Kimone Joseph - School of Media and Communication

Transcription

Political Communications in
Dominica:
Journalism and the 2009 General Election
Campaign
I.D:200528768
COMM5600M
University of Leeds
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Student ID: 200528768
Dissertation
Student Name: Kimone Charlize Joseph
Student ID#: 200528768
Course: COMM5600M
Supervisor: Dr. K Voltmer
Word Count: 15,736
Topic: Political Communications in Dominica: Journalism and the 2009 General Election
Campaign.
Question: How did the media in Dominica report the General Elections of 2009?
A dissertation submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the requirements of the MA in Communication Studies,
Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds, September 2011.
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Table of Contents:
Chapter Content
Page
Chapter 1: Introduction:
Background
5
Research Rationale
7
Structure of Dissertation
9
Aims of Research
9
Chapter 2: Literature Review:
Introduction
11
Journalistic Values
12
Political Economy of Media
18
Audience Preference
24
Politicians’ Influence
26
Overview
27
Chapter 3: Methodology and Analysis:
Semi structured interviews
29
Content Analysis
44
Chapter 4: Conclusions
61
Chapter 5: Work Cited Pages
64
Chapter 6: Appendices
75
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Acknowledgments:
I thank my supervisor, Dr Voltmer, whose patience was immeasurable.
Also,
gratitude must be expressed to Dr. Slater and Dr. Smith who gave advice and read my drafts.
I also appreciate the help of the members of the Dominican media who graciously
participated in the research for the project. Last, but not least, I thank my family and friends
for their sustaining prayers and well wishes during this challenging academic year.
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Abstract:
Using semi structured interviews and content analysis, this study seeks to examine
how the media in Dominica covered the 2009 General Election campaign. It does this by
attempting to search for consistencies in journalists’ perception of their coverage of the
campaign and the reality presented in the news content. In the first part of the study,
journalists share their experiences about the differences in the way the various media
organizations in the country reported the election, and they reveal factors like conflict
between their role perceptions and reality, political economy, audience preference and
political bribery which contributed to the differences in coverage. Overall, even given the
constraints which they admit were present during the campaign season, journalists judge the
Campaign 2009 coverage as fair to candidates and their parties.
Secondly, the study
examines the content of the media’s campaign coverage itself. Using theoretical concepts
concerning campaign coverage, it observes patterns in campaign aspects, access and tone in
order to determine if the coverage was indeed fair. The results show that the actual content of
the coverage did in fact match journalist’s perceptions and that the coverage of the campaign
did reflect journalists’ understanding of their role when facilitating in the delivery and
reception of political messages.
Chapter 1 - Introduction:
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1.1 Background: The Dominican Media
The communication of political information in the island of Dominica is a rather
intricate affair. Like many other places, the country’s history, political system and cultural
background have had a significant impact on the kinds of messages that are disseminated to
the public. The Commonwealth of Dominica, not to be confused with its fellow Caribbean
island Dominican Republic, received its independence from Britain in 1978.
It has a
population of about 70,000, and the main source of revenue comes from the banana industry,
which has been struggling to compete since it lost its preferential treatment from Britain in
1992. The current political system is a democratic one which, for the most part, copies the
British Parliamentary system. It is a multi-party system comprising of the ruling Dominica
Labour Party (DLP) (which is currently serving its third straight term), the opposition United
Workers Party (UWP) (which governed the island from 1995 to 2000) and the minority
Dominica Freedom Party (DFP) (which held the governing position from 1980 to 1995).
The media system, like everything else on the island, is relatively very young and
small, and because of Dominica’s previous colonization by Britain and its proximity and
exposure to American media, the media is patterned largely on many of the ideals of press
liberties of the United States and Britain. Most of the 50 or so journalists who work in the
newsrooms in Dominica do not have a degree in either in journalism or another field when
they begin. Rather, the majority of their training is received on the job and the ones who can
afford it or who receive funding after a few years mainly attend the one-year diploma
program rather than the BA program at the University of the West Indies’ Caribbean Institute
of Media and Communications (CARIMAC) in Jamaica, which was established in the 1970s
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to encourage newly independent Caribbean states to become active in supporting both the
consumption and exportation of local culture through the media.
Radio, the dominant medium, started in 1978 when the state-owned Dominica
Broadcasting Corporation (DBS) was established. DBS continued as the sole radio station
until the 1990s when Kairi FM and Q-95 started broadcasting. Cable television signal
distribution began in the early 1980s with Marpin Telecommunications, and competition
there came almost twenty years later with SAT Telecommunications. Each of these cable
companies uses a channel for local broadcasts of events, programs and news.
The
Government Information Service (GIS) also uses a channel of each of these cable companies
to run government programs.
Newspaper readership is very low because although the
island’s literacy rate currently stands at 94%, for a long time, due to the island’s history of
slavery and its rugged terrain which made access to education difficult, the literacy rate had
been below 50%. The two weekly papers on the island The Chronicle and The Sun have a
circulation of about 3,000 and 2,000 respectively. Of all these media, only DBS and GIS are
state-owned.
The young Dominican media’s consideration of rules and regulations governing them
is complex. The Broadcasting Law of 1975 (amended in 1978) deals specifically with DBS,
and other media organizations have been able to escape the many ambiguities in it (BuffongRoyer, 2010). During Campaign 2009, the penetrability of the Broadcasting Law became
even more evident when DBS took a decision to restrict its political information only to
news, hence denying all parties the broadcast of political advertising and programmes. Kairi
FM, whose owner Frankie Bellot is a well-known patron and advocate of the ruling DLP,
allowed only that party to broadcast ads and programmes even though the Media Workers
Association of Dominica condemned the station’s behaviour (Dominica Central, 2009).
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Therefore, the fact is that the Dominican media are still growing as they try to fit in
with more established media systems in the digital age. They do not operate in isolation, but
are dealing on the one hand with politicians who have a hard time getting use to the idea that
the messages that are being received about them may not always be the kinds of messages
that they will want disseminated. On the other hand, the media also have to contend with
audiences who are very deeply political and are easily offended if messages do not support
their party. Dealing with these challenges while trying to establish their roles can be
complicated for Dominican journalists as they mediate political information. Therefore, as
we examine how the media covered Campaign 2009, we expect that there will be certain
lapses. We expect that, although they may profess to model their roles on the mainly
American principles of objectivity, the actual experience and content of the coverage of
Campaign 2009 will present cracks in these ideals.
1.2 Research Rationale:
Firstly, on a global level, while much research has been done about the coverage of
campaigns in terms of journalists’ political versus structural bias (Ranney, 1983, Rouner et al,
1999 and Zeldes et al, 2008), journalists’ agenda setting functions during campaigns (Entman
2007 and Druckman & Parkin, 2005) and the categories of coverage which include horse race
analysis, issue analysis and personality traits evaluation (Graber, 1976 and Khan, 1991), very
little work has sought to judge the quality of campaign coverage on the basis of an
amalgamation of factors that journalists claim affect their ability to work effectively during
the campaign season. Also, although there is much work on how audiences view media’s
campaign coverage (Gunther, 1992 and Baumgartner & Morris, 2006), there is a lack of
study that presents how media personnel critique their own role in political communications.
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In addition, there has been little work that attempts to juxtapose journalists’ analysis of
campaign coverage with the actual content of that coverage.
On the local level, the examination of the coverage of the campaign season of the
General Elections of 2009 in Dominica is of particular importance. This election campaign
proved to be a special case because it saw so many controversies. Apart from all the
allegations, of particular interest is the fact that Campaign 2009, unlike any other before, saw
blatant denial of access of certain politicians and parties to some media organizations.
Hence, political parties and certain media are still engaged in a heated court battle almost two
years after Election Day. Yet, to date, there has been no research done to examine how the
media organizations reported the campaign to the electorate. And, if media personnel were to
be asked what they thought of their coverage of the campaign, what would they say? Would
they acknowledge certain limitations and differences in the way one medium reported versus
another? If so, what would be some of the factors that they would confess that may have
affected their quest to fulfil ‘the people’s right to know’? Would a review of the content of
the coverage reveal consistencies in journalists’ evaluation of the coverage, or would the
actual stories themselves present a different assessment?
Another reason for this research is that very little, if any work, has been done in the
area of political communication in Dominica at all. While there may be a list of reasons for
that, from lack of funding to the Dominican population’s love-hate relationship with politics
itself, understanding media’s political campaign coverage and how and why such
communication is shaped can help the electorate, politicians and media personnel to
comprehend the ways that the media themselves are impacting the whole system of politics.
It allows room for evaluation by each of these three groups when they consider the direction
that they want politics and the dissemination of political information in the island to take.
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1.3 Structure of Dissertation:
This dissertation will be organised into chapters. The first chapter will include the
background and rationale that have pre-empted the research and the aims of the research.
Chapter 2 will contain the Literature Review section which will develop the idea of the
various elements that influence the media’s coverage of an election campaign. Chapter 3 will
explain the methodology and analysis of the research. Chapter 4 will contain the conclusions.
Chapter 5 will provide the works cited pages. Chapter 6 will contain the Appendices where
the letter sent to the media organizations in Dominica, the interview questions and the coding
information will be seen.
1.4 Aims of Research:
This research will seek to discover how the media in Dominica covered the General
Election campaign of 2009. It will do this by answering four questions:
a) What were the differences in the way that the various media organizations covered the
campaign?
b) What were some of the factors that affected these differences in the coverage?
c) How do journalists who were on duty during the election campaign season perceive the
coverage of the campaign?
d) What does the actual content of news during the campaign season reveal about the media’s
coverage of the elections?
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To answer these questions, two methods will be used:
a) Semi-structured interviews with journalists who worked during the campaign season
will add depth by seeking to reveal their own experiences in reporting on the General
Election. This will provide answers to the first three questions. It will allow journalists to
speak about the types of factors that influenced their organization’s performance, and to
judge how such factors may or may not have established differences in how the different
media covered the campaign. Its findings will evaluate which contributing factors were the
most prevalent during their coverage of the elections.
b) Content Analysis: The actual contents of news stories of the campaign season will be
observed and evaluated in order to answer the fourth question. It will examine the news
stories’ focus on aspects expected to be covered in political campaigns, access of political
parties to the media and the tone of the stories themselves. This will provide an assessment of
the connection between the experience of the journalists and the news material.
