Metacoverage of US presidential elections 1988, 2008, 2012

 Masterarbeit
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades
Master of Arts in Sozialwissenschaften
der Philosophischen Fakultät der Universität Zürich
Metacoverage of US presidential elections 1988,
2008, 2012
Verfasserin: Nika Stracabosko
Matrikel-Nr.: 09729815
Referent: Prof. Dr. Frank Esser
Betreuer: lic. Phil. Florin Büchel
Institut für Publizistikwissenschaft und Medienforschung
Abgabedatum: 1. Juni 2014
Table of Contents
Overview of the figures
ii
Overview of the tables
ii
1. Introduction
1.2 Structure of the thesis
1
3
2. Theoretical perspective
2. 1 Mediatization
2.2 Media logic
2.3 Mediatization, media logic and political communication
2.3.1 Political communication in the US media system
2.3.2 Political campaign communication in the US media system
3
4
9
13
15
18
3. Interim conclusion: The relevance of mediatization and media logic for
metacoverage
22
4. Metacoverage
4.1 Research on metacoverage
4.2 Framing and Metacoverage
23
26
28
5. Hypotheses and research questions
33
6. Empirical method
6.1 Research design
6.2 The presidential elections
6.3 Sample
6.4 Determining topics and designators
6.5 Operationalization
38
38
40
42
43
44
7. Analysis
49
8. Summary and interpretation
78
9. Literature
85
10. Appendix
10.1 Appendix - Additional tables
10.2 Appendix – Codebook
10.3 Appendix – Declaration of authorship
10.4 Appendix – Curriculum vitae
94
94
96
121
122
i Overview of the figures
Figure 1: Own graphic showing the process that lead to metacoverage ........................................ 23 Figure 2: Frequency of press frames compared to publicity frames for all channels ............... 52 Figure 3: Frequency of press frames and publicity frames in ABC & NBC ..................................... 53 Figure 4: Amount of publicity script types in % over the three elections ..................................... 58 Figure 5: Percentage of script objects devoted each year to communication professionals .. 64 Overview of the tables
Table 1: Summary of the frames used to analyze metacoverage 33 Table 2: Overvie of the sample for each election year per channel 42 Table 3: Overview of scripts that form press frames 46 Table 4: Summary of the scripts that make publicity frames 46 Table 5: Overview of the metacoverage sample of this thesis in absolute numbers 50 Table 6: Press frames in percent for each election 56 Table 7: Script types summarized in their corresponding frames in percent for the election years 2008 and 2012 60 Table 8: Script objects ranked in how often they appear -­‐ in percent to the all script objects coded per election 64 Table 9: New media in comparison 2008 & 2012 76 ii 1. Introduction
Over the years various studies related to communication research have claimed to see a
growing influence of the media on various areas of a society and on the public sphere.
Often in this context, communication researches have referred to the term
“mediatization” because its definition comprises the infiltration, expansion and fusion
of media culture and its logic with different subareas, in which the subareas – such as
political systems – must adjust to the media and not the other way around. This means
that thanks to mediatization, the media are growing into an institution of their own –
into an autonomous player – for which politicians construct their communication to the
way the media works in order to go by their political and democratic functions such as
campaigning and communicating to citizens. Due to this inherit influence of the mass
media on various aspects of a political system in a democracy, it is vital to consider this
new role of the media while studying changes in areas possibly affected by the media.
Basing itself on the theoretical assumptions discussed by the concepts of mediatization
and media logic, which will be reviewed and deliberated in detail, this thesis will argue
that a growing presence of the concepts mentioned are to be found in US presidential
elections. Nonetheless it will also argue that the reach of the media doesn’t stop at
influencing politics, but that it goes as far as even influencing the influenced political
communication, a kind of mediatizing the political communication changed by
mediatization. This was done, by taking communication specifically tailored to be
media-orientated, content in the news media, as well as publicity efforts of candidates
and then covering all of these factors in the media’s own news coverage. This falls
under the term metacoverage, which can be explained in the following words: While
politicians try to adapt to the media logic, journalists notice how politicians and political
experts try to influence the public sphere and the media for its behalf and instead of
simply subjecting themselves to their influences, journalists make these efforts a part of
their own story. Metacoverage is therefore a logical consequence that evolves out of
mediatization effects. While mediatization and media logic refer to the effects that lead
up to a politics that is orientated around the media, metacoverage goes a step further and
refers to the coverage of the coverage. It is a reaction to the attempts of the politicians to
have an influence on public discourse transmitted by the media – a kind of defensive
reaction of journalists – in an attempt to regain control over medial content. Journalists
1 at one point were passive communicators of information about political figures, but as a
defense mechanism, they have increasingly emerged from the background to talk about
themselves, their political observations, their experiences covering politicians, even
their thoughts about how well they cover the news (Kerbel 1999: 83).
The aim of this paper is to analyze what messages and events are picked up and
reflected by the news media, and most importantly, in what way and how they refer to
these political incidents and events – if they are simply referred to, or are they explained
with links to their possible strategic and political motive or does the coverage go even
further and explain the media’s role in the highly media-orientated communication. The
thesis is constructed to see whether with time metacoverage has developed out of
mediatization and media logic and if metacoverage, with its specific characteristics has
grown over time in US presidential campaigns and if so, how has it developed. The
argumentation, as well as the research questions and hypothesis built on the grounds of
the theoretical background, will be tested through a content analysis and framing
analysis, which are built on the groundbreaking works of Esser and D’Angelo (2003,
2006), and the three frames they introduced in their research as of date – conduit,
strategy and accountability frames. The growing presence of metacoverage is aimed to
be empirically proven through an analysis of various US evening news shows hosted on
the channels ABC, NBC, CNN and FOX news in a two month time frame before the
presidential election in the years of 2012, 2008 and 1988 in the USA.
All in all, the master thesis shows that the effects of to mediatization and media logic
have led to a metacoverage of presidential elections, that consist to a strong degree of
the press talking about the press more, which gives the mentioning of one’s own media
and also other media a lot of significance. Also other variables, that are characteristics
of metacoverage, were found to have increased in reference over the three elections.
The answer to which variables this is specifically and how this study was conducted,
can be found in the following pages.
2 1.2 Structure of the thesis
First the thesis grants an overview of the theoretical background it builds on. The
concepts of mediatization and media logic will be reflected and their effects on political
communication and political electoral campaigns. Then the thesis will give a short
overview of the way political communication and elections are structured specifically in
the US to show the mediatized character of politics in the named country. Based upon
the insights gained from mediatization and media logic, the thesis rolls out the concept
of metacoverage and explains why framing is closely tied to the analysis of
metacoverage, while clarifying the concept of framing itself and the three frames
analyzed in this thesis – conduit, strategy and accountability. In reference to all the
topics mentioned above, the research question and the hypotheses are elaborated. The
chapter that follows explains the analysis as to how it advances, how the sample is
collected and how the research question is to be answered by explaining the
operationalization of the matter. Last but not least, the hypotheses are tested and the
evaluation of the data is presented as well as a first interpretation of it, before going into
a reflection and summarization of the whole analysis and an outlook on the topic.
2. Theoretical perspective
This chapter aims to give a theoretical introduction into the topic of metacoverage and
aims to explain how the topic can be positioned in communication studies. First it will
concentrate on mediatization (chapter 2.1, page 4), which refers to the infiltration,
expansion and fusion of media culture and its logic with different subareas. Then the
paper looks closely at media logic (chapter 2.2, page 9), which is described as a specific
format – a format that defines how material is organized the style of presentation, the
focus or emphasis and the grammar of mediated communication by the media. After an
in-depth explanation of the two theories, and a reflection of the theories in various
empirical studies, political communication in the US will be recited, concentrating on
the specifics of the US media system and the mediatization of it (chapter 2.3).
Following that will be a chapter on campaign communication and the effects of
mediatization on it, while always referring to the political and media system in the US.
At the end there will be a summary as to why these theories are important for the
framing analysis of metacoverage in the US news media, before moving on to
explaining metacoverage and framing.
3 2. 1 Mediatization
For years, a number of communication scholars have devoted their research to
explaining the effects of mediatization. Although they all refer to the same concept,
different definitions can be found as to what is meant by the term mediatization. This
can often be brought back to the fact that the definition depends on how the term
“media” is understood (Meyen 2009: 23-24). For one, the system theory perspective on
communication studies – represented for example by Saxer (1980), Donges (2005) and
Jarren (2008) – uses a differentiated definition of media, modeling after Saxer’s (1980)
term; Namely seeing the media as a complex institutionalized system around
communication channels with specific capabilities. In this perspective, mediatization is
interested to see how actors, organizations, institutions and social systems orientate
themselves towards the media logic (Meyen 2009: 25).
Yet on the other hand, the action theory’s perspective – for example Krotz’s (2007)
mediatization theory – understands the term media as a modification of face-to-face
communication (Krotz 2007: 11). The media is a technical institution through which
people communicate (Krotz 2007: 37), while having an impact on people, culture and
societies (Krotz 2007: 11). In this respect, mediatization is a form of social and cultural
change that arises out of the fact that the communication environment is becoming
increasingly differentiated and gradually complicated. Its consequences are therefore
that more and more people obtain their social and communicative actions ever more to
the increasingly differentiated media (Krotz 2007: 13ff). Mediatization is a meta
process of social change, that evolves from various sources – not a singular one – and
through which social change can be described and understood. The process of
mediatization in its respective form is also always bound to time and culture and is
closely connected to meta-processes such as globalization and individualization (Krotz
2007: 37-40). In other words, it is an ongoing process whereby the media change human
relations and behavior and thus change society and culture (Hjavard 2008: 109).
Krotz’s mediatization theory has many advantages, one being the definition of media,
which allows all kinds of communication to be regarded in the theory (for example
private, public and interpersonal communication as well as mass communication).
Another advantage is that the term is a part of the theory of actions, which captures
changes in various subareas of society such as the political system (Krotz 2003: 15-17).
Due to these many advantages, this thesis will henceforth rest itself on this definition of
4 mediatization – a concept that describes reactions in various societal and cultural
subareas that either refer to the change of media systems’ structure or to the added
significance of the mass media communication in general. Summed up in other words,
mediatization refers to the infiltration, expansion and fusion of media culture and its
logic with the different subareas – for example the political system – in which the
subareas must adjust to the media and not the other way around (Meyen 2009: 23-25).
Kent Asp (1986) was the first to speak of a mediatization of political life by which he
meant the process where “a political system to a high degree is influenced by and
adjusted to the demands of the mass media in their coverage of politics” (Asp 1986:
359). One form of adaptation is when politicians phrase their public statements in terms
that personalize and polarize issues so that the messages have a better chance of finding
a spot in news media coverage. Asp sees media’s growing independence of political
sources as a sign of mediatization, in which the media gain even more control over the
media content. Hereby he refers to Hernes’ (1978) term of “media-twisted society”, a
concept Hernes used to describe a fundamental media impact on all social institutions
and their relations to one another (Hjavard 2008: 106). Hjavard wrote: “Mediatization
implies a process through which core elements of a social or cultural activity (like work,
leisure, play etc.) assume media form” (Hjavard 2004: 48). He claims that mediatization
is to be considered a double-sided process of high modernity in which the media on the
one hand emerge as an independent institution with a logic of its own, that other social
institutions have to accommodate to. At the same time the media simultaneously has
become an integrated part of institutions like politics or religion, as more and more of
these institutional activities are preformed through both interactive media and the mass
media. It shows a dual character – the media have become integrated into the operations
of other social institutions, while acquiring the status of social institutions in their own
right (Hjavard 2008: 113).
That is a reason why mediatization has an important role in communication studies, as it
refers to changes in society, while at the same time seeing the media as a leading factor
of this change (Meyen 2009: 26) hence giving the media a central role in a society. In
consideration to political science, mediatization is explained as the approach of a mediadriven republic, where for example political institutions are more and more dependent
on and shaped by mass media, while still remaining in control of political processes and
functions (Mazzoleni/Schulz 1999: 247). It is a kind of media power that is a feared
consummation of improper developments in the media and politics relationship. The
5 problem lies in the thought, that the media have become the most important source of
information in advanced democracies around the world (Strömbäck 2008: 229), while at
the same time having no constitution that foresees that the media is accountable for its
actions. This absence of accountability can have serious risks for democracy, because it
violates the classic rule of the balance of power in the democratic game, making the
media an influential and uncontrollable force (Mazzoleni/Schulz 1999: 248).
