Notes Political Communication and Journalism, Communication, UVA

Notes based on 2015-2016.

Plenary lecture 1: General introduction Political Communication and Journalism

What is political communication?
Political communication= ‘the interactions between politics, media and the public’. There is a triangle between those three factors. It deals with the relationship between political actors, media and the citizen. Research is driven by the question who ‘shapes’ this relationship. The focus is on power relations!

Does political communication evolve?

Yes, political communication evolve. Evolutions go together with larger societal trends (individualisation, depillarization, the crisis of parties, increased voter volatility, commercialisation etc.) Parties became less powerful, people are more individual. Political parties do more effort to get votes. Media and politics have been commercialised. Media are crucial, but not always the same extent and in the same way (over the years).
 

4 phases of Mediatization (Strӧmbӓck, 2008)
 

1. First phase of mediatization: mediation (Western World, post WOII)
   = When the media become the main communication channel between politics and the public

2. Second phase of mediatization: media has some influence
   Media become more independent, higher journalistic professionalism, the political system still has the upper hand and the media do not mediate messages unconditionally anymore.

3. Third phase of mediatization: the media has a big influence
   The media become so independent that other actors have to adapt to them. The media has the upper hand, but are still external to the political system. Politicians have to further increase skills to do this adaptation of the media logic (= following the format, content, grammar and rhythm of the media), especially in campaigns.

4. Fourth phase of mediatization: the media rules
   Politics does not only adapt, but they adopt the media logic too. The standards of media logic/news worthiness become part of governing processes (evaluation of issues and policies). The media is no longer external. The politicians who need to answer to people are most affected. What the media think is determinant to politics and how they behave.
    

Mediazation by Mazzoleni & Schulz (1999)
Mazzoleni and Schulz agreed with the terms mediation and mediatization. They think that the fourth phase of mediatization could exist, but not as a global trend. They say media do not, and will not take over political functions. The degree of mediatization is depending on political system, media system, strength of parties etc.

What contributes to mediatization of politics? (Mazzoleni & Schulz, 1999)

1. Gatekeeping/selection needed by mass media: the media has their own process to select material .

2. Media-constructed public sphere: the media can have a big influence on the public agenda.

3. Media logic = commercial logic

4. Symbiotic relationship politics/media – reciprocal effects: politicians and the media need each other

5. Media taking positions on issues = legitimate function of media (e.g. editorial)
    

Some problems of increased mediatization:

• Negativity

• Focus op people, rather than issues

• Focus on short term (problems)

• Focus on conflict

• Focus on Horse race (how’s the battle going on rather than the issues)

• Too much power for media

• Information is not clear/understandable for the audience
   

What do we expect from the media?
Everyone has another view. There are 5 functions the media can have in a democratic society (McNair, 2003). Some functions are more important than others.

1. Information (monitoring, inform the citizens)

2. Education (explaining what events and facts mean)

3. Platform function: Exchange of ideas –> Public sphere

4. Watchdog function: Control over politics, publicity for what politics does (wrong)

5. Channel function: Political, ideological opinions needs to find their way to the people.

(Asp (2007) has another view, and made a model of the media functions)

Conditions and threats performing these functions:

Conditions:

• Political communication needs to be present in the news media coverage (all political views), while at the same time it needs to be accessible and understandable for the public.

Threats:

1. Political actors (re)gain control over media content.

2. Commercialisation, leading to decreased news quality

3. The audience not being able to process the information provided
    

Threats
1. Control over media content
Lack of independence of media and lack of internal and external pluralism (one medium has a lot of power). Examples: censorship & state broadcasters.

2. Quality of the news media information
= about commercialism, about attracting an audience as large as possible. Sensational news:
“News coverage that provokes the senses and emotions of audience members, thus attracting the attention of a larger audience.” (Hendriks Vettehen, 2008). This leads to the inclusion of entertainment elements in the news

Three ways to appeal to larger audiences:

1. Topics: a) light news (celebrity news, human interest, feel good news, etc.)
   b) sensational (hard) news (subjects like crime, natural disasters, accidents …)

2. Format: Spectacular pictures, special camera techniques to attract/keep attention.
   Disadvantage: people remember the form, not necessarily the content.

3. Vividness: Making the news more concrete and proximate.
   Proximate: local, recognizable, closer to people’s world, e.g. domestication in foreign news
   Concrete: focus on individual cases, examples or even exemplars (vox pops)

2) Quality of the news media information (continued)

• So, not much room for political news, which leads to an incomplete overview for the public

• Do we want a full overview of everything that happens in the political and societal arena?
  = Full news standard

• John Zaller says no and says a burglar alarm standard is better.

• The public is not interested in all that (boring) political news.

• People don’t have time to process all the information.