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Chapter 2 –Literature Review:
2.1 Introduction:
For a long time, studies examining the relationship between the media and politics
were largely focused on the ability of the media to manipulate the voting patterns of the
electorate (Gurevitch & Blumler 1987). However, this concept has been largely overturned,
and media studies have generated a new concept that the media itself has been shaping the
way politics and political campaigning is actually done. According to McQuail (1987),
“Politics provides a good example where the mass media have ... affected ... the way politics
is conducted and its main activities organized” (in Curran et al: 71). This is in line with what
is being referred to as mediatisation of politics. “Mediatised politics is politics that ... has
become dependent in its central functions on mass media, and is continuously shaped by
interactions with mass media” (Mazzoleni & Schulz, 1999). Since media organizations are
institutions that manage the information that is disseminated to the electorate (Gurevitch &
Blumler, 1987), “the question of who gets into the news and why becomes of utmost
importance” (Tresch, 2009). During a campaign, politicians need the media to make facilities
available for them to receive direct access to the voting audience (Jakubowicz, 1996). But
how exactly is this ‘access’ granted by the media?
Election coverage by the media in any democratic country is not an easy business. In
fact, there are many considerations that media organizations must juggle. Some of these
include: (1) the conflicts between what journalists would like to do and what actually happens
during election campaigns (conflicts of provision of access and the provision of information),
(2) the political economy of the media institution (this includes aspects like media ownership,
contributors of advertising revenue and editorial policy), (3) audience preferences, and (4)
politicians’ influence (such as bribery). In this section of the dissertation, we will focus on
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what scholars say about each of these factors and how it influences media coverage during
political campaigns.
Although many of the theoretical ideas presented below are of
American and British context because Dominican journalists try to imitate the styles of these
countries, attempts are made where possible to include other, more international perspectives
on these factors that influence election coverage in other democracies. This will help us to
understand what political communications experts have discovered about the situation in
which journalists work during campaign seasons, and will hopefully provide insight into what
would have been generally expected during the campaign period in Dominica.
2.2 Journalistic Values: Perceptions vs. Reality
First of all, one of the main factors that affect media coverage in political campaigns
is the conflict between what media professionals ideally think should be their role in political
information dissemination and what they actually do when it comes to reporting the
campaign. When it comes to providing political information, the media in most democratic
societies see their role as being “channels of communication between politicians and the
public... among politicians themselves... [and they] also function as ... communicators of their
own messages” (Jakubowicz, 1996: 130). Gurevitch & Blumler (1987) and Norris (2000)
liken the media’s role to a graph where the media interacts with politicians on a horizontal
level by facilitating message production which is then disseminated to the audience on the
vertical level. In order to do this effectively, as long as media organizations are not dedicated
to furthering the interest of any particular cause, they usually have two main role perceptions
during an election campaign: a) they ideally see themselves serving the candidates by
providing them access to the audience and b) they ideally see themselves serving the
audience by providing information and analysis in order for the voters to make an informed
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decision (Jakubowicz, 1996). To examine how media coverage can be affected by the
conflict between perceived journalistic roles and the empirical, we will discuss each of these
roles in turn.
Providing Access:
Primarily, many journalists in most democracies see their role as to provide election
candidates with access to the audience during the campaign.
According to Lo (1998),
Taiwanese journalists for example, put particular emphasis on this role because for them,
message dissemination is more important than anything else. Because there is usually more
than one candidate or party in a campaign, the journalists would ideally want the “media
system [to] reflect the political ... diversity within a society” (Norris, 2000: 26). Yet, does
this value of access mean that if the media do not provide the exact amount of contact to all
political contenders that there is unfair coverage?
Here is one area where the journalists’ role perception can conflict with what actually
happens in practice. Jakubowicz (1996) claims that there are usually rules that determine
access.
Semetko (1996) claims that these rules, which differ from country to country,
provide a big dilemma for news organizations during campaign time because media
professionals have to give serious considerations to their ideals, particularly when it comes to
news. The fact of the matter is that the desire to give fair access does not always mean
empirically giving exact coverage to all parties and candidates. Schiffer (2006) states that an
election itself is not a ‘balanced’ phenomenon, so fair access cannot be expected to be
synonymous with equal access. He claims that the nature of the candidate or the party, the
current national situation and market forces are always going to have serious implications on
who gets more coverage, and this, in and of itself, is fair access.
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Khan (1993) states that both campaign coverage and candidate status favour
incumbents. For instance, by acting officially, incumbents can attract more news coverage
because “incumbents receive more media attention ... than challengers... [and] incumbents’
views on issues are covered more extensively” (Ibid). According to Prior (2006), coverage of
incumbents will most likely tip the scales because they are more newsworthy and usually
better funded than challengers. Also, minority parties and independent candidates typically
get a smaller share of coverage than other contenders. That is because the electorate want
more coverage of those who stand a better chance of actually winning (Hofstetter, 1976). So,
does this mean that more access being allowed to incumbents suggests a conspiracy of unfair
coverage to challengers? Zeldes et al (2008) and Ranney (1983) say that this is not the case,
but in fact, this type of coverage is part of structural rather than political bias. Ranney
(1983) explains that political bias stems from the desire of media people to advance a
particular political cause, while structural bias, although it can cause one political side to be
portrayed more favourably, comes about as a result of the nature of the news business itself,
and not the political sentiments of those reporting it.
Also, the nature of the campaign itself is going to determine coverage despite
journalistic perceptions of their role of providing access. For example, the candidate or
party’s standing in the polls will affect its amount of coverage. Khan (1991) and Graber
(1976) explain that the idea of the horse race and who is leading it, which started in the U.S.
and has since spread to many other countries, will have implications on which candidate(s)
will get covered more. According to Schiffer (2006), the media often defend themselves
from accusations of bias by “matching their coverage with public sentiment ... of which
candidate is ‘better’ than the other.” In addition, the reality of campaigns these days is that
political candidates and parties rely on marketing strategies.
This also has structural
implications on coverage despite the journalistic goals of access. Campaigns with the budget
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for better communications specialists usually can ensure that they get the lion’s share of
media coverage (Prior, 2006). Hence, Zeldes et al (2008) and Gurevitch & Blumler (1990)
claim that campaign communicators are now finding effective ways of curtailing their
messages into simple and effective points that they can feed the media.
Therefore, access to the media is not a simple matter.
No matter how much
journalists may want to provide exact coverage for parties or candidates, realistically,
campaigns do not work in this way. Hence, Kuklinski & Sigelman (1992) state that wanting
balance to mean exact in number when discerning bias is unrealistic, since campaigns are
slanted in the “paradox of objectivity.” This means that ironically, the same principles that
the media uses to judge coverage during regular times that are deemed perfectly fair tend to
be accused of bias when applied during a political campaign situation.
Information for the Audience
Furthermore, the second main perception of roles by journalists during the coverage
of election campaigns is that some of them would want to provide background and
commentary that will assist voters in making informed choices (Jakubowicz, 1996). In a
series of studies done on a global scale, Weaver (1998) and his colleagues found that
although this analysis and interpretation role was seen as extremely important in places like
the U.S., Australia and Finland, it was still in its developing stage in newer democracies like
Taiwan, Chile and Algeria. Nevertheless, paraphrasing Mieklejohn (1960), Lichtenberg
(1990) insists:
Since democracy means popular sovereignty ... the citizens in a democracy, as the
ultimate decision makers, need full (or at least a lot of) information to make
intelligent political choices (pg. 110).
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Norris (2000) refers to this function of the media as providing a ‘civic forum’ which
consists of the media providing opportunities for the effective communication between the
audience and a “network of politicians, government officials, journalistic commentators,
advocacy-group spokespersons, [and] think-tank analysts” (pg. 26). According to Waisbord
(2006), the case of journalists in many countries in Latin American is a special one when it
comes to how journalists perceive their role of providing this analytical information. He
explains that there it is quite typical for journalists to regularly mix the hard political news
with their own opinions, which usually have political leanings. Yet, trust is built with the
audience “based on the premise that journalists ... have a unique set of skills that make them
professional experts in news reporting” (pg. 85).
When it comes to analysis, one of the media’s perceived goals is to structure the
timing and character of political events and stimulate the development and use of
communications groups like opinion poll agencies (Gurevitch & Blumler, 1987). According
to Ramsden (1996), through ‘priming effects,’ the media can decide what issues are to be
considered the most prominent, and those issues will be considered by the electorate to be the
most important at that time. Speaking of the media’s role in agenda setting, framing and
priming, Entman (2007) states that the audience members’ perceptions about political issues
can be influenced by how the media chooses to discuss political messages. Also addressing
the issue of priming and framing, Druckman & Parkin (2005) claim that when the media
make choices about election campaign coverage, they consider what issues to highlight, what
events to frame and how to portray the candidates.
In his classic content analysis study of media coverage in the U.S. presidential
elections of 1972, Hofstetter (1976) identified four main aspects of campaign coverage in any
given election: candidates, issues, party & campaigns and various combinations of these
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three. According to him, the presentation of these aspects in the media and the tone that the
media uses in conveying these aspects determine what information is provided to the
electorate during the campaign season.
Here again, the role perception of journalists and
what actually goes on during election coverage diverge, and the concept of fairness becomes
more important than strict equality. The importance and domination of one aspect over
another in a campaign is dependent on other factors.
For example, issues like taxes,
employment and national debt reduction will receive more coverage if the economy is
suffering (Schiffer, 2006). Journalists usually “make judgements about national conditions
and their potential electoral consequences ... [and ] such assessments ...trickle down into the
tone of news coverage” (Ibid). Also, Khan (1991), Graber (1976), and Schiffer (2006) argue
that generally, the media have been focusing on social issues like welfare and minority rights
less and less during the campaigns and have actually been making poll performance of
candidates an ‘issue.’ They claim that this is mainly because politicians themselves are
shying away from taking direct stands on these kinds of issues for fear of alienating voters. A
notable exception though is in the case of Finland, where, according to Heinonen (1998), the
media sees its role as being a “watchdog with a conscience” and ensures that giving effective
attention and education to social issues both in and out of the campaign season is just as
important as analyzing information, and more important than remaining impartial during
campaigns.
Furthermore, the nature of the campaign can have an impact on the distribution of
campaign aspects in the coverage. In her own classic study of the content of media coverage
in the 1972 and 1968 U.S. presidential elections, Graber (1976) found that the aspect of party
and campaign was covered more frequently when there was an ‘excitement’ in campaign
skirmishes rather than on the merits of solutions for problems put forward by parties. The
tone here will also tend to be negative if parties embrace bashing each other. Candidates as
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an aspect of coverage will tend to be more prominent in certain circumstances as well. When
there is a scandal for example, the media’s emphasis on newsworthiness dictates coverage of
and about that candidate.
Therefore, the media, as part of its function in political communication, offer
audiences information about the campaign. Yet, the media’s discussions about the aspects of
the campaign are ruled by factors that can be external to the media themselves. Hence,
certain aspects take precedence in the provision of campaign information while others take a
back seat.
2.3 Political Economy of Media Organizations’ Impact on Campaign
Coverage:
Secondly, apart from discrepancies between the perceived roles and the empirical
workings of the media system, another major factor that can affect campaign coverage is the
political economy of media organizations. Political economy focuses on:
The interplay between symbolic and economic dimensions of public communication.
It sets out to show how different ways of financing and organizing cultural production
have traceable consequences for the range of discourses, representations and
communicative resources (Murdock & Golding, 1991).
Gurevitch & Blumler (1990) say that “the media can pursue democratic values only in ways
that are compatible with the socio-political and economic environment in which they operate”
(pg. 272). Assessment of the political economy of contemporary media provides an accurate
understanding of the how democratic values can be effectively upheld (Mc Chesney, 2001 a).
Discussing the political economy of the media as a basis of media’s campaign coverage
requires the examination of three main factors: a) the ownership of media, b) who provides
the advertisement revenue or subscription, and c) the editorial policy of the organization. We
will discuss these in turn.
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Media Ownership and coverage
Firstly, because the media play such important roles in political communication, it is
important to know who are the people controlling those organizations and wielding this
media power in the first place (Gilens & Hertzman, 2000). Ownership of the media can be a
complicated business because there are so many mixes, blends and intersections these days
due media conglomeration (Schudson, 2002).
Media researchers often come into heavy debate about just how much influence ‘the
big boys’ actually exercise over the news content of their empires. Graber (1997) argues that
in longstanding democracies like the U.S., the claim that media owners pressure journalists in
their businesses to support existing political systems is not necessarily true since to ‘sell’
more stories, journalists prefer to appeal to their audiences. Chalaby (1996) explains that this
concept of effective selling in the media has largely influenced the very principles of
objectivity and neutrality, which are not universal and actually began in the American, and to
an extent, the British press. In comparing American and British newspapers to that of the
French in the 19th century, he states that Anglo-American journalism was able to establish
norms of fairness and neutrality much earlier and easier than other countries like France
because of a number of factors including economics. Chalaby argues that the AngloAmerican press, unlike that of France, mainly relied on advertising and market forces, and
catered to a broad demographic, so that meant less of a need to accept political bribes. Mc
Chessney (2001 b) agrees that a more objective press in the U.S. made more financial sense
from the 19th century. Yet, he maintains that even today, the idea of a completely neutral
press is unrealistic because it fails to take into account:
Decision-making [as] an inescapable part of the journalism process, and some values
have to be promoted when deciding why one story rates front-page treatment while
another is ignored.
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Lichtenberg (1990) claims that “contemporary news organizations belong to large
corporations whose interests influence what gets covered (and, what is probably more central,
what does not) and how” (pg 103). Parenti (1986) interviewed many journalists and editors
in his quest to determine how the factor of ownership affects political coverage. He argued
that in the U.S. “mainstream journalists are accorded a certain degree of independence [but]
... there is always the danger that a reporter or editor might report something that does not rest
well with those at the top” (pg. 35-37). Quoting Jamieson (2000), Groseclose & Milyo
(2005) state that “reporters [can sometimes] respond to the cues of those who pay their
salaries, and mask their own ideological disposition.”
Another important matter to consider in terms of media ownership and its impact on
campaign coverage is that media owners often have their own agendas that they want to
present in the political arena. “The global media system ... is a consequence of a number of
important state policies that have been made” (Mc Chesney, 2001 a). Sutter (2001) agrees
with this and claims that “many media owners over the years have been strongly identified
with political parties or causes and use their organizations to achieve their goals.” For
example, in the 1997 British general elections, The Sun newspaper, under the direction of its
owner Rupert Murdock openly endorsed Tony Blair and the Labour Party because, among
other reasons, “Blair made policy concessions, including assuring Murdoch of his moderate
views on European integration and offering Murdoch a friendly regulatory environment”
(Ladd & Lenz, 2008).
Advertisers and coverage:
Secondly, along with examining how ownership influences coverage in election
campaigns, it is also important to scrutinize who media companies do business with, and how
that business relationship might affect the coverage of the campaign. The nature of the
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relationship between advertisers and media is dependent on both the political and economic
system of each country (Demertzis & Pleios, 2008). This difference will inevitably affect
how much influence advertisers have on coverage in general, and political campaign
coverage specifically. In more developed markets like the U.S., Italy and Japan, advertising
expenditure is massive and relates closely to corporate reputation (Carroll, 2011). Lee &
Solomon (1990) claim that media corporations in these developed markets usually admit that
“loss of advertising revenue is one of their main concerns” (pg. 61). Likewise, Baron (2006)
acknowledges that news outlets in these countries can cater to the wishes of high income
subscribers. In his empirical research in the U.S. in this area, Parenti (1986) suggests that
when corporations decide where to spend their money, they are “directed in part by
ideological preferences ... Advertisers will withdraw financial support in order to stamp out
political heterodoxy” (pg. 48-50).
However, in many countries, for a long time, there has been a clientele relationship
between the media and politics where many media agencies have managed to stay in business
because of the close financial relationship they share with parties (Hallin &
Papathanassopoulos, 2002). These days, the move to commercialization of several media
organizations that were previously under government control in countries like Greece for
example, has given rise to more reliance on advertising (Ibid). In countries like these with
more developing markets, the relationship between the media and advertisers will be different
than those of more developed markets like the U.S. For example, according to Luoma-aho et
al (2011) in Finland, there are “clear delineated boundaries between the news and advertising
content” (pg 439) and newspapers there in particular rely more on subscriptions that on
advertising revenue. Hence, journalists in Finland focus more on social justice than in
pleasing advertisers.
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Editorial Policy and Coverage:
A third important consideration when dealing with how the political economy of news
organizations affects coverage during political campaigns is that of the editorial policy of the
organizations. This is different from how ownership affects coverage because, in this world
of conglomeration, it is quite possible for owners to have one political view while the
editorial style of the organization itself is quite different from that. According to Knight &
Chiang (2008), many times in countries with developed markets, the editorial policy of media
depend on market competition which forces media to differentiate themselves by moving in
ideological extremes.
Norris (2000) refers to the partisanship that accompanies these
ideological differences for the purpose of pursuing markets as ‘external diversity.’
One way that the editorial policy of a media organization can affect coverage of the
election campaign is if the organization endorses one candidate or one party over the others
in the race.
Druckman & Parkin (2005) note that although many newspapers try to stress
that their editorial pages and the news content are separate entities, “some question the
inviolability of this wall, suggesting that, intentionally or not, coverage might follow a
paper’s editorial stance.”
In Germany for example, where political party organs have
continued their strong influence on candidates and campaigns, editorials tend to have strong
political leanings that are also present in news stories and commentaries (Esser & Hemmer,
2008). Ladd & Lenz (2008) examined the change in endorsements of some British
newspapers during the 1997 general elections. They found that the switch in endorsements
did persuade readers to vote differently than they would have if their preferred medium had
not switched sides.
When dealing with editorial policy as a contributing factor in coverage of political
campaigns, it is also important to look at the how journalists themselves work in these
environments. In many instances, journalists know the line that their writings should follow.
23
For example, Kirat (1998) states that in Algeria, many journalists say that they think it would
be good to have an editorial policy that is critical of government and politicians. Yet, when
the actual content of the news is examined, most journalists’ reports prove that the majority
of newsroom policies are in fact that of mere spokespeople of the government. Ranney
(1983) says that this is because those running the news are dedicated to a ‘uniformity of
staffing’ within their organizations.
The people running the ... news now have great power. So, they hire and promote
people like themselves and show a solid front against anyone ... who opposes their
slanting news (pg 39).
Therefore journalists have one of two choices: they can implement self-censorship in order
to ensure that they stick to the general editorial lines of their organization or they may
actively seek employment with organizations that are more adjusted to their point of view
(Donsbach & Patterson, 2004).
On the whole, the political economy of a media organization can have significant
influence on the dissemination of political information. Owners may use their power to
ensure that coverage is curtailed in certain ways, and indeed, even the decision to be impartial
may be due to financial reasons. Advertisers can also sway election coverage in some
countries, particularly those with more developed economies. Also, the editorial policy, for
either partisan or commercial reasons, can also impact the way the media report election
campaigns.
2.4 Audience Preference as a Contributing Factor to Campaign Coverage:
A third factor that can affect journalists’ coverage of political communication is
audience preferences.
When the media deliver political information, they have a “unique
capacity to deliver to the politician an audience which in size and composition is unavailable
to him [or her] by any other means” (Gurevitch & Blumler, 1987: 274). The media’s ability
24
to provide a large audience for the politician’s message during the campaign can never be
mirrored by face-to-face contact. Therefore, the audience’s expectations of the various media
‘products’ that they consume is a significant. Yet, exactly what the audience expects and how
that affects coverage of the campaigns is different depending on the history, culture, politics
and economy of the democracy in question.
In countries with highly developed markets like the U.S:
News organizations are driven economically to capture the largest possible audience,
and thus not to turn it off with whatever does turn it off –coverage that is too
controversial, too demanding, too disturbing (Lichtenburgh, 1990: 103).
In these democracies, there are more media outlets now than ever before and audiences have
become increasingly fragmented. Therefore, it has become possible for audiences to seek out
only the political messages that they see as coinciding with their own views (Webster, 2006
and Iyengar & Hahn, 2009). Such audiences who actively seek out messages reflecting their
own perspectives may or may not even be considering this as a bias (Morris, 2005). As
Weatherly et al (2007) explain:
It is possible that people’s own political leanings may buffer them from perceiving
bias even when bias does exist ... [and] the recipients of supposedly bias news have
their own biases of which they may or may not be aware.
Dalton et al (1998) claim that audiences who are strongly partisan may perceive media which
try to bring fair coverage of the campaign as biased against their candidate. For example,
Iyengar & Hahn (2009) note that U.S. Republicans are more likely to receive their political
messages Fox News while Democrats favour CNN and NPR. Consequently, in an effort to
please and keep their demographic, media organizations themselves can:
Selectively omit relevant information that conflicts with their viewers’ beliefs and
preferences ... because if there is sufficient competition, some media outlets always
find it profitable to provide biased news” (Berhardt et al, 2008).
In other democracies, the relationship between the preference of the audience and the
campaign coverage is different. For example, in most Asian countries, the idea of the
25
audience being seen so strictly by media as consumers is still relatively new, and to a large
extent, the cultures and histories make it hard for many Asian democracies to mirror such a
concept of Western journalism (Gunaratne, 2006). Instead of the consumer focus, the socioculture of Asian philosophy encourages audience members to think of mass mediated
communication not in terms of individualistic need, but on interdependence and it
“encourage[s] constructive criticism of the rulers and promote[s] pluralistic thinking”
(Gunaratne, 2006: 15). For example, Indian audiences view news, not necessarily as a
commodity to consume, but as “vital to free citizenry and [it] ...should be protected from
competition that may value markets over the public sphere” (Thakore, 2006). In South
Korea, Auh et al (1998) claim that audience members are most interested in the straight news
coverage instead of the ‘fluff’ that may be created by media professionals’ opinions. This is
because issues of inaccuracy can sometimes accompany attempts by the Korean media to do
in depth analysis.
All in all, audience preference is indeed a factor that can affect campaign coverage in
the media. For more commercialized media societies, attracting and keeping an audience is
important because increased fragmentation has allowed audiences to be selective and to reject
media that do not share their views as biased. In countries of developing markets, audience
preferences are also important, although not necessarily in the same way. In some countries,
the audience see political communication as a requirement of citizens rather than as part of
the commodity culture.
2.5 Politicians’ influence and the Coverage of Campaigns:
Fourthly, the coverage of campaigns by journalists in democratic states can be
influenced by politicians and their agents through bribery. Campaigns, by their very nature,
26
are the ultimate competition. Every politician in the race wants positive media coverage for
him/herself while he/she hopes for negative coverage of opponents.
Yet, it should be
understood that this wish is not going to be 100% possible since “a difficult relationship
between journalism and political power is a hallmark of democratic society” (Peters, 2003).
Hence, in all democratic states, politicians always hope to manipulate and shape the coverage
of the campaign (Ibid), and that is the main reason why so many hire professional campaign
teams.
In some instances however, particularly in areas where democracy is not yet well
established, or where histories have allowed variations in what democracy means, powerful
political interests can have serious implications on campaign coverage. For example, Auh et
al (1998) tell of politicians in Korea giving chonji or financial gratuities to reporters in
exchange for the downplaying or suppression of embarrassing facts. In his work which
exposed inconsistencies in the media system in Mexico, Orme (1997) gave explicit examples
of how politicians affect media coverage of political communication. “Newspapers routinely
tailor their coverage in exchange for state subsidies, advertising revenue and payment for the
front page placement of specific news stories” (pg 4). Mexican newspapers’ printing of
gacetillas or paid political announcements disguised as news contributes hundreds of
thousands of dollars to newspapers every year and furnish individual reporter’s income in a
way that far exceeds their salaries (Keenan, 1997). Yet, Orme warns that over time, political
influence on the media’s coverage of campaigns through bribery will come to have serious
consequences:
A sold-out press over time loses its credibility and hence its effectiveness as an
instrument for political control. In becoming utterly unreliable as a source of factual
information, the press ... [fails] to meet another basic need of the politicians ... –to
connect with a disaffected electorate (1997:7).
Speaking of the case of bribery’s influence on campaign coverage in Nigeria,
Oloruntola (2007) discusses some journalists’ habit of sycophancy, where, for a price, these
27
journalists ensure politicians favourable coverage full of flattery. Oloruntola also makes
reference to instances of bribery where journalists or media organizations receive money or
gifts from politicians and parties seeking favourable coverage. This has a negative impact on
political communications because “once accepted, monetary bribes and other gifts tie the
hands of journalists who then become incapable of being objective in reporting events and
issues involving people who give the gifts” (Oloruntola, 2007). According to Hill (2008), in
Indonesia, unacknowledged payments of journalists by politicians are regular occurrences.
There, politicians pay “generously for what the industry euphemistically dubbed pencitraam
or image making” (Hill, 2008).
Overall, politicians trying to win favourable coverage for themselves is not something
new to campaigns. Therefore, if any politician or party tries to bribe journalists or their
employers, this will have serious implications on how the political information is
disseminated to the electorate.
Overview:
To sum up, there are several factors that affect coverage during a campaign. These
include conflicts between journalistic role perception and reality, the political economy of the
organization, audience preferences and political influences.
It is therefore safe to assume
that these factors affected the ability of the Dominican journalists to cover the campaign.
Through the theories and ideologies presented in the literature review, we can also speculate
that some Dominican news organizations, both by their nature and by their methods of
operation were more prone to certain factors rather than others. Thirdly, we can presume that
responses to these factors caused one organization’s coverage to differ from others. All in
all, these factors compel reconsideration in the ideas of what constitutes fair coverage in an
election campaign. Based on the opinions and findings of scholars presented in here, it is
28
apparent that these factors prove that strict impartiality in coverage is almost impossible, and
therefore cannot be the sole appraiser of fairness.
29
Chapter 3: Methodology and Analysis
In order to determine how the media in Dominica reported the general election campaign
of 2009, two methods were used. They were: semi structured interviews and content analysis.
3.1 Semi-structured interviews:
3.1.1 Research Design: Pros and Cons
This method was chosen because it gives richness and validity by being based on real life
experiences (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009).
It allows for the interviewees to share their
experiences about covering the 2009 campaign in a way that the other method used, content
analysis, would not be able to. This is because the interviews enable the researcher “to see
and understand what is reflected rather more abstractly in other kinds of data” (Gillham,
2000:10). Therefore, even though it is not the only method used in the research, its inclusion
provides an “illustrative dimension” (Ibid). It gives those who actually covered the campaign
a chance to share their ideas about the differences in the way the various media organizations
covered the campaign, the factors that affected their work and their own perceptions of how
the campaign coverage should be run in the island.
It must be noted however, that the use of semi structured interviews are not full proof.
There are limitations to using this method in research. Firstly, although a member of each
media type was represented (see ‘sample’ section below), it was not possible to speak to
every journalist who was on duty during the campaign season. Therefore, the use of semi
structured interviews will inevitably cause certain generalizations based on the experiences
of a few. Also, the journalists were contacted in April 2011, and were asked to remember
details of a campaign season that occurred in December, 2009. Journalists by trade are
involved in the business of news not ‘old,’ and therefore their recollection of the event may
30
be slightly uncertain at times. Likewise, interviews do not provide an account of reality.
Rather, they echo the observations of the interviewees themselves.
A fourth limitation to
this project, not necessarily the fault of the method itself, but certainly worthy of mention, is
that two media organizations did not want to participate at all in the research project. Both
of these radio stations were directly accused of denial of access to the opposition parties
(Dominica Central, 2009). Not being able to receive the participatory consent of journalists
who work for these organizations leaves a gap that the researcher deeply regrets. It would
have been their chance to explain the perspective of their organizations about why certain
decisions had to be taken during the campaign.
3.1.2 Research Instruments: The three main research instrument used for the semi
structured interviews are: the interview questions, Skype and Skype Recorder and
transcription sheets.
a. Interview questions:
The questions for the interviews are placed into four main categories that relate to the
factors that affect media coverage of election campaigns as researched in the Literature
Review. The categories focused on:
Conceptualizing questions: questions dealing with assessing the general media and the
interviewee’s organization’s performance during the campaign.
Strategy questions: questions dealing with how the interviewee’s organization executed
campaign coverage
Influence questions: questions dealing with who tried to impact coverage and why
Personal questions: questions dealing with basic information about the interviewee
31
(A copy of the interview questions is available in the Appendices)
b. Skype and Skype Recorder:
Interviewees were called using Skype and Skype recorder. Each interview lasted between 25
and 30 minutes. Each interview recording was saved and copied unto a CD (a copy can be
made available upon request).
c. Transcriptions Sheets:
Although it was a long and tedious process, transcribing the interviews was the only
way for the researcher to effectively see what each person said and to be able to group certain
aspects of the interviews into categories for the analysis (King & Horrocks, 2010). The
researcher decided that, based on the population size, including the names of the journalists
would not add nor remove any substance from the analysis. Therefore, the names will not be
used (a copy of transcription sheets is available upon request).
Testing Reliability: The researcher then performed a pilot test (Gillham, 2000), with a
member of the MA Communications Studies class who had experience as a radio announcer
during a recent political campaign in her country. This tested the questions in a ‘real world’
circumstance and the effectiveness of Skype before the actual research interviews were done.
3.1.3 Samples:
Letters were sent to all the media organizations in Dominica explaining the project and
soliciting volunteers to participate in the interviews. Table 1 shows the nature of the media
population while table 2 shows the population size for the research.
32
33
3.1.4 Analysis of Data:
The semi-structured interviews were able to answer at least three of the sub
questions. We will look at each sub question in turn, and analyse the responses of the
journalists to it.
a) What were the differences in the way that the various media organizations covered
the campaign?
Primarily, the interviews brought forward the idea that although the island is small,
the style of coverage was different from one organization to another. These varied in the
types of political communications that organizations provided and companies’ policies on
matters like story and headline selection.
To begin with, different media used different methods to disseminate political
information. Radio stations had the most diversity through talk shows, news, party programs
and public service announcements. Newspapers were able to provide candidate features, and
information about polling stations in addition to news articles. Television, on the other hand,
was only able to provide news.
“We would have loved to have some more in depth and longer discussions with
[politicians] than the news coverage would allow,” said a Marpin reporter, “but that did not
materialize.”
There may have been a number of reasons for this. One of these is that in Dominica,
like many developing countries, many more people listen to the radio than they watch
television or read newspapers (Westoff & Rodriguez, 1995 and Sharma & Kumar, 2002).
Radio has had the longest presence in Dominica, and it has almost complete island-wide
signal coverage. While it may not be possible with newspapers and television, the majority of
34
offices, farming sheds and public transport will have the radio on throughout the day, and the
majority of islanders will have access to at least one radio news package or programme per
day. Also, politicians and think tanks do not have to physically be at the radio station to be
part of a programme, whereas their presence at a television studio is essential for that
medium’s impact.
Secondly, there were differences in coverage in terms of both story and headline
selection by the media organizations. In selecting stories, some organizations were more
proactive than others. Reporters from both television stations stated that they tried to match
issues when selecting stories and that involved actively calling politicians to respond to issues
raised by other parties.
“Sometimes certain parties respond to certain things,” the SAT reporter said. “So
they use what was said on Monday, and they respond to it on Tuesday. We would use that to
make one story.”
On the other hand, others relied heavily on politicians calling in to make a point and
on press releases from the parties. Some even ran some releases directly into the news. This
coincides with the view of Blumler and Guervitch (1990) that communication specialists are
blurring the lines for journalism by providing prepared pieces and easy sound bites for the
media. Those who can do this more effectively will generally ensure better coverage for their
candidates.
The Q-95 FM staff member remarked, “[Politicians] would call the news desk to
make a comment. They would send press releases, and then we would follow up... Labour
would send more press releases than they would call us ...”
35
When dealing with headline selection, only Marpin employees said that they did not
have difficulty. They expressed that the company only brings in local news, so two political
stories made the headlines per night. It did not matter to Marpin’s newsroom which party
came first as long as there were political stories of all parties in the package. However, for the
other media organizations, deciding the headline did matter. The interviewees claimed that
members of the public and politicians would complain about where political stories were
fitted. This phenomenon fits in with the ideas of Kuklinski & Sigelman (1992) who consider
elections in certain democracies to be a ‘seismic’ period where an issue like headlines, which
everyone understands must naturally have one preceding another, will cause sensitivities that
are not present in non-campaign periods. Thus Weatherly et al (2007) and Dalton et al (1998)
conclude that the public can sometimes use its own bias in accusing the media of unfair
coverage. To deal with the issue of headlines, some Dominican media companies alternated
which party appeared first on different days.
The SAT reporter revealed, “If there was UWP making the [first] headline today, then
Labour made the headlines first tomorrow ...”
b) What were some of the factors that affected these differences in the coverage?
In an effort to keep the link between the method and the Literature Review section,
the list of factors cited by political communications experts and researchers that can affect
coverage during a campaign season in democratic societies was used to form the categories of
the semi structured interviews’ analysis. These are: the conflict of journalistic perception of
roles versus reality, audience preference, political economy and political influence (bribery).
36
The Conflict of journalistic perceptions vs. reality:
Journalists admitted that in some instances there were conflicts between how they
ideally perceived their roles, and what actually happened in their coverage of the campaign.
There were conflicts in terms of the issues of access and the provision of information.
Firstly, all interviewees declared that their perception of their role was to provide
access to every candidate in the campaign. For them, this full coverage meant attending as
many of the political meetings and rallies as possible. Yet, all of them admitted that, in as
much as they tried, there were significant limitations like time and resource constraints which
affected coverage. These match the ideas of Zeldes et at (2008) and Ranney (1983) that
coverage may not be politically biased, but may appear to be so at times because of structural
constrictions. Therefore, media workers in Dominica sometimes had to collaborate, or use
material from other sources.
“We knew it was going to be very, very difficult to cover the political rallies, because
... every Sunday both political parties had political rallies...” said the staff member of The
Sun.
“Once a party was there, we needed to have one person, even to the point that we had
volunteers coming in to assist us to cover the rallies” said the SAT worker.
Another conflict between role perception and reality was with the provision of
information. All the journalists acknowledged that the media did not focus enough on
political, social and economic issues during the campaign season. Yet, they pointed out that
the reason why discussions did not take place was not because the media did not want to have
those programs, but because some politicians refused. The lack of a televised debate,
therefore, impeded television’s efforts and forced a reliance on news in that medium.
37
One Marpin employee said, “What I find was lacking was, say, genuine debate among
the parties ... with a public audience... so that there could be an opportunity for them to
analyse and critique each other’s plans and programs.”
Yet, Schiffer (2006) suggests that this regret on the part of journalists that they cannot
provide enough of the amount of analysis that they would want is not a new one. In fact, in
most elections, media workers admit that there is little focus by politicians on the social
issues. Graber (1997) states that because politicians themselves do not focus on these issues,
media have little choice but to rely on horse race tactics.
Audience Preferences:
According to every interviewee, audience preference was by far one of the biggest
factor that affected coverage.
All the interviewees expressed a fear of being accused of
partisan bias, and the fear of losing their audience because of this.
Firstly, interviewees revealed that as Dominican journalists covered the campaign,
there was constant fear that they would be accused by the public of being politically biased.
According to them, in their efforts to bring fair coverage, there were stories that they felt
were necessary to present which had a negative tone towards certain parties. Yet, according
to them, these critical or negative stories did not always go well with certain members of the
audience.
One member of Marpin’s staff observed, “Once you start carrying material that is
critical of another political party, the politicians themselves and their supporters are going to
interpret that as ‘you being against me.’”
38
Graber (1997) and Schiffer (2006) maintain that such critical or negative coverage is
to be expected based on the nature of the campaign. Campaign 2009 in particular was
plagued with allegations of corruption on the part of the ruling DLP, which journalists could
not ignore. Yet, Dalton et al (1998) confirm that audience members who support the criticised
party will see such coverage as biased against their party. What was interesting also about
the Dominican case was that even sometimes when there were clear structural conflicts or
coincidences, the public still labelled them as partisanship on the part of the media.
The SAT journalists recalled, “There was once we had technical difficulties ... and
persons were complaining... It was like they were labelling the company... [Also,] the
Company’s colours are blue and white. So, just so that we did not associate with a particular
party, because we have a party using blue, what we were allowed to do was wear white.”
For those interviewees and their employers who rely heavily on subscriptions from
the public, like SAT, Marpin and The Sun, criticism and labelling from the public was a
serious matter. Lichtenburgh (1990) states that news organizations who rely on the audience
either for subscription or to sell to advertisers are usually very cautious about avoiding
content that will cause a loss of that audience, and this is certainly true in Dominica.
“I know that people have taken away their subscriptions from our cable station
because they were not happy about something. Dominicans can blow over for easy things...”
said one Marpin reporter. “In a small society like ours, everybody counts,”
Political Economy:
Political economy as a contributing factor on the Dominica journalists’ coverage of
Campaign 2009 was minimal according to journalists. Although all the interviewees work
for privately-own media enterprises, none of them spoke about receiving pressure from their
39
owners to cover stories of the campaign with any particular slant. It must be noted here that
the researcher was aware that only radio station which participated in the research, Q-95, is
owned by Sheridan Gregoire, one of the founders of the United Workers Party (Christian,
2008). Coincidentally, the owner serves as the editor of the news as well. Yet, the reporter
interviewed indicted no substantial way that his ownership affected the news except in
cutting or adding stories for the balance in access.
Also, none of the interviewees could recall any advertiser dropping ads from their
organization because they did not agree with the way the elections were being covered.
Although they all admitted that they do not work in sales and could not be 100% sure, they
maintained they would have had some idea whether advertising patrons put pressure on
campaign coverage.
However, editorial policy was an issue contributing to the political economy’s
influence on coverage. One clear editorial policy was no endorsements of candidates or
parties by all the participating media houses. The Q-95 reporter saw it as ‘bribing the
electorate’, while The Sun’s journalist referred to it as ‘dangerous.’ Taking sides in the
coverage of the campaign was seen as something that went against the profession. According
to them, the point of covering the election was to present the stories as they came, and this
was the sign of a professional.
“I think that personal opinions should not come into the news,” the SAT reporter
confirmed. “Whatever your political view is, it should not affect, you know, the news.”
Therefore, the interviewees across the board frowned on the other two media
organizations (who coincidentally refused to participate in this research) who denied access
to certain politicians and parties. All the interviewees mentioned (without being asked by the
40
researcher) that they were aware that DBS and Kairi FM had come under fire for denying
access to some political parties in the campaign season. Some of them wanted to make it
clear early that their organizations were separate from that activity.
“I know that for some radio stations, there were some issues in terms of coverage ...
but for television, I think we did okay” said the SAT reporter.
Political interference through bribery:
Political influence through bribery as a factor affecting coverage was the least
discussed. It proved to be a bit uncomfortable for some interviewees, and some clearly
wanted to avoid giving details. This led the researcher to assume that if it does happen, it
must be in the underground level, and being able to get enough information to assess its
influence would be particularly difficult. Although she did not want to go into specifics, the
interviewee from SAT confessed that she was approached by two parties wanting ‘special
favours’ in Campaign 2009. She stated that she refused. This case relates very closely to
those reported by journalists in Korea (Auh et al, 1998) and Indonesia (Hill, 2008), where
politicians approach journalists individually to propose bribes. According to the SAT
journalist, the only financial concession that her organization was willing to make with
politicians was to do infomercials at a negotiated price. Interviewees from Marpin and The
Sun admitted to knowing about instances of bribery in past election campaigns, and claimed
that although they were not aware of it happening during this campaign season in their
organizations, they would not have been surprised if they had been approached by politicians.
“It is something that we would not have considered to be out of the ordinary ... We
would simply just deal with it based on our own principles...” said Marpin’s interviewee.
41
c) How do journalists who were on duty during the election campaign season perceive
the coverage of the campaign?
All the journalists interviewed believed that their media organization did an effective
and fair job at covering Campaign 2009. Four out of the five interviewees claimed to be
satisfied that on a whole, the media in Dominica did a good job in covering the campaign.
The interviewed journalists made that declaration on the basis that, at least for the
organizations where they work, coverage was effective because: (a) they gave their public as
much information as they could by focusing on as many aspects of the campaign as they
could, (b) they gave access to as many political candidates and their parties as they could, and
(c) they tried to maintain a fair tone in the coverage as much as they could.
Provision of Information:
First of all, interviewees believed media coverage of Campaign 2009 was effective
and fair because they provided information for voters in order for them to make informed
decisions. According to them, as much as possible, their organizations made an effort to
cover the variety of aspects of the campaign. This coincides with Hofstetter (1978) and
Schiffer’s (2006) view that in order for there to be effective coverage, the media must be
determined to cover varied aspects.
The Sun journalists said, “We covered ... almost every aspect of the election ... We
covered their rallies, we covered issues dealing with their manifestos...”
However, journalists complained that in their quest to provide information to voters,
they were dissatisfied with the type and amount of details they were able to get from the
politicians themselves. Some mentioned that politicians would sometimes dodge questions
42
and issues, and the lack of politicians’ enthusiasm for a national debate robbed citizens of a
chance to listen to the issues.
“If you listen to elections in other countries, people talk about education, they talk
about health, you know there are certain things that they look for from government,” said one
Marpin reporter. “Here, we don’t get that.”
Here, the Dominican journalists’ experience match the views of scholars like
Sigleman & Bullock (1991) and Domke et al (1997) that campaign coverage has indeed
become less about important social issues. Yet, Graber (1976) concurs that this lack of
comprehensive discussion is mainly the fault of politicians who refuse to have them.
Providing Access:
Also, the Dominican journalists judged their coverage of the campaign as effective
and fair because the majority of media organizations provided access to all parties. Although
they admitted that they had challenges in ensuring the provision of access to the parties, they
all believed that they did a good job in ensuring that all parties were able to share information
with the electorate.
“We tried our best to get the positions of all the political parties,” said the Q-95
reporter.
Norris (2000), Jakubowicz (1996) and Lichtenberg (1990) claim that this effort to
give access to as many participants in the electoral race as possible is indeed effective and
very good for democracy.
43
Awareness and Management of Tone:
Additionally, the Dominican journalists interviewed viewed the coverage of the
campaign as effective and fair because of their awareness and management of the tone of
their stories. Although scholars from around the world make varying arguments of what
constitutes a fair tone in campaign coverage, the Dominican journalists interviewed all
believed that by their understanding, they aimed to keep their opinions out of stories. For
them, effective and fair coverage meant holding back on certain stories until they could get
all sides of the matter, and reporting on the facts of stories whether these facts were positive,
negative or neutral.
“We wanted to be fair and accurate,” said one Marpin reporter.
Scholars like Dalton et al (1998) say that although optimum neutrality is difficult,
(and indeed others like Schiffer (2006) think it is impossible), a determined effort on the part
of journalists to bring a fair tone while reporting accurate information is commendable.
Using another method:
It is on the basis of this evaluation of the journalists that the campaign was covered
effectively and fairly that we will employ a different method to answer the fourth question:
d) Does the actual content of the coverage of the campaign show that the coverage of
the campaign was effective?
To answer this question, there is a need for the use of the method of quantitative content
analysis to examine media stories of the campaign period and to determine whether or not the
campaign stories were reported effectively and fairly based on some of the ideas presented by
scholars in the Literature review and on the experiences of the Dominica journalists.
44
3.2 Content Analysis:
3.2.1 Research Design:
a) Pros and Cons:
Quantitative content analysis is “a research technique for making replicable and valid
inferences from texts (or other meaningful matter) to the context of their use” (Krippendorf,
2004: 18). One solid reason for the use of quantitative content analysis in this research
project is that, unlike the qualitative method of interviews used before, content analysis,
according to Riffe et al (2005), allows for the researcher to separate the message physically
from the communicator and its receiver. Likewise, quantitative content analysis allows for
replicability. This means that the research will be done in a systematic way that readers can
easily understand and “other researchers can evaluate the procedure and the findings and, if
desired, repeat the operations” Riffe et al, 2005: 26). Also, this method is effective because it
will allow us to examine the actual coverage of the campaign almost two years after the
campaign itself has been over through the use of archived material. Therefore, the content
“has a life beyond its production and consumption” (Riffe et al, 2005:38).
Yet, just like the use of interviews, quantitative content analysis is not without its
limitations.
Because content analysis relies on “scientific investigation to provide a
description or explanation of a phenomenon,” (Neuendorf, 2002: 11), it would not have been
suitable to use it to answer the question of journalists’ perception of the coverage of the
campaign season. Also, content analysis allows for the categorizing of units (like words or
phrases) into specific categories (Weber, 1990). Although this will work for providing the
statistical data that we need here, it will not give the deeper level of understanding and
expression that the interviews are able to provide. Likewise, although it is not the fault of the
45
research method itself, the samples that will be used in the research are that of television and
newspaper. Therefore the researcher has to be careful about generalizations because the
medium of radio, although represented in the interview method, is unfortunately not
represented here.
Overall, the decision to use both the interview method and the content
analysis method was a good one because where one method lacks, the other is able to
compensate.
b) Research questions:
Main Research Question: How did the media in Dominica report the election campaign of
2009?
Sub Question (d): Does the actual content of the coverage of the campaign show that the
coverage of the campaign was effective?
c) Hypotheses:
H1.
If the media coverage of the campaign reflects the effectiveness and fairness that
journalists perceive, we expect that the content will show appropriate proportion in
the presentation of aspects of campaign coverage (i.e. candidates, issues and parties &
campaigns).
H2.
If the media coverage of the campaign reflects the effectiveness and fairness that
journalists perceived, we expect that the content of the coverage will show
appropriate proportion in the following:
- H2.1. We expect to find that all political parties received access to the media.
-H2.2. We expect to find that there will be fairness in the tone of the stories.
46
3.2.2 Research Instruments:
a) News Stories: The researcher gathered the newspapers and television news items that
covered the official campaign period from the Prime Minister’s announcement of the date of
Polling Day to the day before Polling Day itself (Thursday, 19 November to Thursday, 17
December, 2009). Polling Day was not included because in Dominica, on that day,
campaigning is prohibited by law. Items were gathered from the two newspapers on the
island, The Chronicle and The Sun, and the two cable television news providers, Marpin 2K4
and SAT Telecommunications. Items from radio news were not gathered (see section on
‘sample’ section below.) All the stories, both hard news stories and commentaries, from the
four-week period that dealt specifically with the campaign were included.
b) Research Variables:
For each story, the following were encoded and the coding was then imputed into the SPSS
program:

The media: The Chronicle, The
Sun,
Marpin
2K4
and

SAT
The
Genre:
News
Parties
Stories:
Dominica Labour Party, Dominica
Freedom Party, United Workers
Telecommunications

Political
Party
stories,
commentaries

Campaign Aspects: candidates,
issues and party & campaign

Length: number of words or
number of minutes and seconds
47

Tone: positive, neutral or negative
c) Coding Sheets & Instructions:
The researcher provided instructions for coding the variables. The instructions states the
meanings of terms like ‘campaign aspects’ and what each campaign aspect (candidate, issue,
party & campaign, combinations of these three aspects, ambiguous, and no aspect) mean. For
length of stories, the researcher assigned different values to ranges of number of words and
number of minutes and seconds per story. For tone, the researcher explained what is meant
by each value (positive, neutral, negative, ambiguous, and none) and gave examples of
scenarios in which values for tone could be used (a copy of the coding sheet instructions is
available in the appendices section).
Testing Reliability
Although the samples are small, the researcher wanted to test the reliability to ensure
that “the measurement procedure would yield the same results on repeated trials” (Neuendorf,
2002: 141). Yet, unlike large content analysis projects that require many coders and a
verification of inter-coder reliability, the researcher was more interested in testing the clarity
of the instructions in order to yield similar results if the procedure was to be repeated. Two
students who have no background in communications research were given the coding
instructions and a different sample of five stories each and were asked to follow the
instructions and code the stories. In each case, the researcher’s coding matched those of the
student by 85%. Hence, the researcher was confident in the code sheets and instructions.
3.2.3 Samples:
A. Census: This is a type of sampling that is made up of a “body of texts that includes all of
its kind” (Krippendorf, 2004: 120). The samples from both newspapers are census samples.
48
Their sets of texts are manageable, and so there is no need for random sampling (Riffe et al,
2005). Table 3 (below) shows the nature of the newspaper samples:
B. Convenient: This type of sample is “an available body of text that is known not to include
all texts of the population that the analysts are concerned with” (Krippendorf, 2004: 120).
Riffe et al (2005) state that one justifiable reason for the use of convenient samples is if the
cost of acquiring all the material is too high. This was particularly the case here. Since this
research has never been done about the island before, television stations in Dominica had
never before sold news episodes. Marpin 2k4 sold 11 episodes of the week night news for
$300 (£72) to the researcher. SAT sold 14 episodes of the week night news for EC$270
(£65) to the researcher. Table 4 (below) shows the nature of the television news sample:
49
Sample Limitations: Of course, the convenient samples of the television news have
limitations that the census samples of the newspapers do not. Therefore, the researcher
realised that there would be a need to be cautious about generalizing based on the findings.
Also, although Q-95 Radio was very enthusiastic about the semi-structured interview, the
researcher was informed that the young company is not in the habit of recording its news, and
the company would not have been able to spare the manpower required to go through the
archives of sound bites to match the new scripts that would have been the alternative. Hence,
the researcher is further limited in making generalizations. Yet, since this is a pioneer effort
in the area of political communications research in Dominica, the researcher sees this as a
starting point for further research (Riffe et al, 2005).
50
3.2.4 Analysis of Data
Coverage of Campaign Aspects:
The first hypothesis states that if the media coverage of the campaign reflects the
effectiveness and fairness that journalists perceive, we expect that the content will show
appropriate proportion of the aspects of campaign coverage. All the media in the study
covered the various aspects of the campaign like candidate, issue, party & campaign and
combinations of these aspects. Table 5 (below) shows each aspect and its percentage of
coverage by the media.
51
Firstly, issue coverage dominated the media’s attention during the campaign season.
Almost 40 percent of SAT’s coverage and 30 percent of The Chronicle’s stories concerned
issues of the election. Both Marpin and The Sun focused their stories on issues about 22
percent of the time. One major reason why this aspect was dominant was because the nature
of the campaign itself (Schiffer, 2006) which brought forward topics such as dual citizenship,
transparency in government and foreign relations, particularly with China and Venezuela.
Another major issue was the country’s ability to withstand the trials of the global financial
crisis. This is also in keeping with Schiffer’s (2006) view that if the economy is suffering,
this will cause issues to be discussed heavily in the campaign.
News of the candidates amassed 20 percent of total media coverage. Again, SAT and
The Chronicle led the way with the highest percentages of stories for that aspect at an average
of 22 percent each. Marpin covered stories of the candidate aspect 17 percent of the time,
while these stories made 11 percent of The Sun’s coverage. Many of these candidate stories
focused on candidate launches at rallies.
The blend of candidates & issues received 18 percent of the total coverage. The print
media focused heavily on this aspect with The Sun dedicating 42 percent and The Chronicle
giving almost a quarter of its coverage to candidates & issues. Television news stations gave
this aspect 10 percent of their attention. Together with the individual aspects of issues and
candidates, the issues & candidates aspect received this level of coverage because at
launches, candidates focused on the issues they planned to address. Another reason for the
domination of issues, candidates and issues & candidates is that many of the issues like
corruption were mainly centred on the Prime Minister’s scandals. Hence, here again, we see
that Graber (1997), Khan’s (1993) and Sigelman & Bullock (1991) idea of candidate
52
discussion focusing the personalities of candidates and on scandals in the campaign
determine the coverage of the aspects of candidates.
Aspects involving parties & campaigns received about 9 percent of the coverage overall.
This takes into account a general moving from party topics per se, to a more individualistic
look at candidates, their personalities and how they plan to assist their communities (Khan,
1993).
Therefore, our first hypothesis is correct. In all fairness, the Dominican media
examined did cover the various aspects of the campaign. The main factor that influenced this
proportion of the coverage of aspects was in fact the conflict on journalistic perceptions
versus the actual structure of the campaign. In keeping with the ideas of media theorists that
the aspects will reflect the nature of the campaign and the state of the country, among other
things, we see a dominance of the aspect of issues, both on its own and in its combination
with other aspects. Ironically, when interviewed, the journalists lamented that their role
perception in the campaign was hampered by the empirical because the campaign did not
cover enough issues. We can infer here that they were speaking about social issues like
health care and education (Domke et al, 1997).
Yet, here again, according to
communications scholars the coverage would be rated as fair and effective since we have
already discussed that politicians choose to focus on these social issues less and less, despite
the hopes of journalists, because they fear taking direct stands that may alienate voters.
Campaign Coverage and Access:
The first part of the second hypothesis states that if the media coverage of the
campaign reflects the effectiveness and fairness that journalists perceived, we expect to find
that political parties received appropriate proportion of access to the media. Figure 1 (below)
53
shows the total access each political party got to the media under examination. It measures
the number of stories in the media that mentioned and discussed the parties or the parties’
candidates. Hence, it was possible for one story to be about more than one party.
Figure 1: Total Access for political parties:
The incumbent DLP stories were featured in 68 percent of The Chronicle’s coverage
of the campaign. This means that The Chronicle gave twice as many stories to the DLP than
to the main Opposition UWP and 80 percent more coverage to the DLP than the minority
party, DFP.
In The Sun, there were 16 DLP stories out of the total 19. This means there
were about three times as many stories that involved the incumbent than there were UWP
stories, and 80 percent more than there were DFP stories.
In Marpin’s sample, the stories of the ruling DLP occupied 43 percent of the
coverage. This means the party had five more stories than the main Opposition UWP and
twice as many stories as DFP. Finally, SAT’s sample aired 25 stories of the DLP. This was
almost twice as many as both UWP and DFP stories.
54
Figure 2 (below) shows the difference in the access that parties recieved in the two
main types of media –newspapers and television.
In print media, the incumbent DLP received almost half of the coverage while the
main Opposition, UWP received 42 percent. The minority party, the DFP received 10
percent of newspaper’s coverage overall.
From the television samples, again the incumbent DLP received almost half of the
coverage. However, UWP received nearly a third of the coverage, while the minority DFP
received almost a quarter of televsion’s sample of campaign coverage.
Here again, the hypothesis proves correct. The access of the political parties to the
examined media was adequately proportioned.
Fairness of the coverage, according to
Khan(1993) and Prior (2006) allows for the incumbent party, by its very nature, to receive
more coverage than any other party. So, again, structural factors were able to influence
coverage of the campaign. Also, because two of the main topics of the campaign revolved
around the Prime Minister’s alleged corruption scandal and his dual citizenship, the media
spent a lot of time covering these topics. Hence, even more coverage was given to the DLP.
55
However, it must be noted that although the television’s coverage of DLP was on
target with that of print media, television certainly made a larger effort to cover the minority
party than newspapers. Hence, DFP coverage on T.V. was significantly higher than in print
(23 percent as opposed to newspaper’s 10 percent). Still, in both print and television media,
the DFP did receive the smallest share of coverage. This coincides with Hofstetter’s (1976)
claim that because audiences want to hear more about parties that stand a chance of winning,
minority parties will get the least coverage. Hence, here we see the factor of audience
preference as having an influence on the access to coverage.
Campaign Coverage and Tone:
The second part of the second hypothesis states that if the media coverage of the
campaign reflects the effectiveness and fairness that journalists perceived, we expect to find a
fair tone in the covered stories. Of all the hypotheses, this one proved a challenge for
measurements because tone can mean different things to different people. The researcher
established that tone in this study would be based on the stories themselves since Dominican
journalists rarely gave any evaluations. Therefore, if a story presented an aspect of the
campaign coverage in a positive light, the story was coded as positive, and if it presented the
aspect in a negative light, it was coded as negative. Neutral stories presented more than one
side of an aspect or allowed for objections by parties to what would have otherwise been a
negative or positive story. Election stories with no tone were mainly those that discussed
general information like the police inspector’s discussion of the routes of motorcades or OAS
elections observers’ discussions of their presence and role. Table 6 (below) shows the
percentage and absolute numbers of tone of stories in each of the four media organizations
according to the genres of news stories and commentaries.
56
In the case of the print media, news stories tended to be more neutral (52% for The
Chronicle and 58% for The Sun) than positive or negative. This was the case because in both
newspapers, very often, one news story contained as many as all three perspectives on issues,
candidates and parties.
For commentaries however, there was a marked difference in the tone of the two
newspapers. Eighty-two percent of The Chronicle’s commentaries were negative while 18
percent were positive. These mainly stressed on the possible implications of the Prime
Minister’s scandal. Although this keeps in line with theorists’ view that commentaries’
purpose offer freedom of opinion, and therefore tend to be more negative (Cappella &
Jamieson, 1996), it is worth noting here that the majority of the negative commentaries
57
written in The Chronicle during the campaign that out rightly criticized the Prime Minister
about issues of corruption and dual citizenship were actually propelled by the controversial
columns written in that newspaper by its owner Frank Baron. Hence, Druckman & Parkin
(2005) have a valid point when questioning the power of editorial policy and ownership’s
influence on the tone of other sections of news. In The Sun, on the other hand, 42 percent of
commentaries were positive in tone while 29 percent of the commentaries were neutral and
negative. This was because ironically, the majority of the commentaries in The Sun were
responses from analysts and think tanks who were denouncing the negative allegations made
by The Chronicle’s commentaries. Clearly, the factor of political economy was at work in
this demonstrated difference in tone of the two newspapers.
For television news, the majority of news stories were positive (56 percent for Marpin
and 65 percent for SAT), while only about 6 percent of news stories were negative for both
stations. Marpin’s sample of commentaries showed an even distribution in tone (33% each).
Thirty-nine percent of SAT’s commentaries were negative, while 22 percent were positive
and 32 neutral. Again, the majority of the negative comments here focused on the scandal,
and therefore were very dependent on the structural factors of the campaign.
Overall, for all media combined, about 45 percent of the news stories of the campaign
were positive while 10 percent were negative and 42 percent were neutral. This is one area
where the situation in Dominica diverges from some of the political communication theories,
particularly those of the U.S. and Britain. Many scholars (Cappella & Jamieson, 1996;
Patterson, 1994 and Jamieson, 1992) claim that news stories in campaign coverage tend to be
largely on the negative side.
