1,721,245 research outputs found
Ein Mindestmass an Organisation und Beständigkeit ist nötig. Social Media und Web 2.0 als Alternative zu Massenmedien?
No full textAs stated in the Introduction, the twofold purpose of this book is first to bring together state-of-the-art chapters on the mediatization of politics, thereby assessing what we know and providing a framework for further research; and second to move research on the mediatization of politics forward towards a more fully developed theory. For this reason, we invited leading scholars in this field to comment in their chapters on basic and more advanced questions and to develop various topics and perspectives. The scope in content and the depth of analysis of their contributions underscore the many different ways in which mediatization research can augment the literature of political communication and how stimulating the impulses are that it evokes
Mediatization of politics: Towards a theoretical framework
No full textDuring the last few decades, the world has witnessed a dual democratic transformation. On the one hand and beginning with the fall of communism, the number of electoral democracies worldwide almost doubled between 1989 and 2011 (Freedom House, 2012). The victory of democracy and capitalism may not have marked the “end of history” (Fukuyama, 1992), but today there is no alternative political system that enjoys the same worldwide support and legitimacy as democracy (Inglehart & Welzel, 2005; Inglehart, 2003). On the other hand, many established democracies have witnessed a transformation towards increasing complexity, less deferential and increasingly critical and dissatisfied citizens (Norris, 2011), lower electoral turnout and trust in politicians and political institutions (Franklin, 2004; Norris, 1999), and increasingly autonomous, market-driven and critical media (Hallin & Mancini, 2004; Hamilton, 2004; Patterson, 1993). National political institutions and actors thus find themselves under increasing pressure from both citizens and the media, while the need to find solutions to major challenges such as global warming, rising inequalities, weak growth and increasing deficits appears both more urgent and more difficult to tackle
Conclusion:Assessing News Performance
No full textAt the outset, we asked if there is any good news about the news and, if so, where the good news is. In academic research and public discussions about news and democracy, one fi nds different interpretations of the state of current news provision. A tendency towards pessimism about current news performance is commonplace. Although there is an overall proliferation of both traditional and newer forms of online news availability and supply (Esser, de Vreese et al. 2012), many suggest that the performance of news providers is getting worse. In more or less explicit terms, the decreasing quality of news is seen as having a negative impact on the quality of political life and democracy. Set against the pessimism and caution in the public debate and literature on news quality and the performance of political journalism, we were not optimistic that we would fi nd good-quality news or that we would be able to offer some good news as a positive antidote, so to speak, to the pervasive pessimism in the literature
The explanatory logic:Factors that shape political news
No full textInsights gained depend on the questions asked. This chapter describes the why and the how of our study’s approach. After outlining some principal research interests of comparative news analyses, we introduce a theoretical hierarchy of infl uences that needs to be observed in order to understand the construction of media content. In fi tting this model to the specifi c requirements of our study, we emphasize, in particular, the importance of integrating event-centered and mediacentered considerations, of incorporating an explicit comparative perspective, and of applying appropriate strategies of data analysis. The main part of the chapter introduces the explanatory factors that are used in this study to elucidate crossnational and cross-organizational differences in journalists’ use of the six core concepts of political news. The explanatory factors are systematized according to their level of analysis, and we provide a great many examples to illustrate their use in this study, together with concrete operationalizations. We conclude by situating our own approach in the recent development of explanation-oriented comparative news research
How we did it:approach and methods
No full textThe chapter proceeds as follows. In the fi rst part, the period of sampling and its various steps are presented, involving countries, news outlets, and news articles. In the second part, we provide a short overview of the codebook. The third part presents our testing of inter-coder reliability, both across countries and within countries. We then briefl y explain how our analyses in the subsequent chapters were conducted and why. The chapter’s concluding section refl ects on some of the advantages and challenges of the data sources and the methods that we have chosen
On the why and how of comparative inquiry in communication studies
Get PDFThis introductory chapter takes stock of the differential state of comparative communication research and comes to the conclusion that has it made remarkable progress across the field. The chapter argues that the comparative approach provides a valuable tool for advancing our understanding of communication processes, and that it opens up new avenues of systematic research. It first provides a rationale for why we need comparative work and then moves on to discuss conventional and new definitions of comparative research. After tracing historical developments, the chapter elaborates on common theoretical and methodological approaches, discusses objects of comparative analyses and outlines the structure of the book
Populism and the media:cross-national findings and perspectives
No full textEuropean media systems have gone through major changes in the last few decades, and these changes have included increased opportunity structures for the dissemination of populist messages. Chapter 12 (‘Switzerland’) rightly states that the disappearance of the traditional party press, increased media ownership concentration, dependence on advertising, and a stronger orientation toward news values have worked in favor of a growing populist discourse. The newly established online media are seen as having a high afnity to populism’s rhetorical persuasion because both aim for the “quick kick/click” with a broad audience. As was stated in Chapter 1 in this volume, the role that the media play in the dissemination of populism is largely under-explored. In the classical research literature dealing with populism (see, e.g., Canovan, 1981; Taggart, 2000), communication and media are not addressed at all. When political scientists make the media their subject, they see the media mostly only as a neutral platform for populist leaders’ appearances and messages. One exception is Mudde (2007), who dedicates at least a few pages to this topic in his book Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe (pp. 248-253). He elaborates in particular on the assumption that tabloids and commercial television share a close relationship with populist communication
Harte Zeiten – Hard News?
Get PDFIn den letzten 30 Jahren wurden Veränderungen der Nachrichtenberichterstattung oft unter Rückgriff auf die beiden dichotom verstandenen Konstrukte „Hard News“ und „Soft News“ beschrieben. Der vorliegende Artikel baut dagegen auf einem multidimensionalen Ansatz zur Unterscheidung von „Hard“ und Soft News“ auf und untersucht erstens den Anteil „harter“ und „weicher“ Nachrichten in der politischen Berichterstattung von 160 Medienangeboten in 16 westlichen Demokratien. Zweitens werden Determinanten des Anteils von Hard bzw. Soft News in den jeweiligen Ländern bzw. Medien bestimmt, indem die inhaltsanalytischen Befunde mit externen Daten über Charakteristika der Meso- (Medienorganisation) und Makroebene (Mediensystem, politisches System, ökonomische Situation) kombiniert werden. Die Ergebnisse zeigen zum einen, dass sich die Prävalenz von Hard bzw. Soft News zwischen den Ländern stark unterscheidet. Zum einen hängt der (harte bzw. weiche) Charakter politischer Nachrichten von der Mediengattung, aber auch den politischen und ökonomischen Rahmenbedingungen sowie der Beschaffenheit des Medienmarktes ab
Mediatization of campaign coverage: Metacoverage of US Elections
No full textIf mediatization, like globalization and modernization, is a meta-process of societal change (Krotz, 2008) whereby “the media have become integrated into the operations of other social institutions [and] acquired the status of social institutions in their own right” (Hjarvard, 2008, p. 113), then, arguably, this is nowhere more evident than in contemporary election campaigns. In most Western democracies, there are reciprocal dependencies - mutual need but different goals - between media organizations and the political parties and campaign organizations that vie for votes during elections (Gurevitch & Blumler, 1990). To be sure, the nature of these interdependencies is shaped by structural and cultural features of the media and political institutions within a country (Blumler & Gurevitch, 2001; see Strömbäck & Esser, 2009, pp. 217–218 for a useful summary). However, on the whole, mediatization theorists and researchers are interested in the processes and mechanisms through which these interdependencies typically tilt over time towards the media (Strömbäck, 2008). News organizations lie at the center of interest in work on the mediatization of politics (Esser, 2013). Accordingly, in election settings, the concern is with how the media logic of commercial imperatives, professional routines and message formats not only comes to dominate the content of campaign news, but also how it gets integrated into the political logic of political rules, organizational structures and routines, and self-presentational strategies that political parties and campaign organizations must follow in order to campaign effectively (Strömbäck, 2008; Strömbäck & Esser, 2009)
Comparing media policy and regulation
Get PDFThis chapter describes the maturation of comparative political communications as a sub-discipline and defines its conceptual core. It then lays out the concept of “political communication system”. At the macro-level, this model captures the patterns of interaction between media and politics as social systems; at the micro-level it captures the interactions between media and political actors as individuals or organizations. Comparative research in this tradition focuses on the structure of political communication systems, its culture, the construction and dissemination of messages, and the effects of those messages. A wealth of empirical studies is systematized according to the dimensions of this heuristic and evaluated in terms of their contribution to a better overall understanding of comparative political communication
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