So not only the effects of mediatization may be problematic, but also tackling
mediatization at its core and possibly preventing the effects it brings with it, is rather
difficult as its likely causes are as widely discussed as its exact definition. For one,
Imhof (2006) sees it as a result of the differentiation of the media system, which took
place (in western Europe) in the 1980s and the structural changes that occurred out of it
(Meyen 2009: 25). Bösch and Frei have yet another approach; They claim that
mediatization started to take place in the 19th century, as the mass press came to
existence and started to grow. From this point on, the media began to develop and
expand due to technical inventions and the rise in media supply, as well as an evergrowing importance of mediated communication (Bösch/Frei 2006: 7).
Although there are different definitions and perspectives to how mediatization became
to be, it can be said that the term mediatization means that the media form a system in
their own right, independent of, although interdependent with, other social systems such
as the political system (Cook 2005, Hjarvard 2008, Mazzoleni 2008, Strömbäck 2008,
Esser 2013). Broadly speaking, mediatization can be attributed with four characteristics:
extension of human communication abilities in time and space, substitution of social
activities (such as playing video games online substitutes playing with others),
amalgamation of activities, which is a media infiltration into everyday life, and
accommodation of behavior to the media’s formats and routines (Schulz 2004: 88-90).
All the while, it is important to differentiate mediatization from the concept “mediation
of politics”, which is an older concept and refers to the overall difference that media
make by being in the political world. Mediation is the neutral act of transmitting
messages through the media and experiencing politics through mass communication
channels – mediated politics means depending on the media for information about
politics. Mediatization in contrast is a process-oriented concept that focuses on how
media influence has increased in the number of different respects and is as such not
6 restricted to politics (Esser 2013: 157). The growing media authority and the integration
of the media into cultural practices evoke cultural change, the outcome is variable and
dependent on the context, like in a certain country (Hjarvard 2013: 2). Mediatization is
a phenomenon that is common to the political systems of almost all democratic
countries, where it has taken different shapes and has developed at different speeds
(Krotz 2007, Hjavard 2013). As it can therefore take on various forms and shapes.
Because of this, it doesn’t mean that mediatization inevitably has to be a negative
concept (Schulz 2004, Hjavard 2008). Rather it denotes a descriptive concept that
allows scholars to trace processes of institutional adaption to the media (Schillemans
2012: 49). As Krotz (2007) puts it, mediatization is a concept needed to be able to
conceptualize and empirically analyze dramatic changes in media and communication.
The concept of mediatization should therefore be committed to empirical analysis to
help study mediatization process among the population (Krotz 2007: 11).
Yet, researching mediatization is a rather complex procedure due to various reasons:
Since mediatization is often bound to changes in society, these changes do not take
place overnight but over a longer time frame. Next to the complexity of time, empirical
research on mediatization also must consider that it often goes hand in hand with
sciences. It is an interdisciplinary concept that also concerns itself for example with
political or social sciences. Apart from that, some argue that the concept should always
be researched and measured on all three levels – micro, meso and macro (Meyen 2009:
30-36, Krotz 2007: 13), but which has rarely been done in research as of date because of
the magnitude in data and variables this would need to consider. For example Donges
(2008) studied mediatization effects simply at the meso-level, meaning concretely in his
case the effects of the media and communication on political parties (Donges 2008: 29).
According to his research, the growth of importance of the media has enforced various
political organizations’ reactions. This has led to structural changes, which can be
defined as mediatization (Donges 2008: 217). By conducting case studies in the UK,
Germany, Switzerland and Austria, he had a close look at documents of the biggest
parties of each country, such as conducting interviews as well as gathering lists of
members, the parties’ budgets along with the countries’ laws on party financing. His
analysis showed that parties and the media interact permanently. Together they build a
system of actions and actors in which political communication is formed. Mediatization
on the level of organizations is only but a fraction of their relationship. Parties are not
7 just simply affected by change in the media, but also have an effect on the media itself –
as suppliers of articles, statements or as participants in regulation processes that infect
the media (Donges 2008: 219-222). As a result, his study showed that the media not
only have an effect on politics and change the way politicians communicate but that this
changed communication also has a retroactive effect on the media. At a later point in
this thesis, it is argued that it is this retroactive effect has led to the growth of
metacoverage, that journalists and the media react to the modified communication of the
politicians and decide to cover that in their news coverage, forming what will later be
claimed as metacoverage.
Metacoverage builds on mediatization, that not only Donges (2008) but also Störmbäck
(2008) claimed to measure. Unlike Donges (2008), Störmbäck (2008) did not limit his
study to one level of analysis but argued that mediatization is a multidimensional and
process-orientated concept that can be distinguished in four phases, that are not linear or
unidirectional but highly intercorrelated: The first phase has been reached whenever the
mass media constitutes the most important source of information and channel of
communication. The second phase entails the media becoming more independent of
governmental or political bodies or is beginning to be governed according to the media
logic (see page 10). In the third phase the media has increased its independence and
importance. The last phase – the fourth phase – is attained when political and other
social actors not only adapt to the media logic but also internalize these and allow the
media logic to become a built-in part of the governing process. Strömbäck pointed out
that these four phases are somewhat idealized but have the purpose to offer a means of
thinking about the process of mediatization that allows comparisons across time and
various countries. The next step would be to operationalize the four phases to allow
empirical research (Strömbäck 2008: 235-241).
Strömbäck et al. (2011) then did this by operationalizing this concept of mediatization
and developed indicators of the degree to which news content is mediatized. They tested
in a comparative, quantitative content analysis how Swedish and US television news
covered the 2006 Swedish elections and 2008 US election campaigns. To be able to
make conclusions about a country’s medial character, it is sometimes best to compare it
with the media system in another nation. The study’s results showed that election news
on US television were more mediatized than Swedish. They also analyzed the use of
frames, showing that the framing of politics as a strategic game was significantly more
common in the US than in Sweden. In conclusion, they argued that mediatization of
8 news content may be moderated by national journalism cultures, political news cultures
and political communication cultures. Therefore it would be wise to continue to conduct
studies in the US, as the country’s contexts seem to be more receptive of mediatization
processes. This thesis takes this up and explains in the following chapters, other media
processes that have had an influence on politics, such as the media logic in the
proceeding chapter.
2.2 Media logic
The concept of media logic is understood as the process of the production of media
content by a media organization and often described as a specific format. A format that
defines how relevant news material is organized, the style of its presentation, the focus
or emphasis and the grammar of mediated communication (Altheide/Snow 1979: 10).
“Media logic consists of a form of communication; the process through which
media present and transmit information. Elements of this form include the
various media and the formats used by these media. Format consists, in part of
how material is organized, the style in which it is presented, the focus or
emphasis on particular characteristics of behavior and the grammar of media
communication. Format becomes a framework or a perspective that is used to
present as well as interpret phenomena” (Altheide/Snow 1979: 10).
It is an important concept as it refers to the rules and odes of the media for defining the
selecting, organizing, presenting and recognizing information (Altheide 2004: 294).
Thus it is understood as a certain way of covering and interpreting social, cultural and
political phenomena (Esser 2013: 166). Multiple factors play a part in this process: The
structure of the media organization, their goals and traditions and – the central factor –
the adjustment of the contents to the expectations and demands of the audience
(Mazzoleni 2008: page not specified).
Altheide and Snow were the first use this term and defined it as a way of seeing and
interpreting social affairs (Mazzoleni 2008: page not specified): “Media logic consists
of a form of communication; the process through which media present and transmit
information“ (Altheide/Snow 1979: 10). It is the frame of reference within which the
media construct the meaning of events and personalities they report (Mazzoleni/Schulz
9 1999: 251). In this sense, news media determine what subjects are important to consider
for news coverage, they create or help create recognized experts and personalities and
become sources and guardians for official information, “in short they present their own
messages and images within the respectability and familiarity of media formats”
(Altheide/Snow 1979: 246). Accordingly political communicators are forced to respond
to the media’s rules, aims, production logics and constraints (Altheide/Snow 1979:
237-238). Rules for one, is a term that entails journalists operating on the basis of a
fundamental yet highly ambiguous rule, namely newsworthiness. At a general level,
newsworthiness is about important and interesting news (Cook 2005: 5). High
established authorities are able to make issues important, yet they depend on journalists
to see them as interesting, that is why politicians often rely on storytelling techniques or
formats to make them sound newsworthy for journalists (Strömbäck 2008: 233). Aims
on the other hand mean that a journalist’s formal aim is to bring all important and
interesting news to the public’s attention (Schillemans 2012: 55). Production logics
entail the fact that the news depends to a large degree on the news in other media –
journalists spend a lot of time listening, watching and scrolling through other media, as
well as consulting with reputed colleagues on their choices regarding selection and
framing (chapter 4.2). Lastly constraints mean that media are heavily constrained in
available time, amount of reporters, their ability to check stories and the allocation of
cameras and other equipment to produce stories. Some have gone even as far as
comparing journalists with the metaphor of Cerberus, the multi-headed dog in Greek
mythology (Brants/Van Praag 2006: 31). A journalist may only have one body, but he
has to have knowledge in different areas of expertise and do multiple tasks at the same
time. Yet at times, journalists have limited knowledge on the issue they report. They
rely heavily on existing public information and authoritative news sources for
background information on their stories. News is therefore somewhat biased towards
the understandings of established frames for specific issues (Stillemans 2012: 54-57).
Various research has noted a shift in political journalism from a descriptive style to an
interpretative style – which manifests itself in less substantive, more negative and
infotainment (a mixture of information and entertainment) focused news (Brants/Van
Praag 2006: 31). This has led to relating the effect of media logic to the media malaise
debate – media malaise refers to the claim that the mass media have substantial and
malign impact on politics and social life (Newton 2006: 209) – however evidence so far
has been scarce (Takens et al. 2013: 278). The interpretative style is an aspect of the
10 degree to which the content of political news is shaped by journalistic interventions,
which reflect media logic (Strömbäck et al. 2011: 35). Interpretative journalism
postulates that facts and interpretations are freely mixed in (election) reporting
(Patterson 1993: 67). The concept of media logic is also closely linked to the issues of
frames in media content: The news gathering, its selection and presentation are geared
to implement this logic in the construction of reality worked out by the news industry.
Journalists are driven by organizational and industrial goals and implement the
professional values, norms and practices of the news organization they belong to.
Certain issues, topics and events are manufactured into news (Mazzoleni 2008: page not
specified).
All these various elements are summarized under the term media logic. Although there
is a tendency towards similar rules, aims, production logics and constraints, media
logic effects can appear in various ways and have different forms. For example its
contrast to political logic; Media logic’s primary goal is receiving media attention
whereas political logic’s primary goal is to adapt media content to political needs
(Pfetsch 2001: 50-52). The concept of political logic is about collective and
authoritative decision making; and the question of power as it related to who gets what,
when and how (Strömbäck 2008: 233). The primary actors are parties and politicians
located in political institutions and the primary focus being on issues (Strömbäck 2008:
233). The two, political logic and media logic, compete more or less with each other as
political communication can be governed mainly by either media logic or political logic
(Strömbäck 2008: 234). Which links back to the theory explained in the previous
chapter, mediatization. The process of mediatization effects media logic, because it
postulates that the political logic is diminishing, as more and more politicians and
campaigns tend to focus on media logic to get the media’s attention (Kendall 2000:
132). Media logic is seen as an engine of the mediatization of politics; politics
performed publicly adapts to the media discourse. Successful politicians have to be
media-genic, personalized leadership has become more important than what party a
politician belongs to and the ideologies he represents. Election campaigns are leaning to
a media-driven style and voters are getting their image of politics and politicians from
the media representation, which responds primarily to media logic (Mazzoleni 2008:
page not specified). There are a number of reasons that could explain this transition, for
one the decline in the importance of public broadcasting, with it the cultural-pedagogic
11 remit of giving the public what it needs. This coincided with the appearance and growth
of commercial television with its consumerist interests and an increasing number of
channels and the rise of the internet, resulting in a fragmentation of audiences and
means of communication. This forced politicians and political parties to be more active
in the media. By being active in various different media, they reach as many people as
they might have reached with one media decades ago. This has also lead to growing
media competition, infusing a demand market, where the wishes and desires of the
public have become more decisive for what the media select and produce. Not only
politicians but also the media and journalists themselves have to compete for
fragmented, individualized audiences and for attractive news. The intensifying
competition and accompanying commercialization have known to be blamed for a shift
away from political logic and towards media logic (Brants/Van Praag 2006: 30).
Most of the groundbreaking research on the topic media logic was done by Gianpiero
Mazzoleni. In 1987, Mazzoleni analyzed the 1983 elections in his native country of
Italy and proceeded to examine various media in a content analysis – media being press,
public and private TV – to see if there was a dominance of media logic over party logic.
In this study he spoke of party logic and not political logic, meaning the structural and
cultural assets that govern the communications enacted by the parties. He hypothesized
that the media would experience some emancipation from party influence. Despite
finding contradictory evidence, the findings confirmed some tendencies towards the
predicted direction, but mostly his study advocated that Italy was at that time
transitioning from party logic to media logic (Mazzoleni 1987: 102). This means that at
this point in time he was not able to find concrete evidence of a dominance of media
logic over party logic and was only able to show a tendency through argumentation.
In an attempt to find evidence for Mazzoleni’s assumptions, Plasser, Scheucher,
Sommer (1995) conducted a similar study in Austria. They analyzed the trends, patterns
and variations in the election coverage by conducting a content analysis of newspapers,
TV shows and debates three months before the election. Noticing a rise in
personalization, a rise in meta-political topics (so not specific topics per se, but analysis
or confrontations on TV in general), the chances of getting elected and strategically
facets controlled the election coverage. A shift from party logic to media logic was
therefore confirmed (Plasser/Scheucher/Sommer 1995: 86-112). This study already
hints towards the direction of metacoverage –by referring to meta-topics and strategic
12 news reporting – which is argued to be a natural reaction to mediatization and media
logic effects, a tendency that their study showed. To sum up, the two studies show that
over time a kind of media logic has been able to be measured in various political news
broadcast coverage and in various countries. But also the content, which the news
broadcast covers, is highly influenced by the processes evoked by media logic, for
example political communication per se, which is discussed in detail in the next chapter.
2.3 Mediatization, media logic and political communication
Political communication is the central mechanism when formulating, aggregating,
producing and enforcing a collectively binding decision. Political communication is
therefore not a political mean, but politics itself (Jarren/Donges 2002: 22) and is a broad
concept. Defining it is not universal or consistent but varies according to the historical
situation in which it is being formed and is dependent on social and political conditions,
political culture, normative ideas on what politics are but also at the same time
dependent on the interests and conditions of political actors and the arrangement of
political processes (Jarren/Donges 2002: 20-21). It includes all kinds of political
discourse, being communication undertaken by politicians or political actors or
communication addressed to these actors and communication about them and their
activities (such as news stories) and lies in the very heart of democratic processes
because these processes presuppose that the citizens have an ‘enlightened
understanding’ (Kriesi 2011: 1). This means that in a democratic polity, each citizen
ought to have adequate and equal opportunities for discovering and validating the
choice on a matter to be decided that would best serve his or her interest (Dahl 1989:
112). Democratization processes at the same time are conditional for activities of the
mass media. Media systems must meet a series of fundamental conditions so that they
can have a positive effect on democratic development: Media freedom and freedom of
information, availability of uncensored information, public control of the rules as well
as unhindered articulation of different political standpoints can only be carried out if the
media are accessible and independent (Esser/Pfetsch 2004: 13). Consequently, political
communication insures democratic processes but also needs democratic processes to be
ensured. Yet the effects of mediatization and media logic are challenging this and are
making political action and behavior orientate to the laws and rules of the media system
(Sarcinelli 1998: 678-679). Politics has lost its autonomy and has become dependent in
13 its central functions on mass media and is continuously shaped by interactions with
mass media (Mazzoleni/Schulz 1999: 250). Mass communication and new
communication have the ability to change politics and political action into something
quite different from what traditionally has been embodied in the tenets of democracy.
“If political actors stage an event in order to get media attention or if they fashion an
event in order to the media’s needs (…) and the framing of the message, then we can
speak of mediatization of politics” (Mazzoleni/Schulz 1999: 251). Political
communication is no longer focused on parties but on the media – there is a growing
independence of the mass media from political parties (Kriesi 2004: 184). The changes
evoked by mediatization and the growing importance of media logic are relevant for
political actors to a great extent, as they rely on public legitimation and support, which
they can achieve through the media. As they don’t have a media of their own that
reaches a broad group of citizens, they must rely on mass media to contact voters and to
do their campaigning (Donges 2005: 11). „Media are powerful because people have
adopted a media logic. Since people perceive, interpret, and act on the basis of the
existing media logic, that logic has become a way of life“ (Altheide/Snow 1979: 237).
Scholars are increasingly sensing that profound changes in both society and the media
may be creating a new form of political communication that is qualitatively different
from its processor. Not only are the avenues of political communication multiplying in a
diverse, fragmented and complex relations among the media and receivers
(Blumler/Kavanagh 1999: 209) but at the same time, journalists are struggling to assert
their independence in a style of political news that is more adversarial and disdainful of
politics. The result of that is that political journalism is less concerned with reporting
politicians’ actions and statements but more concerned with exposing the political
motives behind what politicians do or say. In that sense, news has become more
skeptical of motives, more centered on the journalists as independent actors and
adversaries of politicians. Their sense of professionalism, in which autonomy and
independence play an important role, leads them to seek ways to “stamp their marks on
political stories” (Blumler/Kavangh 1999: 215). This produces a style of political
journalism that portrays politics and politicians in terms that are unflattering, as actors
only concerned with power and influence. This is important because this can lead to
greater public cynicism towards the politics and a failing confidence in the government
(Swanson 2004: 53-55). But the intensity of these effects are not the same in every
14 country and to every extent. As previously argued, mediatization and media logic take
on various forms and shapes in various countries, and so does their effect on political
communication. How political communication is reflected in the media often is
influenced by the system the media finds itself in, which in this thesis is the US media
system.
2.3.1 Political communication in the US media system
Political communication in American media is shaped by its governmental media policy
and its tradition of minimal interference (Tunstall 1977: 222). Because of this Hallin
and Mancini (2004) claimed the US finds itself a liberal media model, referring to the
low regulation of the market, their distance from the government and little ties to a
specific political party. Next to that, another distinguishing factor in the liberal model is
the development of commercial press, that began in the US earlier than in other
countries, with the penny press in 1830s and played a pioneering role in developing a
fact-centered discourse (Hallin/Mancini 2004: 198-209). In the US, newspapers became
prosperous in the 1880s because they increased their readership by reducing one-sided
broadcasting (Fengler/Russ-Mohl 2008: 679). The fact that newspapers supplanted
commentaries by news reports facilitated the spread of the objectivity norm and boosted
revenues from sales and advertising (Chalaby 1996: 303). Therefore objectivity in the
news media is strongly rooted in the US context and has distinguished American
journalism from a more interpretive European tradition (Donsbach 1995: 17-30).
According to the US objectivity principle, journalists should report the news without
commenting on it and present each side of a debate (Schudson 2001: 150). The
exercised objectivity and political neutrality can also be brought back to the rise of the
Associated Press in the United States, which gathered news in a variety of papers with
widely different political allegiances, it could only succeed by making its objective
enough to be acceptable to all of its members and clients (Schudson 1978: 4). These
characteristics are not limited to just newspapers, but the same characteristics can be
found television. Television inherited the trend towards analytical reporting and
nonpartisan political commentary from print media (Schudson 1995: 69). The
transmission of facts, expert sources and eyewitness accounts became the cornerstone of
the Anglo-American model (Williams 2005: 63). A study conducted by Benson and
Hallin (2007) focused on the idea that a distinct type of journalistic discourse
15 establishes different kinds of relationships between press and citizens. They studied this
by comparing domestic politics articles in the US and in French papers and examining
each paragraph according to its primary function. The results showed that during the
1960s, American press offered less interpretation and opinion in its broadcasting than
the French press did, yet this lasted till the 1990s. From that point on, the US became
slightly more interpretive and opinionated (Benson/Hallin 2007: 27-48). Schudson
(1978) advocated that this had to do with the rise of the “adversary culture” in the
1960s, meaning the rise of an adversary or critical kind of journalism, which was more
aggressive and more skeptical (Schudson 1978: 163). Umbricht and Esser (2013) had
similar findings in their study, where they examined the change in news content of six
countries over five decades – one of the countries being the US. Through a content
analysis of three US newspapers they found that the US press have significantly
increased their use of opinion-orientated stories. They also found that the US integrate
the highest number of sources per article, which is consistent with previous studies
findings that US journalists make much greater use of eyewitnesses, experts,
spokespeople, and ordinary citizens as news sources than journalists in other Western
systems (Umbricht/Esser 2013: 198-214). As argued in the chapter to media logic, the
interpretative style is an aspect of the degree to which the content of political news is
shaped by journalistic interventions, which reflect media logic (Strömbäck et al. 2011:
35). The findings of both of the studies speak for these assumptions.
Yet not only the broadcasting style per se has gone through changes in the last decades,
but the rise of the internet has changed the medial and political landscape itself. The
internet had established itself fully in political processes by the 2004 election in the US,
where citizens could watch videos and campaign commercials on the campaign
websites. The channels to reach citizens haven’t changed the essential tasks of
campaigning themselves per se but have changed how they are done (Smith 2010: 173182). This has gone so far, that the term “electronic democracy” has been introduced
and has been associated with phenomena such as party web sites, electronic voting,
political discussion, and even administrative services provided over the internet (Zittel
2004: 233), which has been seen as a growing phenomena in various democracies, and
has seen strong growth especially in the US.
Picking up on this idea, Zittel (2004) aimed to find out to what extent members of
parliament in the USA, German and Sweden used the internet to communicate
16 interactively and decentralized with the citizens of their country. By conducting a
comparative analysis of the use of personal parliamentary websites, he was able to show
that the American institutional context is more supportive of electronic democracy,
because the politicians see themselves more as representatives of a district rather than a
party, thus understanding their web-related goals as a way to communicate with the
people they represent. Because they felt that the internet is a way to communicate to the
people who elected to represent them and that it is also important to communicate to the
people, US politicians used the internet more than politicians in other countries (Zittel
2004: 231-245). This ability of the internet to be able to talk directly to the voters, and
the voters directly to one another, is one of the main for candidates or civilians to use
the internet. It fulfills their desire to talk to (the) people by telling their story in their
own words. For politicians, this aspect is vital as journalists now seem to speak more
often for the candidates than candidates speak for themselves. As Patterson (1993) study
showed, sound bites of candidates have shrunk from 42 seconds to less than 10 seconds
over two decades. For every one-minute the candidates spoke on television, journalists
provided six minutes of their own analysis. Therefore candidates – and also civilians for
the same reasons – employ the internet to go around the media to reach their public
directly and create therefore another public sphere, which is defined under the
disintermediation theory (Neuberger 2009: 22-24). Other reasons listed in the
disintermediation theory for using the internet for communication is its low technical,
economical, cognitive and legal barriers (Neuberger 2009: 37). The keys to appreciating
the internet’s impact are also its high speed means of acquiring political communication
and distributing information (Smith 2010: 168-170). So not only does the internet offer
low barriers for political communication, it allows an unfiltered communication.
Politicians and citizens want unfiltered communication because the media alter the
message in their roles as reporters and commentators (McNair 1995: 28). Some see
political communication in the media as a misnomer, distortion, propaganda,
exaggeration and half truths are argued to make up the nature of American political
communication in an attempt to unethically manipulate and influence voters in elections
(Tuman 2008: 7). The media not only informs but also interprets, analyses, assesses and
comments on political agendas. The media contributes to policy discussions and sets
publics agendas (McNair 1995: 28-67). This new form of politics has been named
media politics, meaning the orientation of the politics to the media, “political
disagreements are fought out in the mass media and setting in the court of public
17 opinion. The weapons of combat are press conferences, photo opportunities, press
releases, leaks to the press (…) Politicians still make backroom deals but only after their
relative strength has been established in the public game of media politics” (Zaller
1999: 1). For example this trend can also be found in immersion of news and politics in
an entertainment format (Altheide 2004: 294), meaning blurring of the boundaries
between politics and entertainment. Entertainment programs often broadcast political
news, and likewise politicians frequently reach out to entertainment media to go public.
Likewise, game shows, reality shows and comedies make frequent references to
political news. For this, politicians' media appearances are tailored to appeal to tabloid
and entertainment templates. Just as political news provides material for a range of
media content, entertainment media provides larger audiences for political
communication (Waisbord 2012: 439). Hence political communication can be found in
various media types, not only in news media but also in entertainment programs. All the
while both media formats being important for ensuring democratic functions, because
they allow communication between politicians and the voters. Democracies are about
mobilizing political actors, the media and public opinions so that they can state their
positions in political decision-making processes. Mobilization therefore takes part in the
and through the media. The most classical form of mobilization are political elections,
because this phase means the heightening of public political processes – deciding on a
representative and therefore being a part in political decision making and fulfilling the
laid out rights and duties in a democracy. The main processes of political
communication are hence political mobilization and election campaigns (Pfetsch/Esser
2003: 21-22). Because elections are such an important part of a democracy, it is crucial
to discuss electoral campaigns.
2.3.2 Political campaign communication in the US media system
Elections are important components in democracies because they allow citizens to take
part of political decision-making and for them to determine how their interests can be
served all the while providing the legitimacy with which to govern (Trent/Friedenberg
1983: 3-5). Applying this concretely to the United States, it was the constitution that
created the presidency and charged the states with the responsibility for selecting a
person to take on the job. All the while this whole process requires communication
(Smith 2010: 15). Political election campaigns are hence campaigns of communication.
18 Communication is the core of each campaign as it a bridge between voters and
candidates, communication being the means by which a campaign begins, proceeds and
concludes (Trent/Friedenberg 1983: 15-16). Political campaigns are seen as determined
efforts of the public’s mobilization according to a certain plan. They involve a particular
effort and a number of resources as well as actors investing in the campaign and an
expression of a certain priority and urgency in a certain time frame (Greven 1995: 4142). Fund raising also plays an important part in political campaigns, because most of
the money spent by candidates is devoted largely to getting the candidates messages
across to citizens (Benoit 2007: 3) to a great extent through the media. Therefore it can
be concluded that electoral campaigns revolve to a large extent around political
communication and the media. And as advocated in the previous chapters, just like the
media and political communication has gone through various changes over time, so
have electoral campaigns.
Pre-modern campaigns (up until the 1950s) are defined by the pre-dominance of
newspapers and radio, a loose organization of grassroot volunteers with coordination by
party officials (Norris 1997: 2). They are based upon direct forms of interpersonal
communication (Norris 2007: 111). These kind of campaigns changed to modern
campaigns, which are typified by the predominance of network television news and the
adoption of marketing techniques in strategic campaigns (Norris 1997: 2). These kinds
of campaigns lasted till the 1990s, when postmodern campaigns took over; A permanent
sort of campaigning that embeds the use of professional consultants for advertising,
public opinion research, marketing and strategic news management (Norris 2007: 112).
In order to successfully compete in these kinds of campaigns, candidates and their
advisers must be thoroughly grounded in their strategies and tactics associated with the
new style of media campaigns (Johnson-Cartee/Copeland 1997: xvii). For instance, no
campaign or candidate succeeds with a communication strategy built solely around
speaking before live audiences as debates or speeches. “Americans no longer father in
the streets to hear candidates, they gather at their television sets or where the media
assemble their attention” (Trent/Friedenberg 1983: 80). To reach a greater number of
voters, campaigns must make use of the media to convey candidate information and
issue positions, while also recruiting voters and volunteers and trying to attract
campaign contributions. They can do so over entertainment and news media, new
media, print media or cable TV (Tuman 2008: 215). “In essence you don’t run for
19 president directly, you ask the media to run you for president or, if you have the money,
you can pay the media for exposure” (Nadar 2002: 55). This can be seen strongly in the
US, because American political campaigns have a communicative function throughout
every stage of the election – preprimary, primary, convention and general election.
The preprimary has been labeled with the term “surfacing” because it consists of a
series of predicable and specifically timed rhetorical transaction “which serve
consummator and instrumental functions during the pre-primary phase of the campaign”
(Trent 1978: 282). It is at this time that the electorate beings to have some knowledge
about the candidate’s goals and programs. For the candidate it means setting up a team,
goals and determining his dominant theme or issue.
The next stage, the primary, is known as “America’s most original contribution to the
art of democracy” (Keech/Matthews 1976: 91). Under the primary system, voters who
make up the political party determine who the party’s candidate will be. It is the first
phase in the nominating process, which also acts as a source of feedback from the voters
about campaigns. The McGovern-Fraser Commission in the 1970s made primary
elections more important. Despite the fact that the Commission aimed to democratize
the selection of the candidate, these changes opened a door for the news media. “Major
unintended by-products of the reform have been an increased dependency on the mass
media as an electoral intermediary and the emergence of the press as an independent
force in electoral politics” (Davis 1992: 254). The changes on the one hand
democratized the nomination process but on the other hand weakened the role of
political parties, resulting in a shift from party-centered to candidate-centered elections.
The following stage is the nominating convention, where the running candidate for each
party is established as well as the vice president. In this stage, not only does the
communication act as a reaffirmation of the commitment to the electoral process but
also provide legitimation for the party’s nominees and a chance to show the party’s
unification.
The last step of the electoral process is the general election, which entails a large
amount of speeches, parades, debates, bumper stickers, media commercials, posters,
billboards, polling and fund raising. These factors are not solemnly reserved for this
stage of the campaign but remain significant and exceeded during the general election.
As the final stage of the election, the general election is more intense, less interpersonal
and more important as to who will be the next president. The first communicative
function in this final stage is a cognitive function, thus delivering general information
20 on the candidate. The second communicative function provides legitimacy to the
election, confirming the idea that the campaign process as it is work in that democracy.
The third would mean fulfilling expectations; Voters expect debates, rallies and polls.
While the first three stages were about fulfilling demands of the public, the general
election refers to fulfilling the expectations of the public. In the first phase they demand
to know who is in the election, with what issues and why, it is kind of a first picture that
should explain questions the public has to have answers to. Later the public builds their
expectations on that. The voters expect candidates to deliver answers and succeed in
debates. The general election for that reason is so to say the climax of a political season,
a time for decision and participation (Trent/Friedenberg 1983: 24-65).
This is also why this paper aims to concentrate on the general election, as the campaign
activities and actions are at their peaks at this time of the election. As one can see, the
media plays an important role in every one of these very organized election steps. Each
step is highly mediated, which means the neutral act of transmitting messages through
the media and experiencing politics through mass communication channels. Yet as soon
as campaign organizations depend on the media to conduct campaign functions, then we
can no longer speak of mediation but of mediatization. The mediatization of political
communication has been the transformer of election campaigning. Changes evoked by
mediatization and the orientation to media logic have led to a postmodern campaign that
includes the professionalization of election communication, the central role of the media
in campaign strategy, the strategic management of candidates' media appearances, the
extensive use of opinion polling and segmented campaigning. Once again, the concept
of media politics can be brought up, which can be characterized as a new approach of
candidates to modern election campaigns and of government officials to public
information in which all of the important political decisions are made with the news
media in mind. To effectively play media politics, politicians require the assistance of
professional advisers and consultants whose main tasks are to garner, react to, and
control messages conveyed to the electorate through increasingly fragmented media
outlets (Esser/Spanier 2005: 30). Candidates rely on professional consultants who aid
them in campaigning for the news media and through other communications channels
(e.g., television ads) and media formats such as appearances on television talk shows
(Esser/D’Angelo 2003: 618). In other words mediatization has brought in the
professionalization of political campaigning, sometimes as consultants, sometimes as
party employees, they have been given a voice in the party decision-making (Swanson
21 2004: 49), with the task to design “a specific campaign tailored for the individual
candidate based on relevant political science, marketing, public relations and
advertising theory and research” (Johnson-Cartee/Copeland 1997: 5). Mediatization not
only influences various elements and processes of politics itself, but also affects these in
various ways.
3. Interim conclusion: The relevance of mediatization and media logic for
metacoverage
Medizatiation is an important concept for this paper. As previously mentioned,
mediatization is the infiltration, expansion and fusion of media culture and its logic with
different subareas, in which the subareas – such as political systems – must adjust to the
media and not the other way around. That means that thanks to mediatization, the media
is growing into an institution of its own, in other words into an autonomous player.
Because of mediatization, political communication itself revolves around media logic
and is no longer focused on the public, but focused on and directed to the media. Media
logic means is seen as an engine of the mediatization of politics as it means adapting to
the production logics of the media and creating a kind of politics, that adapts publicly to
the media discourse. Mediatization is a temporal (dynamic) process of media-induced
change that is characterized by the institutionalization of media logic in social spheres
that were previously considered separate from the mass media. In such cases, media
logic does not replace the original logic but overlays it. Mediatization of politics thus
refers to changes in the decision criteria and action rationales of political institutions
without turning them into media institutions (Esser 2013: 161). In order for a politician
to get mentioned in the media, he must adapt his political communication to the way the
media works and what the media define as newsworthy. At the same time similar effects
are found in election campaigns, as they are being waged around the demands and
rhythms of the mass media, in particular the news media (Esser/D’Angelo 2006: 44).
And while politicians attempt to adapt to the media logic, journalists notice how
politicians and political experts try to influence the public sphere and the media on their
own behalf. And instead of simply subjecting themselves to their influences, journalists
make these efforts a part of their own story, which is what is defined under the term
metacoverage. Metacoverage (chapter 4) is therefore a logical consequence that evolves
out of mediatization effects and a new trend of journalism built on the effects of
22 mediatization and media logic previously argued, a more entertainment-orientated,
media-tailored political communication in electoral campaigns, which is built around
the media by involving political consultants in the political and strategic decisionmaking process. Electoral campaigns are no longer about communicating policies and
ideas, but about using the media to ones advantage and using a strategy that reaches out
to citizens. Journalists are not immune to this, but also see the media as an institution
themselves, and they talk about the strategies and intentions of the politicians as well as
other media. Often journalists put their own spin on things, regaining power of the
medial content. Metacoverage is a defensive mechanism, a futile attempt on the part of
campaign journalists to show that news is ideologically “immune from the ministrations
of campaign officials” (Gitlin 1991: 121). If political candidates stage events to get
media attention or fashion events to cater the media’s needs, then the media will pick up
on this and make it a part of their own news broadcast. Metacoverage is the
phenomenon that comprises these factors.
Figure 1: Own graphic showing the process that lead to metacoverage
Mediatization Media logic Media grows into an institution Changes in election campaigns Changes in political communication Press talks about the press Interpretive journalism Campaign advisers Rise of entertainment media Rise of new media metacoverage 4. Metacoverage
Mediatization and media logic effects to some extent can be reflected in a type of
election news coverage called metacoverage. According to Esser and D’Angelo (2003:
619), metacoverage “is defined as coverage of media politics that explicitly describes
the role of shaping campaign events and outcomes placed by the news media,
23 communications technology, public relations and media organizations not traditionally
tied to the news media”. This tendency to cover the coverage has become a growing
trend in information and media society (Marcinkowski/Marr 2005: 446). It encompasses
the two main types of news delineated in content analysis categories namely news about
candidates’ use of and interaction with the news media and secondly news about
publicity processes that may or may not directly involve the news media. Content
analysis of US presidential campaign news have shown that stories regularly cover
aspects of the media politics environment, such as candidate-press interactions and
candidate performances designed to attract media attention. Studies use various terms to
refer to this kind of news, including self-referential process news (Kerbel 1998), media
process news (Kerbel et al., 2000), metacoverage (Esser/Reinemann/Fan 2001),
coverage of coverage (Gitlin 1991), and lastly stories about the media (Johnson &
Boudreau 1996). For example D’Angelo and colleagues (D’Angelo 1999&2002,
Esser/D’Angelo 2003) conceptualize self-referential news slightly different than the
terms above. In their view, some self-referential news merely document journalism’s
role as a platform for candidates’ messages. If, for instance, a story covers a policy issue
as being communicated on a news program, then the story apparently does not portray
the news media and the candidate in terms of strategy and news management
(D’Angelo/Lombard 2008: 4). All of these different terms refer to the tendency of the
media to reflect the coverage of campaign events and outcomes and the role of shaping
these events and outcomes placed by the news media and not traditionally tied to the
news media. News stories reflect the view among journalists that a campaign is a
composite reality that cannot be covered fully and accurately unless news stories at
times consider how the respective behavior of news media and political publicity
intersect with each other. Here the press self-referentially diverges from its customary
role as a transmitter of information to one of reporting on how it is one of the actors in
the political arena. By doing so, journalists no longer distance themselves by watching
campaigns from afar and simply report the strategic warfare between the political camps
but rather assume an active role on the stage by writing themselves into the story, metacommunicating the awareness that they are being used (Esser/Spanier 2005: 30). Kerbel
(1999) claims that: “Journalists, in earlier times were passive communicators of
information about political figures, have increasingly emerged from the background to
talk about themselves their political observations, their experiences covering politicians,
even their thoughts about how well they cover the news” (Kerbel 1999: 83).
24 Metacoverage therefore refers to the news stories where the media provide selfreferential reflections on the relationship between professional political strategists and
political journalism. The two types can therefore be distinguished in “self-referential”
and “process” metacoverage.
Self-referential metacoverage concentrates on the media’s role in a story and describes
the tendency for reports and media decision makers to turn the spotlight inward and to
treat themselves as the subjects of their own political stories. Process news on the other
hand focuses less on the performance and perceptions of the reports themselves and
more on the strategies, state-crafting and spin doctors employed by candidates to control
information and concentrates more on the campaign operatives role (Esser et al. 2001:
18-19). Yet the two types do not cancel each other out. On the other hand, they are
closely related in theory and practice and often appear in the same story and are
examined together (Esser et al. 2001: 20). If the political sphere has changed due to
mediatization and political communication shows characters of media logic, then the
media pick up on these forces and cover them in their news media. Metacoverage
therefore is a kind of journalistic trend, in which the journalists make the news media
and communication efforts aimed specifically at them important aspects of the story
itself. Journalists no longer stay on the balconies watching and reporting but rather take
over an active role on the campaign stage by writing themselves into the story (Esser et
al. 2001: 17). “The story of the campaign is the story of the media in the campaign”
(Kerbel 1998: 46).
Opinions about metacoverage are differentiated. Some see metacoverage mainly as a
kind of news management on the part of candidates and consultants. They degrade the
information environment because covering the press and publicity process pulls them
away from attending the candidate’s policy issues (Kerbel 1997, 1998). This is claimed
to increase citizens’ political distrust and cynicism or have negative effects on citizens’
knowledge acquisition. Therefore it is important to research metacoverage as to its
possible negative effects on attitudes towards the democratic process. When the media
reduce their focus on substantive issues and focus on strategies and character traits, it is
claimed to undermine political information and engagement and activate political
cynicism (Aalberg et al. 2011: 165-166). This was for example analysed by Elenbass
and de Vreese (2008), who showed in their study that strategically framed campaign
coverage does lead to short-term political cynicism.
25 Other opinions state that metacoverage merely documents the journalists’ role as a
platform for a candidate’s messages. If a candidate communicates a message about a
policy issue, the metacoverage simply signals that this message was communicated on a
news program. It seems to be neutral with respect to the cynical portrayal of media
politics inherent in strategy-orientated metacoverage (Johnson/Boudreau 1996).
Finally other opinions feel that metacoverage demystifies the news management
environment, holding candidates accountable to high principles of electioneering and
giving audiences a constructive perspective on how campaign messages are crafted and
communicated (McNair 2000: 171). “Political coverage – now frequently includes not
mere an account of the event, but a critique – a metacoverage – of it’s status as an event
and how it has been covered” (McNair 1995: 131). Although these opinions differ, they
do not have to cancel each other out. Esser and D’Angelo (2003) propose that
metacoverage can actually serve all three of these functions (Esser/D’Angelo 2003: 4546).
4.1 Research on metacoverage
Research on metacoverage – compared to its predetermining theories mediatization and
media logic – is rather limited to a few authors and therefore in need of further research.
One of the first studies was conducted by Bennett (1992), who claimed that almost twothirds of 1988 presidential election news was “coverage of coverage” (Bennett 1992:
35), adding that nearly every campaign story in 1990 made some sort of behind-thescene reference to the candidate’s strategy, polling, marketing, media manipulation
techniques, commercial advertising and the like (Bennett 1992: 191). Bennett (1992)
argued that news organizations “reflect on their own role as never before, resulting in
redundancy, self-referential logics, and loss of context, which are the hallmarks of
postmodern symbolism” (Bennett 1992: 25–26). Similarly, Gitlin (1991) used the term
metacoverage in a critical tone when he studied the 1988 U.S. presidential campaign
news. He argued that metacoverage is a futile attempt on the part of campaign
journalists to show that news is ideologically “immune from the ministrations of
campaign officials” (Gitlin 1991: 121).
Another study to the topic of metacoverage was carried out by Johnson and Boudreau
(1996), who used content analysis to examine „stories about the media“ from January
1991 till the election day 1992 in print news (the New York times and the Chicago
26 Tribune) and on television networks (ABC, NBC and CBS). They observed the amount
of metacoverage relative to horse race news (news that covers who is ahead in the race
for president), nonissue or campaign events, policy issue news and general campaign
news. Using the theme as the unit of analysis, they found that the press, communication
technology, or campaign advertisement was central to the story in 441 cases, which was
around 8percent of the 4700 stories they observed (Johnson/Boureau 1996: 660).
Just concentrating on TV networks, Kerbel (1998: 35-49) examined the coverage of the
1992 presidential election on ABC’s World news tonight and the first thirty minutes of
CNN’s Prime time news from January till November that election year. Using sentence
level utterances and the unit of analysis he found that for each of the two networks,
20percent of the 10’329 utterances contained so-called self-referential news, with which
he meant how candidates themselves use the mass media and how the integrate into the
media. He showed hence how the media are a subject of the media themselves.
To have a closer look at metacoverage, Esser and D’Angelo (2003) analyzed the 2000
US presidential elections via content analysis. They developed a new press framing
model and looked at 284 news broadcasts of the channels NBC and ABC for two
months up until the election day. In this study, they proposed a new term for
metacoverage which argued for a separation between its two dimensions: news about
the role, presence, and behaviors of the news media in campaign events and outcomes
and news about the publicity efforts of candidates that take place in media formats not
traditionally allied to the mainstream (Esser/D’Angelo 2003: 619). It argued that
coverage of the two main metacoverage topics – press and publicity – occur in
conjunction with other story topics, such as policy issues, character issues, and
electioneering, rather than displacing coverage of those topics. Esser and D’Angelo
contended that the presence of press and publicity topics reflect a professional norm on
the part of campaign journalists to give a complete account of events in the media
politics environment. Moreover, journalists add an interpretive overlay – their “own”
frames – to the press and publicity propositions they frequently encounter on the
campaign trail. They observed enough press and publicity propositions in 41percent of
stories to warrant the conclusion that those stories had a press or publicity topic. Their
study showed that most frames used were press frames, then secondly publicity frames.
They were rarely used together (Esser/D’Angelo 2003: 617-641).
27 Although this research brings metacoverage to another level by studying it with the use
of frames and scripts unlike the research cited on the earlier pages, the study is at the
time of this paper over ten years old and therefore stresses the lack and urgency to
follow through another study that can show the development of metacoverage as of
date.
Similar to the above Esser and D’Angelo (2006) expanded their study over three
countries, and compared the various campaigns like the presidential campaign in the
year 2000 in the US, 2001 in the UK and 2002 in Germany. Again they differed in press
and publicity frames and counted the metacoverage topics in campaign news. The
authors theorized that the presence of metacoverage topics reflect the influence of
system-level factors on campaign communication and, furthermore, that the use of press
and publicity frames by journalists is influenced by a country’s political communication
culture. Press and publicity topics are particularly more frequent in U.S. news than in
British news. However, press and publicity topics co-occur with, and press and
publicity frames contextualize, the same rank order of campaign topics in all three
countries, showing a kind of convergence among political communication cultures in
these three democracies (Esser/D’Angelo 2006: 44-66). The reason why these press and
publicity frames are central for the analysis of metacoverage, is advocated in the next
chapter.
4.2 Framing and Metacoverage
Esser and D’Angelo (2006) suggest that how metacoverage performs its functions can
be best explained via framing analysis because framing analysis can help to tease out
latent meanings of metacoverage (Esser/D’Angelo 2006: 46-47). Framing hosts a wide
variety of definitions. While some scholars argue that frames refer to principles of
selection and emphasis (Gitlin 1980), others argue that frames also define problems
(Entmann 1993), make moral judgements and suggest remedies (Aalberg et al. 2012:
163). Framing for Entman (2007) is defined as the process of picking a few elements of
perceived reality and assembling a narrative that highlights connections among them to
promote a particular interpretation (Entman 1993, 2004). Framing works to shape and
alter audience members’ interpretations and preferences through priming. That is,
frames introduce or raise the salience or apparent importance of certain ideas, activating
28 schemas that encourage audiences to think, feel, and decide in a particular way. Agenda
setting can thus be seen as another name for performing a function of framing: Defining
problems worthy of public and government attention (Entman 2007: 164). However,
framing analysis expands beyond agenda setting into what people talk or think about by
examining how they think and talk about issues in the news (Pan/Kosicki 1993: 70).
Journalists’ contribution to framing the press and publicity lies in how they tell stories
using press and/ or publicity propositions.
Kerbel et al. (1997, 2000) argued that framing is a better approach than content analysis
to understand the content of self-coverage. Framing analysis “is more far-reaching than
a simple explanation of the themes or subjects of campaign stories,” (Kerbel et al. 2000:
12). In fact, there is a running argument throughout the framing literature that framing
analysis offers media researchers better techniques with which to observe the content of
messages, always culminating in the identification of the frame or frames in these
messages and design studies that explore the effects of these frames on outcomes
spanning individual- to group-level processes (Esser/D’Angelo 2003: 622). Referring to
Esser and D’Angelo (2003, 2006), frames are built from scripts about connectivity,
strategy, and accountability whereas scripts are defined as constituent parts of
metacoverage frames, which help construct frames. News stories that have a press or
publicity frame, shape the perceptions and responses of a campaign organization. This
can be seen as a sign of media logic (chapter 2.2).
This study follows the theoretical and methodological approach of Esser and D’Angelo
(2003) who distinguished the press and publicity dimension of metacoverage. They
argue “that metacoverage is a logical outcome of media politics, that metacoverage
occurs in conjunction with other campaign topics, that press and publicity dimensions
of metacoverage occur in relatively distinct fashion from each other, and that campaign
journalists frame press behaviors and publicity processes in the course of creating
metacoverage” (D’Angelo/ Esser 2003: 90). It draws on a particular framing analysis
that identifies three press and publicity frames in self-referential campaign news called
conduit, strategy and accountability (D’Angelo 1999&2002, Esser/D’Angelo 2003).
These frames can all be defined under a greater frame called the strategy game frame,
where candidates are seen as performers in a game or in a war and the focus is on who
wins and how they do so (Aalberg et al. 2013: 166-170).
29 The press frames differentiated by Esser and D’Angelo (2003) refer to any verbal or
visual mentioning of the press, journalists, news media, coverage, story, objectivity and
so forth. This entails a direct reference to the news media and must discuss the role of
the news media, of the media actors, their practices standards, products, mainly
anything that in general refers directly to the press. The press frame though can be
broken down according to the functions given to the media in that frame. For instance,
at times news stories contain propositions about the basic connective function of the
press in modern media societies. For example, “Candidate ‘X’ appeared on the show
yesterday to discuss policy ‘Y’”. D’Angelo (1999, 2002) said that these kinds of stories
are constructed from a script that the news media are a platform for campaign
statements. He argued that these stories contain a press conduit frame because they
simply report on the presence of news personnel and equipment at a campaign event
and steer the narrative away from news management scenarios (D’Angelo/Lombard
2008: 6), with no specific intention other than stressing the transmission functions. The
news media are used as technical and necessary links between journalists and
politicians, without reflecting on the role of the media or without being embedded in the
context. The use of this frame can be lead back due to the fact that the media see
themselves as conduits – as transmitters of information.
On the other hand, strategy press frames in news stories portray the press in a
continuous conflict with political actors over control. The news media is portrayed as an
autonomous, consequential actor in the strategic game of politics, lacked in contentious
interplay with political actors. Such stories stress the importance of free and paid media
as a political tool as well as the politicians’ desire for positive press and their efforts to
achieve it, at times with a cynical undertone of exposing manipulative efforts to control
information. For example, journalists tend to demonize legitimate political PR as a
sinister, evil force at the heart of the body politic (Esser/Spanier 2005: 35). This can be
explained by the demand of journalists to be more than mere mouthpieces of politiciansInstead journalists seek to control, frame and interpret the flow of political
communication themselves. Their sense of professionalism, in which autonomy and
independence figure leads them seek ways to make their on marks on a news story.
Media actors pursue their own interests and follow a distinct kind of media logic,
making strategy frames attractive for journalists because they allow them to describe the
30 relationship between the news media and political news management in a compelling
way (Esser/ D’Angelo 2003, 2006).
Finally, D’Angelo (1999) found that some stories contained propositions, usually
attributed to news professionals, which stressed democratic and professional norms that
govern news stories. Journalists at times, shift the emphasis of a news story away from
news management and toward news norms, thus constructing an accountability press
frame. This frame deflects the narrative away from strategic maneuvering and instead,
contextualizes journalistic practices, often via overt criticism, in terms of how well
journalists adhere to professional and democratic norms. This frame has a selfregulatory
quality
that
emphasizes
a
concern
for
professional
standards
(D’Angelo/Lombard 2008: 6) and helps to add transparency to the news stories, as it
would discuss press coverage or publicity actions in the context of the democratic
process and help citizens undeceive processes and make rational judgments. It enhances
the importance of the media for democracies discussed in the chapter to political
communication on page 15. It does so by portraying the press as performing a public
service by providing citizens with useful and self-critical information on press behavior
itself, or with instructive and insightful information on the publicity aspects of political
action. The concept behind this is not only holding politicians accountable but also
inquiring whether news professionals fulfill their responsibility of providing good
public service. It is a kind of concern of journalists to uphold professional standards by
monitoring and self-critically analyzing developments in political reporting. Since the
mass media are in the center of campaigns, the public needs to know about the
performance of the media and of their influences, helping the public restore good faith
and trust in the media. That is enclosed in the accountability press frame (Esser/
D’Angelo 2003, 2006).
Publicity frames on the other hand do not refer to the press but instead mean direct
references to publicity efforts – verbal or visual – that warrant the claim that the story is
about the publicity process, its protagonists and practices. Most of the time these stories
are about political advertising and marketing, the use of consultants and advisers but
also about the image of the politician. In general, political publicity is equivalent to
strategic political communication, which means the organizing of management,
marketing, advertising, and public relations, communicating purposefully to advance its
31 mission (Hallahan et al 2007: 4). A publicity frame would be the conduit publicity
frames in news stories would emphasize the basic connectivity function of
communication in the modern publicity process with no specific intention other than
stressing the transmission function. The publicity acts are reported in a neutral, merely
descriptive way. The role of the media here is not relevant, the publicity efforts are
simply mentioned and not embedded in the context.
The publicity strategy frame in contrast doesn’t simply mention publicity efforts of the
politicians but emphasizes the performance, style and perceptions of politicians. It
analyzes their maneuvers in the light of calculated underlying rationales, uses of war
and sports language and focus on generating support for ones goals. Journalists notice
how politicians and political experts try to influence the public sphere and the media for
its behalf, and instead of simply subjecting themselves to these influences, journalists
make these efforts a part of their own story. This can be seen as a demonstration of the
journalist’s autonomy as well as a deconstructive defense against the publicity efforts.
In the context of this thesis, strategy publicity frames portray political communication
as a continuous conflict over message control. Such stories stress the importance of free
and paid media as political tools, as well as a politician’s desire for positive press and
their efforts to achieve it. At times these stories evince a cynical undertone of exposing
the manipulative efforts to control information. Stories with publicity strategy frames
emphasize the tactical considerations and strategic purposes behind a politician’s
publicity efforts, usually aimed to influence the public or the news media.
Other times news stories discuss publicity actions within the context of democratic
function, for example how far publicity actors fulfill their role as instruments of
democracy. This is what is understood as publicity accountability frames, which
provides citizens with useful and instructive information on the public relations aspects
of political action. It aims to give the public an insight to the PR- and publicity experts’
practices and orientations and therefore enhance transparency and awareness as well as
clarification over the role of political publicity in election campaigns (Esser/ D’Angelo
2003, 2006).
In total there are three kinds of frames, that are composed out of scripts and are found in
reference to either press related or publicity related utterances.
32 Table 1: Summary of the frames used to analyze metacoverage
Press frames
Publicity frames
conduit
conduit
strategy
strategy
accountability
accountability
The frames are built so to say in a hierarchal structure, while the conduit frame means
the simple mentioning of a press or publicity event, the strategy frame goes a bit further
and explains the motives behind this. The accountability frames goes even further and
aims for transparency and awareness, even going as far as self-critic. Each of these
frames will used to analyze metacoverage in depth. The analysis of metacoverage will
be approached by determining research questions and setting hypotheses, as explained
in detail in the next chapter.
5. Hypotheses and research questions
This chapter will provide a link between the theoretical background and the next step,
the empirical analysis by providing questions left open by theory and the research that
will lead the empirical analysis by determining what aspects in the topic of
metacoverage should be looked at. First the research question will be set as a general
outline of the study then the hypotheses will be listed, all the while explaining out of
what thoughts the five following hypotheses grew out of.
Generally speaking, this paper aims to give an overview of the changes in metacoverage
in US presidential elections over a certain period of time. The elections in the years
1988, 2008 and the year 2012 will be compared to see the presence of metacoverage
and how it has changed over the years. By studying the development of metacoverage in
elections, the characteristics of the matter will become clearer because one will be able
to see what aspects have developed and which haven’t. Therefore the general research
question of this paper is:
How has metacoverage of US presidential elections changed over time?
33 Because framing analysis best explains how metacoverage performs its functions as it
helps tease out latent meanings of metacoverage, the research question can be applied
specifically to framing and to the elections sampled for this study. Hence the research
question can be posed as such:
How has the framing of the US presidential elections changed from 1988 to 2012?
Kerbel (1999) argued that framing is a better approach than content analysis to
understand self-coverage. Although this approach is picked up in this thesis, as defined
in chapter 4, this thesis speaks of metacoverage and not self-coverage. With
metacoverage, this study understands the term as a consequence of mediatization effects
and means a new trend of journalism built on the effects of mediatization and media
logic. In other words: If mediatization effects tend to be true, then this means that the
media has evolved itself into an institution of its own, forcing politicians to orientate
their practices around media logic itself in order to get medial attention and to be
recognized and referred to as a political actor by the media. Mediatization thus means
that the media is gaining even more control over the media content, forcing political
communication to revolve even more around media logic and making communication
no longer focused on the public but instead making communication primarily focused
on the media, as the research by and Strömbäck et al. (2011) on page 8 showed. Media
logic means adapting to the way the media works. One of those characteristics are its
production logics: What the news is depends to a large degree on the news in other
media. Journalists spend a lot of time listening, watching and scrolling through other
media. The media revolves around the media and not around political sources. The
media therefore is not a player in the background of election campaigns but a player in
the center of the process, making the media not only more important for politicians but
also for the media itself. To test these assumptions in reality, the following hypothesis
was set:
Hypothesis 1: There is an increase of press frames compared to publicity frames in the
metacoverage of news stories over the three elections.
This hypothesis aims to see if the media really do orientate themselves around the
media, and reference each other more, giving one another power over news stories. At
34 the same time, due to this enhanced presence and power of the media, journalists
themselves have gained a new kind of influence. Journalists are no longer passive actors
in the election process that have to adjust themselves to the practices of politicians, but
are independent actors that through their sense of professionalism, in which autonomy
and independence play an important role. This led them to seek ways to “stamp their
marks on political stories” (Blumler/Kavangh 1999: 215). Journalists aim to assert their
independence in a style of political news that is more adversarial and disdainful of
politics. The result of that is that political journalism is less concerned with reporting
politicians’ actions and statements but more concerned with exposing the political
motives behind what politicians do or say, which makes journalism more interpretive
and opinionated. In that sense, news media has become more skeptical of motives, more
centered on the journalists as independent actors and adversaries of politicians
(Swanson 2004: 53-55). This assumption also can be strengthened by the relationship
between the US media and its government. The US media system shows a liberal
model, meaning that the government has little intervention in the media with fewer
regulations than other countries (Hallin/Mancini 2004: 198-209). This implies that the
relationship between the US media and its government are not attached to one another
but to watch each other from afar, all the while remaining independent and skeptical of
each other’s motives and future moves. As a result of these thoughts, hypothesis two
aimed to test the assumption that the news media add aspects about politicians’ motives
and strategies, as defined under the strategy frames introduced in the last chapter.
Hypothesis 2: There will be more strategy press and publicity frames over the three
elections than accountability or conduit press or publicity frames.
Strategy press frames portray the news media as an autonomous, consequential actor in
the strategic game of politics. Such stories stress the media as a political tool as well as
the politicians’ desire for positive press and their efforts to achieve it. This can be
explained by the demand of journalists to be more than mere mouthpieces of politicians,
instead seeking to control, frame and interpret political communication themselves. On
the other hand, the publicity strategy frame analyzes the performance, style and
perceptions of politicians and their maneuvers in the light of calculated underlying
rationales, uses of war language and focus on generating support for ones goals.
Journalists notice how politicians and political experts try to influence the public sphere
35 and the media for its behalf and instead of simply subjecting themselves to these
influences, journalists make these efforts a part of their own story. Hence stories with
publicity strategy frames emphasize the tactical considerations and strategic purposes
behind publicity moves. The rise of publicity efforts can be led back to the changes
evoked by mediatization and the orientation to media logic, making politicians turn to
experts in marketing, and public relations. In other words mediatization has brought in
the professionalization of political campaigning, sometimes as consultants, sometimes
as party employees, they have been given a voice in the party decision-making
(Swanson 2004: 49). Next to that the reforms of the McGovern-Fraser Commission
(page 22) weakened the role of political parties, resulting in a shift from party-centered
to candidate-centered elections, making candidates rely on professional consultants who
aid them in campaigning. The roles of the campaign advisers have become more
important and a bigger part in the campaign communication. Because traditional
campaigns have been formed into postmodern campaigns and have now become
permanent, professional consultants are needed for advertising, marketing and news
management (Norris 2007: 112). Journalists notice the growing presence of the
campaign advisors and their campaign strategies and publicity efforts and expose them
in their coverage. In the notion on the research question: How has metacoverage of US
presidential elections changed over time, the following hypothesis has been set:
Hypothesis 3: The mentioning of campaign professionals and campaign advisers in
news stories has increased from 1988 till 2012.
