The Effects of Human Interest and Conflict News Frames on the Dynamics of Political Knowledge Gains: Evidence from a Cross‐national Study

A well‐functioning democracy needs the news media to provide information to its citizens. It is therefore essential to understand what kinds of news contents contribute to gains in citizens' political knowledge and for whom this takes place. Extant research is divergent on this matter, especially with respect to ‘softer’ news coverage. This cross‐national study investigates the effects of exposure to human interest and conflict frames in the news on political knowledge. Drawing on panel surveys and media content analyses in three countries, the study shows how these two frames contribute positively to political knowledge gain. This relationship is moderated by political interest so that those who are least interested learn the most from this type of easily accessible news coverage. The results are discussed in the light of research on news media and knowledge acquisition.     

Birth and Death(?) of the Anti-Fracking Movement: Inferences from Quantity of Coverage Theory

Public opposition to fracking is one of numerous movements expressing concern about health or environmental risks of a (usually) new technology. These have at their core an esoteric dispute between technical experts, but laypeople also become actively involved, usually as volunteers. They may live close to pertinent sites, motivated by fears for their families and property, or they may be people living farther away, attracted to the opposition for ideological reasons. (Opposition to fracking is a politically liberal position.) Activism is increasingly motivated when the issue is “hot” and diminishes when it cools down. According to Quantity of Coverage Theory (QCT), the “hotness” of an issue – therefore the degree of activism -- largely depends on its presence in the mass media. The American anti-fracking movement arose fairly quickly around 2010–11. News coverage peaked during 2012–14 and is now diminishing. Similar peaks and declines are observed in British and German news media, consistent with the power of central American media to influence news coverage in other industrial nations. Inferentially, from declining news coverage, the anti-fracking movement is waning, perhaps dying. Lacking direct measures of activism, QCT provides a lens through which to see the rise and fall of the movement.     

Refugees: The security dimension

In the 1990s doors have been closing in the Western world against refugee claimants. Although there are multiple causes for declining generosity towards refugees, arguments that refugees pose security problems to host nations have been particularly prominent. An historical analysis reveals that the so‐called ‘golden age’ of postwar refugee settlement from the 1940s to the mid‐1970s was a by‐product of Cold War security and propaganda considerations. The end of the Cold War and the pressures of refugee movements generated by Third World and former Communist bloc conflicts has restructured Western refugee discourse. Refugees now tend to be seen as importers of external political conflicts into the West. At the same time growing European and North American resentment of ‘foreigners’ competing for declining job opportunities and reduced social services have encouraged anti‐immigrant political movements. By tightening barriers and controls over refugees on security grounds, Western governments are able to respond in part to these pressures. The Cold War policing and security alliance in Europe has been retooled to form the basis of a new post‐Cold War cooperation over immigration and refugee security, without the necessity of creating a new framework of supranational institutions.     

‘New managerialism’ in the news: media coverage of quangos in Britain

This paper presents findings from the first systematic appraisal of mainstream news reporting of the appointive government in Britain. Such a perspective is urgently needed in the light of the expanded role and influence of ‘Quasi‐Autonomous Non Governmental Organisations’ in public affairs. This paper provides an overview of long‐term trends in media reporting of general principles of quasi‐government and an examination of the routine coverage of public bodies that can be classified as quangos. These related exercises show that the ‘new managerialist’ ethos that fuelled the recent expansion of the appointive state finds little endorsement in general media discourses about the quango state, but is often implicitly reflected in journalists' treatment of specific organisations and their work. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

Across time and space: Explaining variation in news coverage of the European Union

News about the European Union (EU) looks different in different countries at different points in time. This study investigates explanations for cross‐national and over‐time variation in news media coverage of EU affairs drawing on large‐scale media content analyses of newspapers and television news in the EU‐15 (1999), EU‐25 (2004) and EU‐27 (2009) in relation to European Parliament (EP) elections. The analyses focus in particular on explanatory factors pertaining to media characteristics and the political elites. Results show that national elites play an important role for the coverage of EU matters during EP election campaigns. The more strongly national parties are divided about the EU in combination with overall more negative positions towards the EU, the more visible the news. Also, increases in EU news visibility from one election to the next and the Europeanness of the news are determined by a country's elite positions. The findings are discussed in light of the EU's alleged communication deficit.     

Party Identification,Issue Attitudes,and the Dynamics of Political Debate

This article investigates whether media coverage of elite debate surrounding an issue moderates the relationship between individual‐level partisan identities and issue preferences. We posit that when the news media cover debate among partisan elites on a given issue, citizens update their party identities and issue attitudes. We test this proposition for a quartet of prominent issues debated during the first Clinton term: health care reform, welfare reform, gay rights, and affirmative action. Drawing on data from the Vanderbilt Television News Archives and the 1992‐93‐94‐96 NES panel, we demonstrate that when partisan debate on an important issue receives extensive media coverage, partisanship systematically affects—and is affected by—issue attitudes. When the issue is not being contested, dynamic updating between party ties and issue attitudes ceases.     