The high number of positive campaign news stories in
Dominica could be related to journalists’ awareness and caution of the audience preference
factor which was discussed in the analysis of the interviews. For commentaries, 46 percent
58
were negative while one-third was positive, and a quarter was neutral. Although the majority
of the commentaries were in fact of the expected negative tone (Steger, 1999), negatively
toned commentaries were still less than half of the total. Unlike what would have been
expected, commentaries with a neutral tone comprised of a quarter of that segment. These
mainly involved religious leaders urging the public to make carefully planned decisions.
Furthermore, by examining the tone of coverage that each party received, we will
notice some differences in the proportions. Figure 3 (below) shows the percentage of the
tone that each party received from the total coverage by all media organizations.
Almost half of the DLP stories were positive, while the neutral and negative
stories covered about that party were both about a quarter each of the party’s total coverage.
Being the incumbent, the DLP used its government issues and successes as opportunities for
campaign coverage, and that can account for this large share of stories with a positive tone.
Here again, the Dominican media’s presentation of tone in campaign coverage is different
from what some scholars would expect. Being the incumbent, we would expect to see more
59
negatively toned stories of the DLP since there is greater room for criticism of performance
(Jamieson , 1992). Although the DLP did have the greater share of negative stories, these are
far outnumbered by the positive stories of the incumbent.
For the main Opposition, UWP, almost 40 percent of coverage was positive while
about half were neutral and 4 percent of the stories about that party covered in the media had
a negative tone. For the minority DFP, a little more than half of its coverage was positive
while a little less than half of the stories in which the party was featured had a neutral tone.
Of all the DFP stories, none of them had a negative tone. These low figures for negative
tones were certainly significant and exceptional, and again may be based on a deliberate
effort by the media to avoid accusations of bias. This makes the audience preference factor
rank very highly here when we examine tone.
Overall, if we examine tone on a scale of 1 to 3, with 1 being positive, 2 being neutral
and 3 being negative, as separate entities, the different media organizations in Dominica
leaned at different areas on the scale. Table 7 (below) shows the mean of each organization.
60
Firstly, television had a definite slant towards coverage that was more positive. Both
Marpin and SAT’s mean were more positive. The Sun’s mean coverage tone was perfectly
neutral. The Chronicle on the other hand, had a more negative slant in its tone. Overall, the
mean of all the media organizations combined showed a leaning towards neutral. Although
we have already discussed that this does not necessarily match the expectations of political
communications theorists, the general slant closer towards neutral shown here agrees to
journalists’ perception that, all aspects and the campaign situation itself considered, the media
examined did try to maintain a neutral ground.
61
Chapter 5: Conclusions:
Overall, through the use of semi structured interviews and content analysis, this
research has been able to answer the question of how the media in Dominica reported the
2009 campaign. The interviews showed that journalists on the island believed that there were
some differences in the way that media covered the campaign . There were differences in the
type of information given to the electorate and organizational policies of news gathering and
dissemination. Journalists also discussed that factors of journalistic values, editorial policy,
audience preference, and attempts at bribery did have an effect on coverage. They shared
their experiences of working around these factors in order to bring fair coverage, and each of
them condemned favouritism or denial of access to political parties. In the end, they all
judged the coverage of the campaign by the media as effective and fair.
The examination of the content of the news coverage of the campaign matched
journalists’ perception to a very large extent. Journalists’ perception of fairness in coverage
of the aspects was accurate because the proportion of aspects covered concurs with political
communications experts’ theories of how such aspects will be reflected in coverage.
Journalists’ perception of the access given to parties by their organizations as fair also proved
correct in the content analysis based on the kind of proportional overage that can be expected
in multi-party systems. The main factors at work for testing these two hypotheses of aspects
and access were structural and audience preference. The incumbent got more access and
coverage than the other two parties and the minority party received the least coverage.
Lastly, journalists’ view that the tone of coverage was fair did not follow the pattern of
negativity that was expected. Positivity in tone was certainly more common than anticipated,
although when grouped together the tone of the media leaned more towards neutral. Here
media ownership, editorial policy and audience preference factors had a lot of impact on the
62
variation in coverage tone. Because it was such a sensitive subject, the factor of political
influence through bribery could not be found to be particularly evident in the coverage of
aspects, access and tone of the election campaign.
Yet, these conclusions by no means indicate that the examination of media coverage
of election campaigns in Dominica is absolute and complete. In fact, this research is merely a
springboard for work in the area of political communications on the island. Future studies
must interview a more accurate sample of journalists who cover campaigns, and ideally
should be done while the campaign is on or very soon afterwards to ensure the freshness of
journalists’ recall. The researcher feels compelled to reiterate here that it is regrettable that
the two radio stations involved in the controversy of denial of access did not consent to
participating in this project. The lack of input of their journalists and their content does leave
a conspicuous gap in this study. Their inclusion would have given a more holistic idea of how
the media covered the campaign, and we would even have been able to judge whether the
political parties pursuing the court battles against lack of access actually have a sustainable
claim or whether they simply perceived what can be judged as fair coverage to be hostile
against them. After all, the inclusion of all media organizations in subsequent studies can
prove whether the denial of broadcasting of political ads and programmes do or do not affect
the behaviour of journalists and content of the production from the newsroom. Another area
of importance for future research will have to be internet news. Online sources such as
Dominica Central are relatively new and are currently mainly used by Dominicans living in
the Diaspora. Yet, more and more Dominicans on the island are gaining access to online
media. Potential research will need to observe how campaigns aspects, access and tone are
featured in this medium in political communications.
63
These limitations notwithstanding, the results of this research do explore fascinating
concepts about the dissemination of political communications in Dominica. On the one hand,
we can see the young, Dominican media as a powerful force that is depended upon as politics
becomes more and more mediatised. Yet, on the other hand, we see the media in a very
subordinate situation where certain societal factors are concerned. The structural limitations
of manpower, time and technology often impede the media’s self-imposed quest to follow
American ideals of objectivity and balance, which in and of themselves may never be
perfectly possible in the first place. Also, the particular focus and outright fear of audience
desertion continues to create an obsession with this unattainable quest for absolute neutrality.
To the outside observer, this fixation of remaining in the middle seems almost outlandish
since the audience members themselves are becoming increasingly partisan. The findings of
this research will help journalists to understand and determine their pivotal roles during
campaigns.
It also presents an opportunity for both the audience on one end and the
politicians on the other to be sensitized about how mediatisation works, and what to expect
from the media in the distribution of political information. The research also provides an
opportunity for all three publics to evaluate political communications in Dominica as a whole
over the years, and to be able to plan for the type of coverage that they want in Campaign
2015 and beyond.
64
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Chapter 6 -Appendices
76
Appendix B 1:
Content Analysis Code Sheet
V1
Stories:
1, 2, 3 ... 154
V2
V3
V4
Media:
1
The Chronicle
2
The Sun
3 Marpin 2K4
4. SAT Telecoms
Genre:
1
News story
2
Commentary
Political Party:
1
Dominica Labour Party (DLP)
2
Dominica Freedom Party (DFP)
3
United Workers Party (UWP)
4
Independent candidates
5
DLP & DFP
6
DLP & UWP
7
DFP & UWP
8
DLP, DFP & UWP
77
9
V5
None
Aspect of Coverage:
1
Candidate (anyone of the 64 candidates nominated for election)
2
Issue (corruption, social issues, international relations...)
3
Party & Campaign (DLP, DFP or UWP as a whole or the running of the
party’s campaign)
V6
4
Candidate and Issue
5
Candidate and Party & Campaign
6
Issue and Party & Campaign
7
Candidate, Issue and Party & Campaign
8
Ambiguous
9
Other
Length:
Number of words (articles)
V7
number of minutes & seconds (clips)
1
under 200
under 1:00
2
200 to 550
1:01 to 2:29
3
551 to 849
2:30 to 4:00
4
850 to 1, 200
4:01 to 6:30
5
more than 1, 200
more than 6:30
Tone:
1
Positive
2
Neutral
3
Negative
9
None
78
Instructions:
Genre:
A news story item is one that is reported by or written by the staff of teh media organization
A commentary is a story that is written by someone else. It is not written in reported speech
and is mainly an opinion piece. In news clips, it is likely to be from someone who is not
currently a politician (eg: Citizen Group members, clergy etc).
Aspects of the Campaign:
Candidate Stories: These are mainly about any one or more of the 64 nominated candidates
for the election. These stories highlight a candidate’s ideas and plans.
Issues: these stories refer to specific issues related to the election. These include corruption
allegations, transparency in government, dual citizenship, campaign funding, Election
Observer missions, Election reform, election behaviour and etiquette, relations with foreign
countries (especially China and Venezuela).
Party & Campaign: these stories relate specifically to political parties and their plans for
development. This is include manifesto discussions and strategic plans.
Combinations: It is possible for a story to deal with more than one aspect. Hence, there are
combinations of aspects.
79
Tone:
Positive:
If a story presents an aspect or aspects of the campaign in a positive light by what candidates
and parties say or what others say about them, code as positive.
If a story presents an aspect or aspects where one party or candidate is praising itself while
criticizing another, code as positive because the party that the story belongs to is shown in a
positive light.
Neutral:
If a story presents both sides of an aspect, code as neutral.
If a story presents an aspect or aspects where one party or candidate shows himself/ herself/
itself to be positive while showing another party/ candidate to be negative, but the story then
presents the other party as objecting or responding, code as neutral.
Negative:
If a story presents an aspect or aspects of the campaign in a negative light by what candidates
and parties say or what others say about them, code negative.
None:
It is possible for a story to have no tone if the campaign aspect covered is discussed simply as
a fact. These stories are usually (but not always) short.
80
If a story presents an aspect or aspects where one party or candidate does not talk about
himself/ herself/ itself at all while showing another party/ candidate to be negative, and the
criticized party does not respond, code as none. This is because the story belongs to this
party and not to the other that they are criticizing, and since they have not spoken about
themselves, they present no tone about themselves.
81

Kimone Joseph - School of Media and Communication

Transcription

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