Overreporting Voting: Campaign Media,Public Mood,and the Vote

This study used regional telephone survey data collected after the 1996 U.S. presidential election to examine how two possibly important affective variables public mood and political cynicism predict actual as compared with self-reported voting. Public mood, a construct introduced by Rahn, Kroeger, and Kite (1996) to suggest how affective processes may play a role in political behavior, is shown to have two distinct but positively correlated dimensions, one positive and one negative. After demographic variables were controlled, perceived media usefulness predicted positive mood about the presidential election, which in turn predicted self-reported voting. Negative campaign attitude predicted negative mood, which, in turn, influenced actual but not self-reported voting. Political cynicism, although correlated with both positive and negative public mood, predicted neither measure of voting. The bifurcation of influence of negative and positive public mood about elections may explain why researchers have often shown positive affect to influence voting (as measured by self-report), and why political consultants have continued to rely on negative campaigning and the reported increases in negative feelings it engenders in voters to influence actual votes.     

Instrumentalizing Fukushima: Comparing Media Coverage of Fukushima in Germany,France, the United Kingdom,and Switzerland

According to the theory of instrumental actualization in mediated conflicts, the mass media tend to exaggerate events consistent with the editorial line. This theory was tested using press coverage in Germany, Switzerland, France, and the United Kingdom on the Japanese seaquake, the tsunami it caused, and the nuclear disaster of Fukushima. Within a period of seven weeks after the seaquake, the coverage in the four countries in 27 national newspapers and magazines on the three events was analyzed. As hypothesized from theory, German and Swiss media concentrated on Fukushima and stressed its relevance to domestic nuclear plants, whereas French and British media placed a greater emphasis on the tsunami and rarely related the nuclear catastrophe in Japan to domestic nuclear programs. In addition, there were remarkable correlations between the views of journalists and the bias of statements on nuclear energy presented in their news sections. Findings are discussed and related to the theory of public opinion and political decisions in liberal democracies.     

《两匹马的对话》与英国“公众舆论”的形成

哈贝马斯指出作为政治公共领域前身的文学公共领域孕育于英国共和时期的咖啡馆中。在这一领域形成的过程中,作为文学公共领域的重要功能之一的文学公共舆论功能是在当时文学家的推动下建构而成。围绕关停英国咖啡馆这一历史事件,英国文学家也展开了一场通过文学作品干预公共事务的演习,其中安德鲁.马维尔的《两匹马的对话》一诗是文学公共领域践行公共舆论功能的典型个案。     

Media Coverage of Congress in the 1990s: Scandals,Personalities, and the Prevalence of Policy and Process

In this article, we provide a comprehensive, systematic examination of media coverage of Congress in the 1990s. Specifically, we content analyze over 2,600 congressional news stories from the New York Times and CBS Evening News from 1990 through 1998. We find that the news media covered substantive policy concerns and the legislative process quite regularly and that stories focusing on individual personalities and political scandals were comparatively infrequent. We also find that legislative maneuvering is a mainstay of congressional media coverage, and the democratic process is most often framed as conflict between parties and Congress and the president.     

The Clash in Public Opinion between Europe and China： What, How and Why

Recent years have seen a tension between Europe and China in public opinion, which began in 2006 and climaxed in 2008 when the Tibet riots and the Beijing Olympics put China under the global spotlight. Europeans and Chinese view each other more negatively than in ＂the good old days＂ and there is a growing perception gap regarding the Chinese government. The media （including the Internet） and public opinion leaders （scholars, human rights activists, dissidents, politicians and diplomats） have played a part in causing this both in Europe and in China, and this paper examines their roles. This paper also identifies three reasons behind the clash of viewpoints： First, lack of common values has exacerbated Europe＇s fear of a rising China; second, both Europe and China use this hostility to help redefine their self-identity; third, different development needs in China and Europe have nurtured very different mindsets. In the future, the European public＇s interest in China will continue to grow and Europe＇s and China＇s perceptions of each other will gradually stabilize. In the long run, whether Europe will accept a rising China depends on China＇s ability to develop a ＂Chinese thinking＂ which suits both China＇s and the world＇s development needs.     

Regulation and Self-Regulation: The Role of Media Commissions and Professional Bodies in the Muslim World

This article examines the state of media regulation in Arab and other Muslim countries. Whereas most countries in Europe, including the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, and some of the African societies in transition have developed media commissions of different types, most Muslim countries are so far reluctant to ease the dominating state control of the media, especially in the audiovisual sector. A majority of journalists associations in the Middle East and North Africa still need to distance themselves from governments and ruling parties. Their major task is to ensure observance of ethical standards, a task in which they have to struggle with the desires of governments and parliaments to make excessive use of the judiciary to sanction journalists. So far, Muslim countries have yet to develop their own models for restructuring the changing media sector and for creating a viable system of checks and balances that would control the media in a democratic way. Governments should aim to develop a common understanding among regulatory bodies and media practitioners and thus to provide for common concepts of ethical standards. In these efforts, much can be learned from the wide range of experiences gained by the transitional societies of Eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa during the last decade.     

Advances and Opportunities in the Study of Political Communication,Foreign Policy,and Public Opinion

We review contemporary research at the intersection of political communication and foreign policy, highlighting four themes: 1) new, more realistic and psychologically-nuanced approaches that account for limited information and issue framing; 2) the question of whether the flow of communication between the state and the public is best conceived as a closed system, or one that is open to outside influences such as foreign elites; 3) how variations in political or governmental structures, patterns of media access or ownership, and other institutional factors can alter the relationships between foreign policy and communication processes; and 4) whether or not it is useful to distinguish between foreign and domestic policymaking when analyzing the role of political communication. We also suggest avenues for further research in each section and conclude by summarizing these opportunities for continued theoretical development.     

The Press, Public Opinion, Arms Limitation, and Government Policy in Britain, 1932-34: Some Preliminary Observations

One of the least understood issues concerning interwar Britain is the connection between public opinion and the development and implementation of foreign and defence policy. And what is true generally of these crucial elements of interwar British statecraft is doubly so for perhaps their most nettled subset: disarmament. Public opinion polling did not begin in Britain till 1937; yet in 1932-34, when Britain played a leading role in the League of Nations-sponsored World Disarmament Conference, government ministers and their civil service and armed forces advisors sought to produce policy for this conference that would balance between limiting the national armoury and protecting national and Imperial security. Their reading of public opinion was crucial; but so, too, was the reading that the opposition parties and extra-parliamentary interest groups did and the subsequent pressures that they brought to bear on the government. This article offers some preliminary observations on the efficacy of using the national press as a means both of assessing public attitudes and of connecting the public debate over disarmament policy with policymaking within the British government.