The Iraq Coalition of the Willing and (Politically) Able: Party Systems,the Press,and Public Influence on Foreign Policy

Media outlets in multiparty electoral systems tend to report on a wider range of policy issues than media in two‐party systems. They thus make more competing policy frames available to citizens. This suggests that a “free press” is insufficient to hold governments accountable. Rather, we should observe more challenges to the governments’ preferred frames and more politically aware citizens in multiparty democracies. Such citizens should thus be better equipped to hold their leaders accountable, relative to their counterparts in two‐party democracies. I propose a mechanism through which democratic publics can sometimes constrain their leaders in foreign policy. I test hypotheses derived from my theory with cross‐national data on the content of news coverage of Iraq, on public support for the war, and on decisions to contribute troops to the Iraq “Coalition of the Willing.” I find that citizens in countries with larger numbers of parties confronted more critical and diverse coverage of Iraq, while those with more widespread access to mass media were more likely to oppose the war and their nations likely to contribute fewer troops to the Coalition.     

Stirring up apathy? Political disengagement and the media in the 2003 Welsh Assembly elections

This paper examines the media coverage of the 2003 Welsh Assembly elections in the context of the wider academic debate about the media's relationship with political engagement. It draws on evidence to suggest a potentially positive relationship between media use and voting, before arguing that this relationship was limited in Wales in 2003, due both to the limited penetration of the Welsh media in Wales and the election's low prominence in this media. It then examines the way in which ‘the apathy story’ dominated media coverage. Such an emphasis wrongly equated apathy with discontent with the devolution process in Wales, and dominated the issues which the public were represented as discussing, while space was rarely given to their views on policy issues. Bad news about electoral disengagement was much more likely to be emphasised than good news, while emphasis on public ‘apathy’ offered a typically negative simplification of political attitudes among the electorally disengaged. Copyright © 2004 Henry Stewart Publications     

Does Public Broadcasting Make a Difference? Political Knowledge and Electoral Campaigns on Television

The political role of the modern media and the impact on public opinion has come under intense scrutiny. The arguments in the scientific dispute have been structured under the optimistic ‘cognitive mobilisation’ and pessimistic ‘media malaise’ banners. For obvious reasons the role of television has been most intensely discussed. TV has the widest reach and is believed to have to the strongest impact. So far, much of the exchange of arguments has been based on data from the United States. In many European countries, public broadcasting is far more prominent than in the United States, and one can argue that the ideals underlying public broadcasting have put their mark on the TV industry in many European countries. Norway is such a case. The interesting question is, of course, whether this matters. Does public broadcasting foster a ‘virtuous circle’ of increased political competence, whereas commercial TV creates ‘media malaise’? Data from the Norwegian 1997–2001 election survey panel is used in this study to overcome the main methodological problem in the many studies based on cross‐sectional data: the question of causality. Too often researchers have based their inferences about the link between media exposure and political knowledge on cross‐sectional correlations. The empirical results do little to support the optimistic view of TV as the great political educator. On the contrary, neither exposure to the state‐owned public broadcasting NRK nor the commercial TV2 help to increase the general level of political knowledge. However, NRK seems to be the preferred channel among the politically well‐informed.     

Media News Evaluation and Welfare Retrenchment: The Untransparent Cutbacks of the Housing Allowance

Radical welfare cutbacks normally only occur if there is obfuscation and citizens do not notice the changes. However, the media can potentially make untransparent events known and understandable to citizens. The role of the media in welfare retrenchment has not been sufficiently theorised or studied. This article attempts to partly remedy this. Research on media's news evaluation has not been in vogue lately. The literature largely has an anecdotal or atheoretical character. Here two dimensions are identified that underlay many of the news factors on the existing checklists: form and substance. Contrary to most existing research, this article focuses on an important political topic that has not had media coverage. Such a bias is a democratic problem per se. Social policy cutbacks offer an indicator upon which one can argue that there is a mismatch between the importance of an event and the media coverage it has received. The case studies of media coverage of cutbacks discussed in this article show that the media did not expose governmental blame‐avoiding behaviour, but there is evidence that media's news evaluation gave priority to transparent events whether they were important or not. Almost nothing was written on the untransparent cutbacks of the housing allowances, but the media covered the relatively insignificant, but very transparent, repayment of the housing allowance very much. Interviews with a number of important journalists regarding their news evaluation of these events substantiate the importance of transparency for press coverage. The implication is that obfuscation of cutbacks is indeed a useful governmental strategy.     