• Media can select what is really important, and bring those with lots of sensational characteristics, so people really see it. When something really has to be seen, the media can make sure that the burglar alarm rings.

• Criticism on this:

• Media really get a lot of power

• “Burglar alarm that keeps on ringing” (Bennett)

• Good thing to do: have something in between burglar alarm and full news standard.

• Problem: Journalists want to stick to the full news standard, and think they do, but reality = burglar alarm. Full news standard is not realistic, but it can still be the starting point. Journalists need to do something to maximize information transferal to people. The public should get to know what they need to know.
   

3) Information processing by the public

• Videomalaise (Robinson, 1975): Watching (information on) television has negative effects on the public. e.g. Cynicism, low trust in political Institutions, low sense of “political efficacy” = the feeling that you can understand politics and also do something yourself

• People cannot (and don’t want to) process political information (anymore)

• Later: criticism to video-malaise theory. Positive effects of media content are possible. Some, rather sensational elements can be good to some extent, to reach more people.

• “Public Quality” (Costera Meijer, 2003): Not just “serious, conventional news” versus “popular” news. Introduction of “public quality” news, in which journalists focus on the audience as citizens. Proportional relevance: All groups in society should find relevant news in the news coverage, relative to their proportion in society.
   

And what about the internet?
There is no consensus! Some people see the internet as even worse than television, because it offers an immense amount of information and especially entertainment elements. Others see it as reducing inequalities because of the increased access and lower barriers.
 

Plenary lecture 2: Media & politics in the Netherlands, personalisation

Part 1: Guest lecture Kees Brants

The power game in political communication
Politicians think the media has too much political power (67%), while the journalists don’t agree with that (14%). More journalists (59%) think that politicians spokespersons hinder journalists in their work, than politicians (44%)

Fear of media power, cynicism of politics

• Can we trust media that seem more interested in the sensational than in the substantive

• Media have no (legally) established responsibility

• Media have no (legally) established accountability

• Politicians are more interested in their image than in their politics

• Spin doctors frame, manipulate and manage the news reality

Logic in political communication

‘Logic’ indicates who has power in political communication. It is the more or less self-evident direction of power in the triangle politics-media- public. The power of one over the other in the definition of what and who is important in politics and how we should understand and interpret the political reality. ‘Logic’ indicates that there is a certain direction or dominance in the interaction between politics, media and the public.

Partisan logic

• Media identify with own party

• Public is addressed as subject

• Role of journalism is dependent, mouthpiece

• Kind of reporting is biased, substantive

• Political agenda is set by party

• Journalistic metaphor is lapdog

• Political style is elitist, top down

• Period is pillarisation <1970
   

Public logic

• Media identify with public good

• Public is addressed as citizen

• Role of journalism is independent

• Kind of reporting is descriptive, substantive

• Political agenda is set by party

• Journalistic metaphor is watchdog

• Political style is consensual

• Period is de-pillarisation ’70-‘90
   

Media logic

• Media identify with the public

• Public is addressed as consumer

• Role of journalism is entertaining, cynical

• Kind of reporting is interpretative

• Political agenda is set by media

• Journalistic metaphor is cerberus

• Political style is adversarial

• Period is fragmentation >1990

   

Change and uncertainty
In the media:

• From a supply to a demand market

• From news programme to talk show

• From informing to entertaining and poking fun

• Journalism lost traditional monopoly on selection, production and definition of news

• Internet opened up new communication channels, but challenges journalistic professionalism

In politics:

• Floating voters and success of populism

• Changing role of political parties

• From party democracy to audience democracy

• From expertise and quality to authenticity and empathy

• Professionalization of news management and spin

With the public:

• New cultural and conflictual cleavages in society

• Big Brother, the vox populi and the post-fact society

• Balkanisation and a populist-publicity complex

• Power to the people

Part 2: Personalisation

Personalisation: What?

• Usually understood as: focus on people, on individual politicians

• It is a process so more and more focus on individual politicians

• e.g. Van Aelst, Sheafer & Stanyer (2012): “The general belief is that the focus of news coverage has shifted from parties and organizations to candidates and leaders.”
   

Personalisation: Why?

• The usual subjects: Weakening of traditionally strong ties between voters and political parties, depillarization and evolutions in the media environment (e.g. increased importance of visuals due to rise of television), commercialisation, technologies etc.

• Can be done by

• • People: voting for a person, rather than a party

  • Politics: putting individual politicians center stage

  • Media: representation of politics as a battle of individuals
     

Van Aelst, Shaefer & Stanyer (2012): Personalisation consists of

1. Individualisation: Shift from parties to politicians. Individual politicians are presented and considered as main actors in politics. Individualisation has 2 dimensions: General visibility (shifts to individual politicians) and concentrated visibility (shifts to leaders).

