El Mercurio Lies,and La Tercera Lies More. Political Bias in Newspaper Headlines in Chile, 1994–2010

In this article we examine the presence of bias in Chile's two main daily newspapers, El Mercurio and La Tercera, both of which have historically been associated with the political right. We analyse their principal headlines in the first 100 days of rule of presidents Eduardo Frei (1994–2000), Ricardo Lagos (2000–2006), Michelle Bachelet (2006–2010) and Sebastián Piñera (2010–2014). We find that La Tercera was more critical of all these presidents than El Mercurio. In La Tercera we also identify an ideological bias in favour of Piñera as compared to the centre‐left presidents, and in El Mercurio a greater bias against Bachelet than the other presidents.     

Changing Owners,Changing Content: Does Who Owns the News Matter for the News?

The press is essential for creating an informed citizenry, but its existence depends on attracting and maintaining an audience. It is unclear whether supply-side effects—including those dictated by the owners of the media—influence how the media cover politics, yet this question is essential given their abilities to set the agenda and frame issues that are covered. We examine how ownership influences media behavior by investigating the impact of Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) in August 2007. We collect data on every front-page story and editorial for 27 months, and we compare the difference in political coverage between the New York Times (NYT) and WSJ using a difference-in-differences design. We show that the amount of political content in the opinion pages of the two papers were unchanged by the sale, but the WSJ’s front-page coverage of politics increased markedly relative to the NYT. Similar patterns emerge when comparing the WSJ’s content to USA Today and the Washington Post. Our finding highlights potential limits to journalists’ ability to fulfill their supposed watchdog role in democracies without interference from owners in the boardroom.     

(Anti) Queer: Introduction

Thumbnail images depicting the face of a social actor were the most common type of image used in hard-news stories on the home page of the Sydney Morning Herald online (smh online), a high-circulation Australian daily broadsheet, between 2002 and 2006. While not all online newspapers use such images to the same extent as the smh online, close-up thumbnails of faces are commonplace on online newspaper home pages in general. This paper examines the use of these “thumbnail faces” on the smh online home page. Over four years (and across four page-design periods), these images were used more frequently, despite the fact that they function in a very different way to traditional hard-news images. Thumbnail faces cannot “tell stories”, nor “provide evidence”, but they play an important interpersonal role in individual news stories, collectively on the home page, and over time in the discursive relationship between the smh online and its readership.     

Risky business: Covering slow‐onset hazards as rapidly developing news

The emerging field of risk communication has yet to thoroughly grapple with how the mass media report risk. Through a content analysis of five newspapers noted for their science reporting, newspaper coverage of four environmental hazards is compared to media coverage of more traditional risky events. In general, these slow‐to‐develop stories are reported in much the same way as more traditional disaster stories. News accounts emphasized an event orientation, framed risks in terms of human activity rather than social and political contexts, described risk in terms of harms and benefits, and relied on traditional sources. The authors then explore how this version of mass‐mediated risk might change current definitions of risk communication and how a mediated construction of risk may influence public perception of the political choices these issues raise.     

抗战时期浙江报刊的类别与特征

抗日战争时期,浙江的报刊事业出现了新的繁荣.从主办者的角度看,它可以分为八种类型;从自身的特点看,它具有与以往各时期浙江报刊不同的特征:第一,除日伪报刊外,抗战时期的浙江报刊找到了政治上的认同点--举起抗日旗帜;第二,杭州沦陷造成全省文化中心转移,形成新的金华--丽水文化中心.     

The political transfer of parliamentary concepts and practices in the European periphery: the case of obstruction in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Finland

This article examines parliaments as transnational institutions. It uses Finland as an example to analyze how nineteenth- and early twentieth-century European representative assemblies were part of a joint publicity. This publicity, facilitated by the press, was actively used in developing and shaping national practices, especially in countries without an established parliamentary tradition. The transnational parliamentary publicity changed how parliaments functioned and deliberated. It was utilized in assemblies’ procedural formation and revision, democratization, and parliamentarization. The mediated models and examples were used selectively and innovatively to interpret, contextualize, and frame domestic political questions. The article examines the transfer of parliamentary obstruction from European parliaments to the four-estate Diet and the unicameral parliament of the Finnish Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire. Obstruction became part of the Finnish political repertoire soon after the Irish obstruction appeared in the British House of Commons in the late 1870s. Although no systematic obstruction campaigns were organized in early Finnish parliamentary life, the concept of obstruction was a rhetorical and ideological tool of the Finnish nationalists and socialists. The article positions Finnish discussions within wider European debates on parliaments, democratization, the rise of mass parties, and the problematic relationship between representative and deliberative aspects of parliamentary politics.     

‘And What Good Came of it at Last?’ Press–Politician Relations Post‐Leveson

James Margach famously argued that Prime Ministers from Lloyd George to Callaghan had been intent on exploiting the media in their determination to centralise power. From Margaret Thatcher onwards, however, there is a strong argument that the power relationship has been reversed, and that the Leveson Inquiry—set up in the wake of the phone hacking scandal—exposed a political class which had become deeply fearful of the power and influence of the national press. Citing evidence to Leveson and subsequent recommendations by the inquiry, this article presents two case studies—on data protection and on media ownership—where the public interest clearly demanded political intervention, which would be inconvenient for the major publishers. And yet, despite recommendations by Lord Justice Leveson and despite clear support from leading politicians of all parties, there has been virtually no policy progress in either case. While the Leveson Inquiry was billed as a watershed in press–politician relations and an opportunity to counteract decades of unhealthy press power, political inertia in these two areas suggests that very little has changed.     

The Trials of Henry Kissinger,written, directed,and produced by Alex Gibney and Eugene Jarecki, 2002. Running time: 80 minutes. Available from Jigsaw Productions. Web site: www.thetrialsofhenrykissinger.com.

Using data from the 2008 and 2009 Current Population Survey (CPS) conducted by the United States Census Bureau, this article assesses the year-over-year change in the civic engagement of citizens in America's largest metropolitan areas. Of special interest are Denver and Seattle, where the Rocky Mountain News and Seattle Post-Intelligencer closed during the intervening year. The data from the CPS indicate that civic engagement in Seattle and Denver dropped significantly from 2008 to 2009—a decline that is not consistently replicated over the same time period in other major American cities that did not lose a newspaper. The analysis suggests that this decline may plausibly be attributed to the newspaper closures in Seattle and Denver. This short-term negative effect is concerning, and whether it lasts warrants future attention.     

Scandals,News Coverage,and the 2006 Congressional Elections

In this study, I examine how the local news media covered members of Congress tied to the Jack Abramoff scandal during the 2006 congressional elections. Previous research suggests heavy coverage of any politicians tied to scandals, particularly during the campaign season. Using a multilevel data analysis approach, I show the local news media strategically considered whether to cover members under suspicion of scandal during the election season taking into account race competitiveness and challengers’ actions. Specifically, local newspapers paid the most attention to the Abramoff scandal when the incumbent was in a competitive race and the challenger was actively pushing the scandal.