The rise of the ‘new agenda’ and the decline of partisanship

Has the rise of so‐called new social movements contributed to an undermining of parties in Western nations? This study reviews the arguments alleging this to be the case, and then summarises the results of 229 public opinion surveys from 17 nations. The surveys indicate that those who hold ‘post‐materialist’ values are stronger partisans than those with ‘materialist’ values. The analysis concludes that much of the literature has overstated the contrasts between movements and parties, that the mass public does not differentiate itself into ‘party’ and ‘movement’ categories, and that parties have been resourceful in protecting themselves against the depradations that movements might cause.     

The Messenger Overwhelming the Message: Ideological Cues and Perceptions of Bias in Television News

Survey research has demonstrated that citizens perceive ideological bias in television news, specifically with regard to CNN and Fox News Channel (FNC), which allegedly represent the liberal and conservative viewpoint, respectively. In this paper I argue that attaching the CNN and FNC labels to news stories sends an ideological cue to the viewer regarding the content of the story. Utilizing an experimental design that allows manipulation of the network attribution of actual FNC and CNN content, I am able to demonstrate that the CNN and FNC labels function as ideological signals to the viewer, with this signal being most pronounced among ideologues whose views are supposedly at odds with those attributed to the network.

Crises and continuities in development theory and administration: First and Third World perspectives

‘Development Administration’ as an academic discipline originated in the West and has been dominated by Western thought. This article traces the development of the discipline and outlines its Western theoretical foundations and assumptions. The failure of Development Administration to solve the problems of the Third World is outlined, and the ‘indigenization of underdevelopment’ is discussed. New challenges to the discipline, that have been previously seen as ‘heretical’, are presented as alternatives to Western models that have proven their ineffectiveness. China, Guinea-Bissau, India, Tanzania and Libya are used as examples of countries attempting alternative routes to development and development administration. The article stresses the need for open examination of non-traditional models that may provide valuable clues in the struggle for a viable developmental strategy. It concludes by suggesting four major issues around which a new conceptualization can be built: accountable development administration, the role of values, the emergence of fundamentalist ideologies, and the challenges posed by the Third Development Decade.     

Negative Campaigning in a Multiparty System

Research in political campaigning in Scandinavian countries is inadequate, and research in negative campaigning is entirely non‐existent. A ‘negative campaign message’ is defined as an explicit critique of the political opponent. Applying this definition to the 2005 Danish election indicates that negative campaigning comprises a very limited aspect of the political campaigning in the course of this election. The opposition tends to employ negative tactics the most in their attempts to establish their political platform. The media provided extensive coverage to the few negative campaign messages, thus presenting a biased sense of the political campaign to the general public. This biased media coverage encourages parties to ‘go negative’ in their respective campaigns in the battle for media attention.     

Bureaucracy as an issue in Third World management: An African case study

Organizational theory has been of surprisingly limited value in illuminating the problems of public sector management in the Third World. One reason for this is the ideal-typical bias of most studies of Third World management. This has led to an emphasis on assumed optimal performance criteria to the detriment of an understanding of how Third World organizations actually perform. The case of public sector administration in Liberia is used to illustrate this theme. The major role of administrative incorporation in the stabilization of the Liberian State is established, and consideration given to the ways in which the span of administrative employment and the extent of its popular impact were maximized through the elaboration of an idiosyncratic bureaucratic ideology. Central features of the Liberian bureaucracy are discussedthe over-definition of its external boundary; the weakness of its internal boundaries; the relative insignificance of specialized expert knowledge to bureaucratic roles; and the idiosyncratic nature of the bureaucratic career. While Weberian standards did not apply in the Liberian instance, it cannot be assumed that the latter was therefore a ‘failed bureaucracy’; for the Liberian administration was arguably effective in relation to certain goals, even if these were not ones which would have applied in the ideal-typical case. These goals were essentially political and must be understood in relation to political constraints, rather thanas is often suggested in studies of Third World managementas ‘cultural’ phenomena. Attempts to improve public sector managerial performance in the Third World need to give as much attention to operational issues as to conventional targets.     

It’s all ‘bad’ news! Voters’ perception of macroeconomic policy competence

The purpose of the present paper is to consider how voters form perceptions about macroeconomic policy competence by focusing on the role of recent macroeconomic news: Do their perceived views of good news matter as much as bad news when they form beliefs about the incumbent government’s competence in managing the macroeconomy, in particular, with regard to their ability to control inflation and unemployment? We find that ‘bad’ news about unemployment persists when households are forming their perceived competence, whereas “good” news does not. That is, voters tend to display pessimistic bias when forming perceptions about the incumbent government’s competence.     