2. Privatisation: Shift in attention for politicians in a public role to their private role. Privatisation has two dimensions: personal characteristics (shifts to non-political traits) and personal life (shifts to private life and personal interests)

• Individualisation and privatisation are two different things, with different implications. Individualisation is less of a threat to issue and policy attention than privatisation.

Personalisation: perception versus reality

• There is little or no proof of a personalisation trend (individual cases, but they were also there before)

• Why does the perception exist that personalisation is increasing (in the Netherlands) anyway?

4 causes (Vliegenthart, 2012)

1. More opportunities to get to know politicians better as a person (debates, info- and entertainment)

2. Internet (opportunity for individual political communication)

3. Rising of many one-person parties lately

4. More attention for individual power battles within politics (horse race, conflict & strategic framing)

Personalisation: good or bad?

Effects or more personalisation?
Bad:

• Less substance-> less political knowledge, less political participation, political interest

• Different politicians (characteristics matter)

• Politicians closer to the public: Betrayal is also worse! So there is more political cynicism

Good:

• If we consider personalisation as a sensational element, which can also be used to reach a broader audience with political issues, than this make politics fun? = positive

Plenary lecture 3: Media effects, mainly agendasetting and framing

Political communication
Triangle: media- journalists- politics

Public agenda-setting
The press ‘may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about.’ (COHEN 1963) Key question: who sets the agenda. We are all strong influenced by the media and we now about politics because of the media.

Chapel Hill Study
McCombs and Shaw (1972) found a strong correlation between issue emphasis in mass media and among 100(!) residents of Chapel Hill during the 1968 Presidential election campaign. There is a really high correlation between what the people talk about and where the media talks about. Note that this is a correlation so it could be that the people influence the media, the other way around of that both factors are influenced by another factor, like the politics.

Priming
When media salience of issues also become important when people make judgements. Are we effected? The media is influencing where we think about, but also about where we want to vote for or how we think about politics (one step further than agendasetting).

A lot of people think that others are more effected than you themselves -> third person effect. The people who are in the middle are most strongly affected: the people who know much enough to follow the news, but less enough to see through.

Vote intention: this changes a lot over time. When there are important issues in the news (e.g. the issue of refugees) people are more likely discover what parties think about this issue, so then the vote intentions are higher.

Intermedia agenda setting

• Media influenced by the same ‘real world’

• General news values and decision making heuristics

• But also: closely following each other
   

Political agenda setting
It depends on various factors:

• Media input: issue type, media outlet and coverage type

• Political context: election/routine times, institutional rules, internal functioning, political configuration and personal traits

• Political adaption: no reaction, fast symbolic, slow substantial, fast substantial and slow symbolic.

   

Different ways of investigating
• Elite surveys, journalist surveys
• Participatory observation
• Content analyses of (mainly) written documents
 

Political agenda setting
There was a political agenda setting effect, but this was stronger in Spain. Strong connection between left politics and left media and the same between the right. Political parallelism. In the Netherlands, this disappeared.

Intermedia agenda setting
- Media influenced by the same ‘real world’
- General news values and decision making heuristics
- But also: closely following each other
- (difference in how they are being framed)

Agendabuilding
Politicians have more difficulties in bringing their issues in the media. The media is more successful. The chance that a written question will get in the media, is decreasing.

Framing

• “Framing essentially involves selection and salience. To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and / or treatment recommendation for the item described.” Entman (1993)

• “A frame is an emphasis in salience of different aspects of a topic.” De Vreese (2005)

• Generic versus issue specific

• Inductive versus deductive: using predefined frames (generic) or just using an issue (issue specific) and make a theory about this -> deductive. E.g. if you have a more deductive approach, you can’t compare economic with political perspective.

Framing effects

• Often generic news frames

• On a wide variety of political variables: attitudes, (voting) behaviour, knowledge

• Framing is about effects of emphasis (applicability, or making a connection between two or more concepts), priming about salience (accessibility)

• Soft news: individuals who have little political interest gain knowledge through soft news (human interest and conflict frame) People who are really political interested, don’t gain knowledge by soft news.
   

Framing immigration and integration
Huge differences in which frames are used. Past years ‘islam-as-a-threat’ frame in newspapers, but mixed in political document, mostly emancipation frame.

Plenary lecture 4: Political journalism and beyond

Introduction
Dependent variable = news content (topics, politicians, frames, elements of sensationalism, etc.)
To understand why the “news” looks like it does, we want to focus on the social reality of journalism
This field is sometimes called ‘media sociology’.

Hierarchy influences model
The model shows that the work of journalists is influenced by five levels that represent social reality. These levels go from micro (individual) to macro (culture and society). The model is introduced by Shoemaker and Reese (1996) and is still applicable. The highest level (macro) is ideology. Then extramedia forces, organization, media routines follow and the lowest level (micro) is the journalist himself. Those levels are independent variables.

1. Ideology: A social system.
= journalism depends on the role journalists play in a society. Media must function within the ideological boundaries set by a society, “the system”. This is most abstract and very hard to bring into empirical analyses with variables.

2. Extramedia Forces.
= political journalists are influenced by social institutions and forces. They are under pressure of Economic forces (e.g., market), political pressures (e.g., parties), cultural influences (e.g., church).
An example is lobbying. A lobbyist is a person who tries to influence public officials, usually for or against a public cause. Lobbyists are employed by interest groups. For example about human rights and the environment.

3. Organizations
= the organizational structure within which a political journalists works constrains but also enables work. Different media outlet has different goals (e.g., newspaper vs. TV). Size and ownership of the organization (e.g., big/small; international/NL) have a big influence on the journalist. The target audience (e.g., lower/higher educated) has also an influence on the journalists and his media content.

4. Media Routines
= patterned, routinized, repeated practices and forms that political journalists use to do their job. For example, selecting sources, verifying sources, constructing news items and objectivity norms. This varies for journalists.

Routine channels
= Those routines have a big influence on the news content. Journalists for example follow the information politicians are giving them or check where other media write about. Routines: official proceedings, press releases, press conferences, staged event and report from other organizations.

• Main news sources for journalists in NL: Volkskrant, NRC, NOS Teletekst, Telegraaf, NOS radio

• For TV: Impact of EVN News Exchange.
   

But also, more and more online sources
Has the rise of social media changed how political journalists select sources?

• Tweets as direct source in political news

• Wikipedia as a source of political information

• Verification strategies are difficult (geolocation unclear)
   

5. Individual Journalist
= Political journalism depends on a journalists individual attitudes

• Professional (e.g., educated/non-educated)

• Personal (e.g., man/woman; role conceptions)

• Political (e.g., left/right)
   

Role conceptions
= How journalists perceive their role in society

• Interventionist or detached

• Critical or loyal

• Public interest or market orientation

• Many other options…
   

Functions of media in a democratic society (McNair, 2003)

Information, education, platform function, watchdog function and channel function.
 

Check out the journalistic role conceptions as distinguished by Beam et al. (2009)

• Disseminator: classic role. Get information to he public quickly. Stay away from stories where factual content cannot be verified. Concentrate on news that’s of interest to the widest possible audience. Provide entertainment and relaxation

• Interpreter: Investigate claims and statements made by the government. Provide analysis and interpretation of complex problems. Discuss national policy while it is still being developed. Develop intellectual and cultural interests of the public). Provide analysis and interpretation of international developments. 60% journalists are interpreters. This journalistic role overlaps with the disseminator.

• Adversary: A step further than the interpreter role. Be an adversary of public officials by being constantly skeptical of their actions. Be an adversary of businesses by being constantly skeptical of their actions. Less than 20% of US journalists. Usually in combination with interpreter role.

• Populist mobilizer: Activate your audience and bring them in the public agenda. Give ordinary people a chance to express their views on public affairs. Develop intellectual and cultural interests of the public. Motivate ordinary people to get involved in public discussion of important issues. Point people toward possible solutions to society’s problems. Set the political agenda.
   

Neutrality/objectivity

• Often named as the most important aspect of political journalism by the public

• “3 Big Bs”: Bias, Bonus & Balance

• Bias: certain political actors get a favourable treatment in the media compared to others. Usually meant as intentional difference in attention and tone.

• Bonus: Incumbents receive extra media attention due to media routines

• Balance: the presence of at least two different voices in a certain news item.
   

Important!

• The hierarchy influences model simplifies and highlights

• The different levels of the model are interdependent

• You don’t have to consider all levels if you try to describe journalistic work

• Seems like individual political journalist is ‘powerless’, but this is not the case.

   

How does that fit in a larger system?

Hallin & Mancini
They were looking for systematic differences in the relationship between media and politics. Their research is based on (historical) data from 19 Western countries. They made comparisons based on 4 media dimensions (and 5 political system dimensions, but let’s not focus on those here).

1. Structure of the media market: Focus on mass or elite audience.

2. Political parallelism: Pluralism—external or internal: links between media and political parties and/or the state. Differences between media or differences inside a medium.

3. Journalistic professionalism: how strong, educated and autonomous are journalists.

4. State intervention: subsidies and rules for the press, censorship.

    

Hallin & Manchini: 3 different models.

1. Polarized Pluralist Model (Greece, Spain, Portugal etc.) This model is also called Mediterranean. The newspaper readership is low and the focus is on elites. There is high political parallelism and the pluralism is external. The professionalization of journalism is low. There is a strong state intervention to control. But: savage deregulation at some point for commercial media.

2. Democratic Corporatist model (Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Netherlands etc.)
   This model is also called Northern European. In countries with this model, there is a high newspaper circulation and the focus is on masses. Historically there was a party press (polarized), but this shifted to neutralism. Pluralism was external, but later internal. There is strong state intervention as funder & protector.

3. Liberal Model (for example US, UK, Canada etc.)
   This model is also called North Atlantic. There is a medium newspaper circulation. In those countries is little or no political parallelism. They are neutral, but there is a highly commercialized press. Those countries have internal pluralism. Journalism is strongly professionalized. There is low government intervention, the media is market-dominated (but some strong PBS/PSB, like the BBC).
    

Esser & Umbricht (2013)

• Based on a content analysis of the use of three key indicators (opinion-orientation, objectivity, and negativity)

• US: newspapers a coexistence of objective and interpretative journalism (allowing for a ‘rational analysis’ of news)

• Italy: coexistence of opinionated and negative news (promoting the provision of ‘polarized’ information)

• Germany & Switzerland: newspapers a coexistence of news and views (although with an emphasis on rational, factual and consensual reporting).

• French and British newspapers occupy borderline positions.
   

Convergence hypothesis
Numerous factors would be influencing systems of media and politics to slowly converge to the liberal model. This has been called “Americanization” or liberalization. The reasons are changes in technology and professional education, modernization/secularization, depillarization, decline of political parties and commercialism.
 

Beyond news and information

Politics in more entertainment-oriented programs?

• When a politician goes to programs beyond the news and pure information….
  Large variation in

1. how much room there is for political messages (e.g. still quite a lot in infotainment, less in a quiz).

2. how seriously they talk about politics (e.g. ‘fake news’ in satire)

• But also the degree of control for the politician, less or unclear basic knowledge of the audience to start from and specific audiences.

• Current affairs program: aiming to present politicians’ ideas and perspectives on relevant political issues, while simultaneously holding politicians accountable for their actions, questioning their motivations, and challenging their plans.

• Talk show hosts: aiming to entertain the audience

• Current affairs programs: argumentative interrogation and antagonistic atmosphere, including interruptions. Avoidance of sociability. Repeating questions.

• Entertainment shows: More positive/supportive and less critical, supportive and lighter tone, more friendly atmosphere, less interruptions or challenges. More open questions.

Boukes & Boomgaarden

• Experiment

• Elco Brinkman in a more entertainment show and a more current affairs program

• Dependent variable: general trust in politicians

• Main independent variable: entertainment versus current affairs orientation of the program, moderator = political knowledge.

• Main finding: Politicians appearing in entertainment programs leads to higher trust towards politicians in general. Strong moderator: Political Knowledge. Those with low knowledge, gain general trust in politicians from watching a politician in a show.

How does that work?
Exemplification: people see one politician appearing, and they consider him/her as an exemplar, so they generalize.

Conclusion about appearing in entertainment shows

• Good idea?
  - Yes for general political trust (works for the ones with least pol knowledge)
  - Yes for more positive and less content-critical attention for the politician

• Watch out for:
  - No guarantees for content
  - Unwanted (personal) questions
  - Other guests? (could attack you)

Plenary lecture 5: Political marketing and campaigns

What is political marketing
Political marketing= the application of marketing principles and practices to politics. So it is not just using fancy tools or techniques, also an organizing philosophy. This is a fundamental shift in how politics works. It is also not just limited only to campaign periods.

Party tactics
Political parties seem to take different approaches to politics and campaigns. Some try to lead voters by presenting a specific set of policies/ideology and asking for voter support. This is the traditional way, especially mid last century. More recently, others try to follow voters by asking what voters want, and then tailoring their policies/ideology to fit.

Party orientations
A useful way to think of this in 3 party orientations. This is derived from commercial marketing ideas.

1. Product orientation: how do we make the best possible product (party/ideology)?

2. Sales orientation: how do we sell our product most effectively?

3. Market orientation: who are we selling to, and what do they want?

A big shift
These orientations matter, because they fundamentally shift how campaigns and even politics, work. With a product or sales orientation, the party’s goals influence the voter’s goals. With a market orientation, the voter’s goals influence the party’s goals. This shift could happen, because of a number of societal trends since 1960’s:

• Decrease in party membership

• Decrease in engagement and turnout, especially youth

• Traditional social dimensions dissolving (dipillarization in NL, social movements in U.S. & Europe)

• Rise of TV/Internet as primary info sources

• Increase of commercialism

• Increase in cynicism

Media proliferation and fragmentation
50 years ago, there were a few TV channels, a few radio stations and a few newspapers in each market. When people are watching more tv as primary form of entertainment, people feel less engaged with the community and are more likely to react aggressive.

Consequences of these shifts
All of these trends lead to more volatile, cynical, and disengaged voters. Meanwhile, all these voters are also more accustomed to commercial society where ‘costumer is king’. It also makes it harder for political parties to hold on to their tradition voters, and to attract new ones. Also harder to know what a person wants, based on ‘traditional’ social factors (age, gender, religion). So this is where a voter-driven, market-orientation comes in.

Isn’t this good?
After all, elected officials represent us. So if they listen to us and what we want, this is better for democracy. BUT, there are some problems with this:

1. Defining the product or market
   What is the actual product that is being sold in politics? Is it the politician/candidate, ideology/policies, party membership? There are actually no concrete benefits or substance that voters get from choosing a particular candidate/party in an election. It’s all about reputation, trust, and promises.

2. The centrality of image.
   Image is essential to the non-tangible product. May be even be the product at times. Needs to be unique and simple, but what range of uniqueness exists in a market-orientation? An image is also subjective: understood differently by different targets and is fragile and easy to destroy. Authenticity of the image is also an essential thing, but authenticity vis-à-vis the market’s subjective perceptions? Finally, absolute control is impossible, simple mistakes can have enormous impacts.

3. Market constraints
   Advertising limits: advertising is limited to certain periods/media in many countries, in some (USA) it is catastrophically expensive. In most places, there are reasonable limits, like budgets, sources of money and opportunities for messages. There are also funding issues: funding/spending is often limited as well, but also volatile – donors can pull out.

4. Normative tension between product and market orientation
   Shouldn’t parties stick to their ideologies? Issues with opinion polls? Who’s driving policy? Does the public really know what would serve it best? The article of Johns & Brandenburg suggest voters don’t particularly like market orientation, even when they notion it.
    

Market orientation and its problems
Despite these problems, the societal trends are such that some level of market orientation is likely to persist. This can mean frustration for voters and parties, but also empowerment plus a lot of fun and challenging, job opportunities for “marketeers” in politics.

Going negative
Damore defines negative ads as those that target your opponent (versus that feature yourself). Different features of staying positive and going negative:

• Staying positive: can attract and inform undecided voters about your issues, reduces voter uncertainty about you and platform, but requires good market research to resonate and does not interfere with opponent’s agenda.

• Going negative: Can undermine opponents’ support, also control campaign agenda, negative info leads to higher recall, but doesn’t not necessarily lead to support for you and alienation and backlash are possible.
   

Negative campaigns (Walter & Vliegenthart)
Party election broadcast: complete control. This form posts the most about the issues.
Election debate: half control. This is the most negative form.
Newspaper: you’re not completely in control. This form posts the most about traits.

So when to go negative

• Because you’re trailing in the polls

• Closer to election day

• When the opposition attacks

• If the issue is salient to the public

• On issues that you own

Effects of negative ads

• Negativity as more attention-grabbing

• But effects not clearly stronger than positive ads, a lot of mixed evidence of this.

• There is evidence that the media loves it, negative ads generate media attention.

• But broader effects are arising: cynism, lower turnout, disillusionment and negative ads reinforce the same trends we’ve seen led to more need for political marketing in politics…
   

(election) Campaigns
The campaign= everything that is happening in the framework of the elections. Usually 3-6 weeks before the election. = the collection of all campaigns of political parties or candidates: all a party or candidate does to attract voters + everything else around it (media coverage, debates, etc.)

Possible problems with election campaigns

• Personalisation (increased focus on candidates, influence on social media)

• Detachment from the electorate (polls and experts based on general trends)

• Dominance of experts and pollsters

• Negativity

• Lack of honesty (all means are good to reach your goal)

• Horse race

• Not limited to election times only (permanent campaign) -> electoral fatigue

Campaign Information
Information about issues, information about candidates & direct and indirect communication by political actors. Direct communication is interpersonal communication, party conventions, political advertising, canvassing (going through doors). This form can be controlled very well by politicians.
Indirect communication (mediated) are e.g. debates, news coverage, infotainment and entertainment shows. Politicians have less control on these forms.
 

Negative campaigns (Walter & Vliegenthart)
Party election broadcast: complete control. This form posts the most about the issues.
Election debate: half control. This is the most negative form.
Newspaper: you’re not completely in control. This form posts the most about traits.
 

Social movements

Actions to get in the media, or actions to get people on the street, to show politicians their opinion. They care a lot about media attention. They think their action is succeed when they get a lot of media attention. If not, it is usually seen as a little problem or a waste of time. But some civil society organisations are very different from regular political actors (elites):

• Poor on resources

• Difficult access to policy makers

• Difficult access to media (both coverage on itself and how they are covered)

• Protest paradigm (McLeod & Hertogh, 1998) = a pattern of coverage on protest. “Trivialize, marginalize, criminalize & demonize”. Routine in newspapers. Focus on negative aspects. Event attention -> issue attention.
   