The role of campaign professionals and campaign advisers is to help presidential
candidates run campaigns in a highly mediatized society. Presidential candidates not
only have deal with a multitude of issues and disperse range of voters but also deal with
the multitude of the variety and range of the media, as it has become more diverse over
the years. The appearance and growth of commercial television with its consumerist
interests, an increasing number of channels and the rise of the internet, all of these
factors have resulted in a fragmentation of audiences and means of communication,
forcing politicians to be more active in the media to reach as many people as they might
have reached with one medium decades before. Here, the rise of the importance of
entertainment media can be noted. The mediatization of political communication has led
to the blurring of the boundaries between politics and entertainment, as entertainment
36 media tends to play a bigger and bigger role in electoral campaigns. This can be brought
back to the fact that it is a way to reach more potential and undecided voters and a
greater audience all at once. Since the media is important for the media itself and the
importance of entertainment media has grown which can be seen in the number of
channels and the number of viewers, following hypothesis has been set:
Hypothesis 4: The mentioning of entertainment media becomes more frequent in
metacoverage over the three elections.
Although the assumptions so far make the media seem ever so powerful. Because they
dominate the way presidential candidates communicate, presidential candidates do have
other means to communicate to voters while bypassing the media, for example at public
speeches, debates or town hall meetings. Yet these efforts of communication only reach
a number of voters and usually the ones that are already interested in the candidates, as
they have to make an effort to be present at the speeches or debates. A great aid in this
context has been the rise of the internet, which has enabled presidential candidates to
reach an even greater audience, with messages unfiltered by the news media. It has also
enabled citizens to share their opinions and have a spot in the public (communication)
sphere. That is one of the primary reasons for candidates and citizens to use the internet
is their desire to tell their story in their own words. It also helps them to refine their
communication and interact directly with the voters, fundraisers and volunteers.
Journalists notice the rise of online communication on the internet and in an effort to
add their own spin to the political communication and publicity effort, by referring to
the tweet, online video and such and integrating it in their coverage. Therefore the
resulting can be concluded:
Hypothesis 5: Metacoverage shows that the internet is used more and more in
campaigns and their communication between the years 2008 and 2012.
The year 1988 has been left out in this context as the internet was not established at this
time and can therefore not be analyzed. The hypothesis – if not proven wrong – will
help to show the increasing importance of the internet in modern election campaigns
and see if the term “electronic democracy” (Zittel 2004: 233) can be accepted for the
time being of the thesis.
37 This hypothesis as well as the others, will be tested through a content analysis approach
used in several studies on metacoverage (e.g. Johnson & Boudreau,1996; Kerbel, 1998).
In addition to that a framing analysis has been introduced, building on methods used by
Esser and D’Angelo (2003, 2006), explained in the following chapters.
6. Empirical method
This chapter will explain how the study was conducted, by first elaborating on how the
media is understood and how can be analyzed. Then it will have a closer look at the
sample, why and how it was picked and chosen to test the hypotheses. Namely, the
sample consisted the US TV news media NBC Nightly News, ABC World News
Tonight, CNN Anderson Cooper 360°, FOX news special report with Brit Hume were
been picked out due to their emphasis on national issues and the growing importance of
TV in acquiring information. Next the chapter will go through the process of the content
analysis step by step, by explaining how the news media was analyzed and how this can
show the presence of metacoverage in presidential elections. Lastly it will test the
hypotheses and the research questions and come to a conclusion on the topic.
6.1 Research design
Linking back to the theoretical section, where the media was argued to have taken on
the part of an autonomous player in society and provides the means by which other
social institutions and actors communicate, this thesis will consider the media as an
institution. Institutions stand for stable, predictable elements in modern society, they
constitute the framework, and provide an identity in relation to other spheres (Hjavard
2008: 115-116). Various media outlets can be conceived of as a singular institution
because its constituent organizations are structured similarly to achieve similar goals.
They follow ‘shared rules’ of what is considered appropriate professional behavior, they
operate in the same economic and political environments, and above all they adopt the
same basic rules of the game when confronted with the question of what is important
and interesting enough to be considered news (Esser 2013: 159-160). Therefore the
various media outlets will be seen as a part of one institution. Since this paper
concentrates on elections the US, and the development of metacoverage in US news
media, it will only sample news stories from US TV channels. The following channels
be brought into the study the metacoverage of presidential campaigns: ABC, NBC,
38 CNN and FOX News. American media channels have been picked because of the nature
of American presidential elections and the channels’ close coverage of them. American
presidential elections are interesting for an analysis as they are highly mediatized, as
mentioned on pages 18-22, American elections depend on the media from an early stage
on. From the pre-primaries, candidates rely on the media to get their name announced to
the public, and then in the primaries to become presidential candidate and a part of the
race for president. They also rely on the media to do their fundraising and eventually to
get elected. Every step and every procedure involves the media and is therefore speaks
for a strong mediatization of campaigns and its communication. That’s why it is
interesting to see how the media cover this mediatized kind of elections, as the presence
of metacoverage is expected the strongest here.
Television as a medium was picked because for one, television allows visual and audio
elements to be examined. Next to that, television has grown into the most important
source for information on politics since 1970 (Jarren/Donges 2006: 343ff) and is used
more
frequently
to
obtain
information
compared
to
other
media
(Gfs
Forschungsinstitut/IPMZ 2009). Television is often cited as a dominant force in
America’s political structure, as television news combines the Anglo-American
traditions of new agency, newspaper and Hollywood (Tunstall 1977: 34). It has a life of
its own that plays a vital role in presidential politics (Schudson 1995: 53-53). Therefore
it is important to consider television when talking about the American media landscape.
National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and American Broadcasting Company (ABC),
have belonged to the American media system since the 1920s in forms of radio
broadcasting before moving on to television in the 1940s and dominating the market till
the 1980s. Then cable television such as CNN (Cable news network) and FOX entered
the new broadcasting scene (Schade 2005: 63). Because these four channels are the
most watched channels in the US, and since television is the most important media for
acquiring political information (Lengauer 2007: 60-61), it makes sense to study
metacoverage in these channels. The shows in the channels have been picked out due to
their emphasis to political issues and national issues. NBC Nightly News, ABC World
News Tonight, CNN Anderson Cooper 360, FOX news special report with Brit Hume
and their metacoverage of US presidential campaigns two months before election day
were selected to study the research questions because at that time the media has
heightened their coverage of the general election (as the election draws closer, and the
39 importance of the election day grows, the media coverage grows with it). Electoral
presidential campaigns are practical units to study, as they have a functional purpose
and play an important as well as indispensable role in democracies because they provide
voters with comparable opportunities to make political choices and facilitate the
representative process and provide legitimacy for the regime. The fact that they receive
intense media attention and that they are practical due to their clear starting and ending
point makes them also convenient to analyze (Esser/Strömbäck 2012: 308). This will be
done over three elections over time 1988, 2008 and 2012. This kind of comparison
makes this study a longitudinal study, which allows the comparison of the same
variables with the same design, yet in (at least two) different places in time (Schirmer
2009: 172). This way we will be able to see how metacoverage has changed over the
years and if the presence has increased or not.
Following Esser and D’Angelo (2003), the model was adapted from the framing model
of Pan and Kosicki (1993), which shows four steps to identify press and publicity
frames. The first step being selecting the sample, the second is analyzing the topics and
designators, third analyzing framing devices and last identify press/publicity frames
(conduit, strategy, accountability) before matching the frames with the topic. The four
steps help answer the research questions as to how has metacoverage and framing of US
presidential campaigns changed in the elections 1988, 2008 and 2012. Before
explaining these four steps in detail, the following segment will explain a little about the
sample itself.
6.2 The presidential elections
The United States presidential election of 1988 was an open contest as the Republican
President Ronald Reagan was entering the last year of his second term. The Republican
George Bush won the election by docking on to Reagan’s economic success and thus
defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis. His success had more to do with his strength of
organization than his policies and by campaigning against his opponent’s weaknesses –
as well as Dukakis’ slow response to the attacks (Morrison 2013). By this time, opinion
polls had become a standard feature in the media and their results often a topic of news
coverage (Shelly/Hwang 1991: 60). The media therefore constructed their own news by
making their own polls and interpreting them. “The 1988 campaign will likely go down
40 in the annals of American journalists as the moment when reporters realized that the
other side – the newsmakers and their handlers – had taken the upper hand” (Morrison
1988: 248 quoted by Owen 1991: 62).
The 2008 election decades later, found itself in the year of mobility with 3G networking
devises such as iPhones and Blackberries meant that the internet had gone mobile.
People of all political persuasion could now also check blogs, campaign websites and
social networks at will. Newly emergent forms of content were YouTube, Facebook and
Myspace. Youtube allowed the freedom to watch the presidential candidates speeches at
one’s own will. Facebook and Myspace facilitated the creation of virtual communities
based on shared interests. In this election, the Democrat Barack Obama won the election
against Republican John McCain. The Obama campaign proceed to use the internet
more than the other candidates, providing citizens with the potential for a much deeper
sense of personal connection to one another and to the candidate in innovate ways.
David Plouffe, an Obama campaign manager commented: “We had essentially created
our own television network, only better because we communicated directly with no
filter” (Plouffe 2009: 364). It quickly became the textbook on presidential campaign
communication. Smith (2010) claims that any future campaign that fails to match is
doomed to fail and that any future campaign that merely matches Obama’s 2008
campaign will be left in what he calls “Cyberdust” (Smith 2010: 178). By planning to
use the internet as integral parts of the campaign from the beginning, Obama’s
campaign used different social media to interact with different voter segments, while
customizing content for each network and interacting with its members. The continuing
breakdown of traditional class divides and the changing demographic and economic
structure of post-industrial society has meant an increasing plurality of political interests
and blurring of partisan loyalties (Gibson/Ward 2012: 63).
The 2012 election again found itself in a digital war and showed a great quantity of
messages circulating during the elections along with an increase in the number of media
platforms. The volume of campaign information reached its peak in 2012, especially as
the activity on social media exploded. Campaign committees, political parties and
consultants waged aggressive media campaigns in mainstream, entertainment and social
media. The presidential candidates – Obama running for second term and his contestant
Mitt Romney – and their wives made highly publicized appearances on entertainment
41 television, making political advertising reach its saturation point on air and online. The
mainstream news press tried to compensate the few reporters on the campaign trail by
filling the space with journalists elaborate features based on polling data, fact-checking
results and filing blog posts in addition to news stories, making election news was
heavily driven by events and data. The election was characterized by the volume of
messages (Owen 2013: page not specified). These three elections will be brought up to
study the presence of metacoverage in electoral campaign coverage and to answer the
research question and hypotheses. How exactly these were sampled in order to answer
the research question and hypotheses is reflected on the following pages.
6.3 Sample
The TV shows were recorded and the presence of stories that referred to the presidential
election of that year were filtered out and noted in a logbook. Because the news on FOX
and CNN was 60min long and the news on NBC and ABC was only half an hour, the
stories were used as units of analysis not the whole news per se, to avoid any bias.
Following this thought – 50% of the total amount of stories from NBC and ABC was
coded, whereas around a quarter of the FOX and CNN stories were taken into analysis
and coded. The news stories over all of the channels were also not picked on the same
day, to avoid any possible clustering of a specific event or topic, which could lead to
overrepresentation in the data. For example, if there was a debate on a Wednesday, then
the next day would be devoted to the debate topic, whereas the following day it would
no longer be of interest. Initially 231 stories were coded in the year 2012, 419 in 2008
and 180 in 1988. The sample for 1988 is slightly smaller as the channels CNN and FOX
did not exist at that time and could therefore not be included into the analysis.
Table 2: Overview of the sample for each election year per channel
1988
2008
2012
ABC
98
42
45
NBC
82
64
49
FOX
113
56
CNN
200
80
419
231
Total
180
42 The difference of the total numbers between 2012 and 2008 can be explained largely
due to the fact that CNN and FOX revealed to have less stories referring to the
presidential election in 2012 than in 2008. For FOX one can argue that in 2008 a
different show was coded compared to 2012. Also the unfortunate occurrence of
Hurricane Sandy around two weeks before election day must be mentioned as the
coverage was broadly devoted to that subject and no longer referred intensely to the
presidential election. The stories that did defer to the presidential election were picked
by process of randomization and were the coded according to the steps described in the
next section.