The Influence of News Media on Political Elites: Investigating Strategic Responsiveness in Congress

News media play a central role in democratic politics, yet we know little about how media affect the behavior of policy makers. To understand the conditions under which news media influence political elites, we advance a theory of strategic responsiveness, which contends that elected representatives are more likely to heed their constituents' preferences when voters are attentive. Accordingly, news media's influence on legislative behavior should be most apparent near elections and dependent on the partisan composition of the constituency. We capitalize on the incremental rollout of the conservative Fox News Channel in the late 1990s to evaluate our theoretical predictions. Fox News caused both Republicans and Democrats in Congress to increase support for the Republican Party position on divisive votes, but only in the waning months of the election cycle and among those members who represent districts with a sizable portion of Republican voters.     

Election News Coverage in Democratic Corporatist Countries: A Comparative Study of Sweden and Norway

The study of political communication and election research has been closely intertwined ever since the end of the Second World War. However, there is still a troubling lack of comparative research with regard to election news coverage in different countries. Thus, the purpose of this article is to compare election news coverage in Sweden and Norway. More specifically, this study focuses on the use of different frames, such as game versus issue framing, episodic versus thematic framing, the journalistic style and the origins of the news stories in the two countries. As Sweden and Norway are very similar, and both belong to the democratic corporatist model of media and politics, this study follows the most similar systems design. Thus, the main hypothesis is that similar political and media systems will produce similar news coverage. The results, however, show that although the election news coverage was rather similar in Swedish and Norwegian newspapers, some significant differences were found. The article discusses these results using the concepts of structural and contextual biases.     

Tony Blair's 'Media' Speech: The Commentators

Tony Blair's speech challenged the media over its standards in his valedictory lecture. Many of his charges about the absence of balance, attacks on motive and a pack mentality stand up, even if some are exaggerated and also applied well before his arrival in 10 Downing Street. Mr Blair's solutions did ot match his critique. What is required is a more self‐questioning media, being held to account on the internet and on specialist blogging sites. Vigorous criticism, requiring justification, is a more credible rout than tighter regulation. Tony Blair's speech on the changing pressures on the media is both interesting and convincing in its diagnosis (although generally reported in ways that did not reveal this). It is less convincing in suggestions for change: the fact that on‐line media will fall under Of‐com, and so under its minimal ‘content regulation’ will have little impact. Effective change could begin with other types of (self or other regulation). Some steps towards change might include minimal requirements for journalists and editors to accept elementary forms of accountability, such as disclosing conflicts of interest and payments made for ‘stories’. The scale of media coverage may be crucial in determining the allocation of aid, yet the attention the media pays to particular causes is arbitrary. Many serious disasters are not reported and as a consequence do not receive adequate aid, so that the victims of the crisis will lose out. Chronic long term problems, like famine, are ignored in favour of ‘sudden emergencies’. Reporting seeks sensation and simple stories which influences the way that aid agencies respond to the media. The complex background to a faraway disaster is often overlooked and not properly reported. Tony Blair's speech describing some of the news media as ‘feral beasts’ contained one paragraph which contained an insight into his views on new media. It was known that the outgoing Prime Minister was uncomfortable with some aspects of new technology but his remarks reveal a wider disappointment with how new media has failed to deliver changes which he had hoped for in political communications.This paper records Mr Blair's problems with new media and argues that by focusing on how the new technologies might provide a better way for politicians to by‐pass the traditional media he has missed the point of their wider benefits.     

Television and party political dissent: intra‐party competition and the formation of news agendas

This paper re‐examines the formation of political news agendas on British television. It argues that studies of news agenda formation in political communication have been overly focused on general election campaigns and the competition between the main political parties to set the news agenda. It suggests that such studies see political parties as either homogeneous or focus exclusively on the activities of communication elites and therefore miss another important aspect of the modern political communication process. Using the British party conferences as a case study, this paper argues that in order to capture the complexities of agenda formation outside election periods, political parties have to be seen as heterogeneous organisations, consisting of various ‘claim‐makers’. News agendas in certain situations have to be understood as the product of intra‐party competition between the leadership and dissenting voices. While this competition is imperfect, favouring resource rich party elites, on certain newsworthy issues broadcasting professionals act as a counterweight to leadership resource advantages, and help shape the outcome of intra‐party competition. In conclusion the paper suggests that dissenting actors within political parties, when newsworthy, can make a substantial contribution to the formation of television news agendas despite the resistance of party leaderships. Taking account of the communicative activity of these actors and of news values will provide further insights into the formation of political news agendas between general elections. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications