How the Media Shape Perceptions of Right-Wing Populist Leaders

It is often argued that right-wing populist party leaders are dependent on the media for their public image, which in turn is key for their electoral success. This study tests this assumption by comparing the effects of the media coverage of 2 Dutch right-wing populist leaders with the effects of the coverage of leaders of established parties, in a real-life setting, by tracking campaign developments in the Dutch 2006 national election campaign. We combine panel survey data (n?=?401) with repeated measurements of the party leaders' public images with a systematic content analysis of 17 media outlets (with a total of 1,001 stories), on the basis of the media consumption of individual respondents. Our results show significant effects of the content of media coverage on the public image of political leaders. However, only in 1 case (out of 10) is there a significant difference between right-wing populist party leaders and leaders of other parties in the strength of media effects. It thus seems that leaders of right-wing populist parties are just as dependent upon the media as leaders of other parties. The findings are discussed in the light of extant research on right-wing populist parties and media populism.     

Lawmaking and News Making: Different Worlds after all? A Study on News Coverage of Legislative Processes in the Netherlands

Over the last decades the importance of the media for understanding the functioning of democracy in the contemporary world has become evident. Yet despite the developing body of knowledge on political communication and newsworthiness there is little research about why and how the media cover legislative processes in a European context. Therefore this study analyses media coverage of lawmaking in the Netherlands and investigates which characteristics of legislation influence the amount of news coverage. It shows that only one out of five laws is covered at all and that no more than one out of 10 laws receives substantial media attention. This leads to the question why some laws get extensive news attention, whereas most laws are completely ignored. Press coverage for the legislative process turns out to be both selective and predictable. Traditional news values such as political conflict and significance are good predictors of media coverage for lawmaking. In addition, laws are largely ignored when they are part of the budgetary cycle.     

Book Reviews

Andrew Levine, Arguing for Socialism—Theoretical Considerations (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984).

Irving Howe, Socialism and America (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985).

Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Retreat from Class: A New “True” Socialism (London: Verso/American distributor: Shocken, 1986)

Joanne Barkan, Visions of Emancipation: the Italian Workers’ Movement Since 1945. (New York City: Praeger, 1984)

Carlos M. Vilas, The Sandinista Revolution: National Liberation and Social Transformation in Central America, trans. Judy Butler (New York City: Monthly Review Press, 1986)

Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Democracy and Capitalism—Property, Community, and the Contradictions of Modern Social thought (New York: Basic Books, 1986).

Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin, The Dialectical Biologist. (Cambridge, Ma.: Harvard University Press, 1985).

Anthony Giddens, The Nation‐State and Violence: Volume Two of The Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985)

Bob Jessop, Nicos poulantzas. Marxist theory and political strategy, (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985).     

“David Byrne really does love PowerPoint”: art as research on semiotics and semiotic technology

This article presents a reading of David Byrne's Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information, an art work created with MicroSoft's presentation software PowerPoint, as an instance of creative research on semiotics and semiotic technology. It reveals commonalities and differences between Byrne's ideas about PowerPoint and related ideas from linguistics and semiotics, and is intended as a contribution to research on PowerPoint, and on semiotic technologies generally, as well as to efforts aimed at developing criteria for evaluating art as research on semiotics.     

Struggling to stay out of high-poverty neighborhoods: housing choice and locations in moving to opportunity's first decade

Improving locational outcomes emerged as a major policy hope for the nation's largest low-income housing program over the past two decades, but a host of supply and demand-side barriers confront rental voucher users, leading to heated debate over the importance of choice versus constraint. In this context, we examine the Moving to Opportunity experiment's first decade, using a mixed-method approach.

MTO families faced major barriers in tightening markets, yet diverse housing trajectories emerged, reflecting variation in: (a) willingness to trade location – in particular, safety and avoidance of “ghetto” behavior – to get larger, better housing units after initial relocation; (b) the distribution of neighborhood types in different metro areas; and (c) circumstances that produced many involuntary moves. Access to social networks or services “left behind” in poorer neighborhoods seldom drove moving decisions. Numerous moves were brokered by rental agents who provided shortcuts to willing landlords but thereby steered participants to particular neighborhoods.     

Brown kids in white suburbs: Housing mobility and the many faces of social capital

Abstract

Social capital has many faces in the geography of urban opportunity, and as such, particular housing policies might have positive effects on some forms of social capital and negative effects on others. The author defines social support and social leverage as two key dimensions of social capital that can be accessed by individuals. A sample of 132 low‐income African‐American and Latino adolescents is used to examine the early impacts of a Yonkers, NY, housing mobility program on social capital.¹

Overall, program participants (^‘’movers^‘’) appear to be no more cut off from social support than a control group of “stayer” youth. On the other hand, movers are also no more likely to report access to good sources of job information or school advice— to leverage that might enhance opportunity. Adding just one steadily employed adult to an adolescent's circle of significant ties has dramatic effects on perceived access to such leverage.     

Racial/ethnic differences in housing outcomes for first‐time,low‐income home buyers: Findings from a National homeownership education program

Abstract

Federal housing policies aimed at making homeownership more accessible through education and affordable lending have been successful in raising the homeownership rate among minorities. By marketing homeownership to underserved populations and helping them overcome financial and informational obstacles, such programs might be expected to promote equality in housing outcomes, including housing quality, neighborhood composition, and neighborhood conditions, for minority homeowners.

This article examines the experience of participants in a national home‐ownership education program. While the transition to homeownership has been associated with modest progress, it does not overcome persistent disparities in housing quality. Homeownership appears to lead to poorer neighborhood conditions for all lower‐income buyers—not just minorities—and may be exacerbating social and spatial isolation rather than helping to overcome it. Differences in neighborhood outcomes, however, may be due to locational preference rather than discrimination in housing and mortgage markets.     

What Services are Public? What Aspects of Performance are to be Ranked? The Case of “Services of General Interest”

ABSTRACT

In this article, we focus on the difficulties in evaluating the performance of so-called services of general interest. These services generally include such services as water and electricity supply, telephony, postal services, and public transport, where providers are subjected to certain universal service obligations. Because of the tensions between European internal market requirements and these universal service obligations, there exists considerable debate on the criteria to be used to evaluate the performance of these services. In addition, the status of these public services as “public” or “essential” services is disputed. Rankings of the performance of these services will always reflect a certain dominant definition of performance. Ranking schemes as a result both reflect and create performance.     

Explaining the Breakdown of the Religion–Vote Relationship in The Netherlands, 1971–2006

This article examines the extent to which changes in the effect of religion on voting in The Netherlands since the 1970s can be explained by ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ approaches. The first includes religious integration and education. The latter category encompasses the restructuring of the party system and changes in party positions. Hypotheses are tested employing logistic and conditional logistic regression analyses of the Dutch Parliamentary Election Studies (1971–2006) supplemented by data from the Comparative Manifesto Project. Weakening religious integration largely explains the decline of political boundaries between non-religious voters and Catholics and Calvinists. In line with earlier research, the article finds that the creation of a single Christian Democratic Party (CDA) has reduced the religion–vote relationship. However, this merger effect largely disappears after taking into account party positions. Moreover, party positions influence the religion–vote association: the effect of religion on voting increases as religious parties emphasise traditional moral issues in their manifestos.