unequally distributed resources produce cumulative effects (i.e., the same groups have high levels of arena access).     

The effect of being conflict non-avoidant: linking conflict framing and political participation

Abstract

The news media’s ability to mobilise citizens to participate politically by emphasising elite conflict in politics is not well understood. This article argues that citizens may gain knowledge when exposed to conflict news framing. It further theorises that whether they translate their knowledge into political participation is conditioned by their orientation towards conflict. Individuals who avoid conflict participate less frequently than individuals who do not. The proposed moderated mediation process was tested using a content analysis of news media coverage and a three-wave panel survey (n?=?2,061). Results show that the effect of exposure to conflict news framing on (changes in) political participation is positively mediated by knowledge. This mediation effect is moderated by conflict avoidance, where the effect is more positive among conflict non-avoiders than conflict avoiders. This study shows that understanding the news media’s mobilising effect on political participation requires attention to both news content and individual motivational factors.     

A Political-Institutional Framework for the Analysis of Competition Policy Institutions

The article presents an eight-point analytical framework for the examination of key political-institutional aspects of the functioning of national competition policy institutions. These are assessed against the competition policy regimes of the EC, UK, Germany, and, to a lesser extent, the US. Each element represents an aspect or institutional arena in which there is potential andlor actual room for the exercise of political influence and power in an increasingly important realm of micro-economic governance. Such political arenas and channels are woven in and around a set of competition authorities in each county or jurisdiction otherwise primarily attempting to apply economic analysis to numerous specific case decisions. The eight elements of the framework are: 1) the use of explicit non-competition criteria that can be taken into account by competition authorities; 2) ranges of, and opportunities for, ministerial discretion; 3) intra-cabinet and intra-govern-mental pressures from other ministers and departments and their political clientele interests; 4) direct hearings or avenues for direct representation and pressure by interests; 5) opportunities for private legal action; 6) processes for giving comfort or guidance letters to private parties; 7) vehicles for pressure and political learning through studies, media exposure, and public persuasion; and 8) the extent to which “one-stop” versus multi-sector competition institutions exist and can be played off one another.     

Framing Contests and Policy Conflicts over Gas Pipelines

This paper compares and contrasts high‐conflict policy debates over the siting of three natural gas pipeline projects at different decision stages of the siting process. This paper draws on over 600 newspaper articles spanning 3 years, analyzed through Discourse Network Analysis. Drawing from the Advocacy Coalition Framework and Policy Conflict framework, this paper finds that actor framing of opposing policy beliefs involves more indirect than direct confrontations, with statements in the media waxing and waning over time. Opponents of the pipelines more often explicitly argue against pipelines, while also using a broad range of conceptual arguments, whereas proponents more often couch their arguments around the economic benefits of pipelines and use fewer conceptual frames overall. We also find evidence that opposing coalitions use similar framing across different decision contexts. This paper concludes with a commentary on the status and contributions of this paper to the study of policy conflicts and next steps in advancing similar research agendas.