Protest is still an important way to attract media and public attention
What helps for a protest action to get in de media (Wouters, 2013) is: size, disruption, symbolic action (new social movements), strong organizations (unions) and weekend protests. It is also very important to follow the implicit rules of news making.

The importance of authenticity (Sobieraj, 2010)
Social movements and activists are largely ignored by the media, but they try hard to do what politicians do: media training, press releases etc. Does not seem to work! (unless you are an established organisation) Media seem to be looking for authenticity, emotions etc. After all, the best change is a reactive protest with a large amount of people.

Plenary lecture 6: International journalism

Foreign news

What is foreign news or international news?

The definition is not always clear. You can define news based on location or involvement. You can say that if the news happened somewhere else than the Netherlands, it’s foreign news (without looking at the content). You can also look at involvement, so when the news is not about Dutch people or Dutch things, the news is foreign. You have to be clear about it, because otherwise it is confusing.

Foreign news?

Based on those two elements (location & involvement) (Cohen, 2013), there are 4 outcomes possible:

1) Purely domestic news

2) Domestic news with foreign involvement (HYBRID: combination location and involvement)

3) Foreign news with domestic involvement (HYBRID: combination location and involvement)

4) Purely foreign news (+ Purely International news – no specific country to be named) (transglobal news – space)

Domestication (foreign news with domestic involvement)

• Definition: “Foreign news is increasingly framed and presented in a way that makes it more relevant to audiences in the home country”. (Clausen 2003 sensationalism)

• Sometimes it is natural, but we focus on the fabricated links.

• This happens when journalists make foreign news interesting for the local audience. Journalists could link the context to the home country (e.g. symbols) or the links to the home country are exaggerated.

Domestication: how does it work?

Format:

• Calling a national of the home country at the location

• Calling a national of the home country « around » (not necessarily a witness)

• Sending/Using a reporter from the home country and showing this (e.g. stand-up)

• Calling a national of the country of the event who lives in the home country

Foreign news: different numbers, different goals

• US: low amount of foreign news, but a lot higher with their involvement  they (feel they) are always important

• Egypt: very high amount of foreign news  distraction from home news + control by the army

• China: quite some foreign news, but… Foreign news: the West is bad Domestic news: we are doing great ourselves

Conclusion:

• For domestic news: interests of the audience and domestic news content are very similar

• For foreign news: interests of the audience and foreign news content are mostly not very similar. It looks like newsmakers experience less pressure to comply to audience wishes on foreign news. This could be because a lot of people are interested in foreign subjects like disasters. Another reason is that there are quite some country-specific differences.

Aalberg et al. (2013)

Commercial (or market-driven) broadcast systems:

• Less foreign news (more foreign news in public broadcasts)

• More focus on (international) soft news

• More (hard news) international coverage seems to correlate with better knowledge on international issues.

Making foreign news

Foreign news heaven: when you have your own foreign correspondent in the country where something is happening. The foreign correspondent can have his own (local) network, the person is specialized, he can follow local media (when he speaks the language), he has a certain degree of independence and has a bond with the home country (he knows which news people in the home country would like to see/read).

Do they make a difference?

Foreign correspondents, do they actually make a difference for news content? Case study on China in TV-news (De Swert & Wouters, 2011). The results showed no difference for the general picture, but it do showed that the work of the foreign correspondent is slightly more focused on social Issues, has more tone, more attention for civil society & experts and more attention for the daily life of people.

How to make foreign news?

There are 3 ways to make foreign news: Using correspondents, sending parachute journalist and making news from the home news desk, based on material from news agencies and other broadcasters

1. Correspondents

• Advantages: local network, overview of the local situation, follows local media. This leads to more news and better quality news.

• Disadvantages: expensive and sometimes still far from event (big countries)

2. Parachute-journalists

• Definition: journalists who are based in the home country and flown in when something happens, for a short time.

• Advantages: flexible, less expensive than correspondent

• Disadvantages: A lot of episodic news and also elite-focus due to limited local knowledge. They have to cover immediately, but because they don’t know people at the town, their work is most of the time, the same as journalists who weren’t there.

3. Making news from the home news desk, based on extern material

• Advantages: cheap, material is (almost) ready for use.

• Disadvantages: Not much control over content and accuracy, it is difficult to find extra information and it is often dominated by elite sources.

Special cases

People think, the ideal journalist is an objective journalist. Often, the journalist turns out not to be so objective. There are 3 examples: Embedded journalism, journalism of attachment and peace journalism .

1. Embedded journalism

Embedded journalism: To move around in the company of the army in a country where there is a conflict. As a journalist, your freedom is limited, you are controlled by the army, you get protection, but you can’t write sensitive information. Journalists & soldiers are getting a bond.

2. Journalism of attachment

Ruigrok (2008): Sometimes, journalists deviate from the concept of neutrality. They take a side and are a part of the debate. Journalists want to bring out some problems, they want people to discuss about. Journalist do this by openly (editorials) and more subtle (in the actual coverage). Public journalism: journalism deviating from the norm by being engaged, exposing problems and trying to stimulate societal debate.

Journalism of attachment: How?

• Instrumental actualisation: Inflating or hiding information according to how it fits with the journalist’s engagement

• Opportune witnesses: the choice not to use certain sources. Those sources are selected saying what the journalist wants to, what fits in the engaging character of the news item.

3. Peace journalism

The opposite of “war journalism”. The reports are also about the background, not just the pure facts. It focuses on causes for the problems, not on who is guilty. Peace journalists seek for solutions and contributes to that instead of focussing who the winner is. Also preventively and after the conflict. Peace journalists also provide a platform to all voices involved, not just elite focused. This form of journalism avoids polarization and does not follow the we-against-them style.

Plenary lecture 7: Merits and challenges for political communication and journalism

Comparing results

We need to compare results, because otherwise we don’t know what they mean. We also need to look at the merits.

• “Every observation is without significance if it is not compared with other observations” (Pfetch, 2004).

• “Comparative research can render the invisible, visible”(Blumler & Gurevitch, 1995)

• Sometimes it is difficult to compare results, because the concepts are a little bit different, for example.

• Comparative research is trending

Infrastructure

Their might be a need to rely on existing infrastructure to compare the results. There are websites which have made a timeline, for example about the history of television. This kind of sources can make comparing easier.

Comparing (4 levels)

• Contexts: What are the characteristics of the media systems and what does this mean for political communication?

• Production: How is news produced, what do journalists? How much political news is available? Most political journalists are left-winged.

• Contents: A content analysis, by analysing: advertising, entertainment, political posters etc. Hallin (1992) did a content analysis and found that nowadays you don’t see politicians speaking on television anymore (soundbites). The average length of soundbites decreased from more than 40 seconds in 1968 to 10 seconds in 1988. Journalists are often telling or summarizing what the politicians have said. Albaek et al. (2010) also did a content analyses. He analysed the news of two big public broadcasts and concluded there is always a balance in left-winged and right-winged news. Another researcher who did a content analysis is Brettschneider. He investigated how often poll reports were mentioned in the news. The graphic showed an increase, but this probably had to do with the unique characteristics of the elections, so we can’t say it’s really valid.

• Effects: comparing effects, like interest, knowledge, exposure, attention

Typology of comparisons

• Descriptive

• Explanatory

• Comparisons of relations

• Explaining variations in relations across units

Why (not) compare

• Perspective

• Explaining or describing

• Unique or common

Future political communication

• Comparative: help to clarify results

• Conditional

• Indirect

Future of journalism

4 positions (Curran, 2010)

• Media controllers, media industry leaders

• Journalists

• Armageddonists

• Liberal journalism educators

Final conclusion: We need public reformism!

Media controllers, media industry leaders

• “There is no problem”

• Journalism is just in transition

• The industry will make sure journalism will survive, adapting to new circumstances

• BUT: The internet (not only news media!) is taking large quantities of the advertisement market, and news media are not able to control it.

Journalists themselves

• “Quality and standards are going down”

• There is a problem: Less fixed jobs, less time, lower quality, lack of investigative journalism

• Weakening public understanding, threat to democracy!

• BUT: sometimes journalism as it is creates a “fog of misunderstanding”. Journalists also don’t have the exact image of how the world looks like.

Radicals, armageddonists

• “Traditional journalism dies, great!”

• Crisis of traditional journalism will make room for progressive new forms of journalism, finding the audience

• Good the traditional, market-driven conglomerates will perish

• But: This does not seem to happen, even on-line, most news is provided by large, traditional media concerns.

Liberal journalism educators

• “Journalism will be reborn, and better”

• Journalism renaissance (re-invention of journalism)

• Web-based news is enriching traditional media

• Web-based journalism (bloggers, citizen journalists, new forms …) content makes up for declining traditional news: More, better, more diverse

• Network journalism, professionals and amateurs together

• BUT: creative caniballistion (= mutual lifting of stories from rivals’websites) due to the high work pressure, no time to do real, their own, creative work.

Public reformism

The government needs to help. He wants the news system to be reconfigured with an eye for the public good. Actions that can change the future of journalism for the better. Examples: state subsidies directly to newspapers, postal subsidies, tax deduction for journalism-related activities, let universities organize and develop journalism-strengthening activities and ideas, defend public service media and their right to be present on-line, funds for stimulating different (useful) journalistic activities..