6.4 Determining topics and designators
After the first step, the sampling process explained in the abstract above, the second
step of the coding process was about coding up to three of the eight topics and up to two
meta topics per story. The topics being the electoral and political system (1), ideology
and political worldview (2), prospective/retrospective evaluation (3), issues and plans
(4), non-issues and mistakes (5), personal character (6), voters and public opinion (7),
and last electioneering and campaigning (8). The topics are each explained in detail in
the codebook attached in the appendix. The topics themselves were adapted from
Kerbel, Apee and Ross (2000) excluding the media process topic. Determining which
topic is can be found in a story is done via content analysis – a method which allows the
close research of contents – in this case the metacoverage of presidential elections in
television news shows. The other methods used in social sciences are surveys and
observation, and these are not applicable for the evaluation of metacoverage, because
the survey and observation methods do not look content and its specific characteristics
like content analysis does (Brosius/Koschel/Haas 2009: 21). The content is analyzed by
a codebook – a set of variables that help recognize the characteristics of metacoverage.
The codebook used for the analysis of the elections 1988 and 2008 is used in this paper
in order to maintain consistency to the other data. Using the same codebook allows a
comparison of the data in the first place. That way it can be assured that the same
variables were measured in the same way even though the person coding may not be the
same one. Various sessions with Prof. Dr. Esser were set up, in which the coding
procedure was looked at in detail. This helped ensure consistency and validity of the
data evaluation.
43 6.5 Operationalization
The news stories are analyzed with a codebook, namely a system of categories, which
can help measure characteristics of metacoverage. The codebook used in this thesis was
put together and revised by Esser and D’Angelo (2003, 2006) and had online
components added by M.A. Anna Lena Grundler in a later stage. It was titled
„Codebook Metaberichterstattung: Fully revised follow-up instrument of the
metacoverage project by Esser/ DʼAngelo – Erweiterungen Online“ (February 21, 2014,
see Appendix). “Erweiterungen Online” means that at a later point – for the analysis of
the election 2008 – additional variables were added to be able to measure the presence
of the internet in the presidential elections. These variables were subordinated into
already existing ones to ensure the comparison to the data collected 1988. For the
content analysis for the 2012 election, the exact same codebook was used as for the
2008 election.
The codebook itself consists of four parts; The formal part, a list of topics, the scripts,
which define the dominating frame and the position of the script (author of script, is it
visual or audio and the salience) and the connection of the frame to the topic. This
contains two levels of analysis. The two levels refer to the coding process, where in this
step the news story is looked at the contribution level for one and on the script level. On
the contribution level, the news story broadcasted is looked at as a whole. That means
for one, determining what topics are found in the broadcast. For every story, up to three
of the eight topics can be coded. If there are more than three topics present in the news
story, then the most dominating three will be coded. If a topic does not arise, it will not
be coded. Next to the presence of the topics in a news story, the presence of meta-topics
are coded as well. A meta-topic has either a press or a publicity characteristics and each
news story can show one or both of the meta-topics.
After the determining the topic, the topic salience is to be set. This means that if the
topic dominates over 50% of the news story and shows primary salience (then it is to be
coded with the number +3), having a prominent position in the coverage or prominent
proportional salience. Secondary salience means that the topic is referred to but is
mentioned next to other aspects, taking up 15-50% of the news story. If a story shows
that the topic is secondary salient, +2 is to be coded. Yet if the topic is subordinated,
and only takes up 5-15% of the news story, meaning a peripheral salience, then +1 is to
44 be coded. This applies to the meta-topics as well. If the meta-topic reaches a level of
salience +2, then the coding proceeds to the level of the scripts. If it is below +2, then
the code sheet is put away and the process starts again with another news story.
The next step of the coding process is writing down all the scripts found in the news
story. Scripts are defined as constituent parts of metacoverage frames that help construct
the frames. To be able to analyze scripts, one must look closely at short segments in the
news story and determine if they are rather press or publicity related, more specifically,
which frame does the script indicate. The codebook lists a set of scripts for each frame –
conduit press frame, strategy press frame, accountability press frame as well as conduit
publicity frame, the publicity strategy frame and the publicity accountability frame.
For example the conduit press frame simply report on the presence of news personnel
and equipment at a campaign event and steer the narrative away from news
management scenarios (D’Angelo/Lombard 2008: 6), with no specific intention other
than stressing the transmission functions. If a proposition refers to, or cites, a news
media outlet, program, website, blog or journalist as being a source of news coverage of
a particular campaign topic, then the media co-orientation variable is to be coded (as
MC-11). Journalists refer to, and rely on, other news media outlets for what is news or
what is newsworthy.
It is hereby important to point out that the medium is treated as the source of news in
this case. This variable is also to be coded when the media is portrayed as a proposition
that refers to someone as being “in,” “on,” or “from” a mediated news program. The
proposition is unaccompanied by any other remarks or statements attributed to that
person, it is just that the media is shown as a platform for actors. There are another eight
scripts that indicate a conduit press frame, and the scripts that are subordinated to the
other frames as shown in this table:
45 Table 3: Overview of scripts that form press frames
Press frames
Conduit press frames
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
Media co-orientation
Press crops’ presence
at events
Media insiderism
Journalists as sources
Self promotion/cross
promotion
Story magnitude
Other
Strategy press frames
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
§
Intrusion through dramatization
Intrusion through media negativism
Intrusion through media bias
Intrusion through giving too
much/too little emphasis
Intrusion though media frenzy
Intrusion through investigative
journalism
Fall out for the press
Media as kingmaker, political arbiter
Intrusion through media impact
Accountability press frames
§ Self thematization to
give information to the
public
§ Self-thematization to
criticize and control
the profession of
journalism
For details on each of the scripts, refer the codebook in the appendix. If a multitude of
scripts subordinated under conduit press frames can be found in a news story, then this
frame is present or dominant in the news story.
The publicity frames are also set up with scripts that indicate a frame, for example
publicity strategy frame, which emphasizes the tactical considerations and strategic
purposes behind publicity moves, usually aimed at influencing the public or the news
media. Script types that help measure this frame are for instance the script that refers to
publicity goal to influence or persuade the public, their opinion, agenda, the voters –or
influence and persuade the media, news agenda, journalists and always mentioning the
strategic reasoning behind it (to be coded as PS-52). The next table provides an
overview of all the publicity frames and their scripts:
Table 4: Summary of the scripts that make publicity frames
Publicity frames
Publicity conduit frames
§ neutral dissemination of
publicity messages,
methods, personnel
Publicity strategy frames
§ Publicity efforts needing expertise,
discussions and evaluations of the
strategy and tactics behind the
publicity actions
§ publicity goal to influence or persuade
§ publicity goal to effective ways of
communicating policy
§ publicity goal building and selling a
positive image
§ publicity goal as a defense against
accusations, criticism, controversial
behavior
§ attack via the media
Publicity accountability frames
§ public information and
explanations on the
PR/Publicity methods
§ critic and control aspect of
publicity statements
46 For details on each of the scripts, see the codebook in the appendix. If a multitude of
scripts subordinated under publicity strategy frame can be found in a news story, then
this frame is present or dominant in the news story.
Next to all the script types, additional categories for each script have been introduced to
give further information to the scripts by measuring a) the placement of the script by
which primary salience means the script can be found in the intro of the anchorman or
the reporter or it is referred to in the last statement or summary (to be coded with 3), or
b) secondary, meaning the script is found in the middle of the coverage, so not in the
into or wrap-up (to be coded with 2). Also the script-source as to who is the sponsor of
the script, for example the journalist or the political actor. Next to that, the candidate’s
connection (Democrats are categorized as mid-left, Republicans as mid-right), and the
candidate’s evaluation (negative or neutral or positive) can be coded.
Lastly the visual aspects are looked at closely. This would be the visual info for one,
which shows the contribution of visuals to scripts being (1) audio-only (determined
solemnly by textual information), (2) overlapping verbal and visual information
(showing a close word-image relationship), (3) no overlapping (meaning visual
elements add new information to the verbal text) and (4) visual only (only determined
by visual information). Also the visual type is differed into iconic pictures (1), which
are live, on-the-scene pictures of the actual script or indexical pictures (2) which are
stand-in pictures, more montage structured by a journalists or lastly schematic (3), that
is the use of diagrams, charts and tables which offer a schematic representation of the
audio text. These categories help determine the way visual elements are used in
metacoverage to deliver stories about presidential election campaigns.
Once all the press and publicity scripts and their addition categories have been coded,
the dominating frames in the story can be determined. The frequency and fortitude of
certain scripts determines what frame is to be coded for the news story. For each news
story, two frames can be set. These then will be connected to the topics picked in an
earlier step, to show the relationship between a frame and a topic.
Before starting with the coding process, the accuracy of the coding procedure must be
determined. If each coder would analyze and code a test the same, then the replicability
of the study is ensured and the various data over the different elections, evaluated by
47 different coders, can be compared. For this, a total of five sessions were set up with
Prof. Esser and lic. Phil. Florin Büchel to ensure that the codebook and its application
were applied correctly. In each of the sessions around two to four news broadcasts were
looked at from all of the television networks. Next to that, the intercoder reliability was
evalutated. Intercoder reliability is a critical component of content analysis because if
the coding is not reliable, the analysis cannot be trusted. It shows to what extent
different coders agree with the coding of the same text. Given that the goal of content
analysis is to identify and record relatively objective (or at least intersubjective)
characteristics of message, reliability is a paramount (Klenke 2008:100). For this, 29
stories for all channels were coded by Prof. Esser, Florin Büchel and the author of this
thesis and compared. Using Cohen’s Kappa and evaluating for each anaylsis level, the
data showed the following values:
Story level
Cohen’s
Script level
Kappa
Cohen’s
Kappa
Topic
0.909
Object
0.560
00Topic Media
0.875
Type
0.605
Topic Publicity
0.819
Position
0.644
Frames
0.698
Source
0.626
Topic – Frame Connection
0.649
Candidate Connection
0.663
Average value
0.790
Candidate Evaluation
0.733
Visual Info
0.705
Visual Type
0.575
Average value
0.639
According to Landis & Koch (1977), these values are seen as a substantial agreement
(values between 0.61 and 0.8) between the coders and thus show that the analysis of the
date is relatively reliable (Krippendorff’s alpha gave the similar values, 0.789 for the
story level and 0.640 for the script level).
A pretest was not conducted in this study, as the codebook used in this thesis had
already been used before in various empirical studies and had shown that an adjustment
of the codebook wasn’t needed and the codebook could be used for the evaluation of the
data and the research questions posed, as to be shown in the next chapter.
48 7. Analysis
As one of the latter chapters, the analysis part of the thesis connects the theoretical
background, which is found in the hypotheses that were set for the thesis, with reality,
which can be measured by the provided data. Step by step each of the five hypotheses
will be tested with the program SPSS by using the data coded for each of the three
elections. After each evaluation, there is a short review of the data so that it is clear
what the analysis of the data actually means for the understanding of metacoverage.
The results of the reliability test enabled the proceeding of the coding process of the
2012 election and the analysis of the data. The datasets for the other two elections –
1988 and 2008 – were provided by Prof. Dr. Frank Esser and incorporated into this
study. In a first step the datasets were adjusted (for 2008, stories with the salience +1
were coded, for the other two years this was not the case – these elements were
therefore deleted in the datasheets containing the data from the 2008 election).
Once the datasets were ready for the evaluation, a general overview of the data was put
together. This showed that all in all in total of 830 stories over the three elections were
coded for the analysis of metacoverage and its development over the years. Out of that
total of 830 stories, 231 stories were coded in the year 2012, 419 in 2008 and 180 in the
election year 1988. In total, in the election year of 1988, 74% of the stories showed
metacoverage topics of primary or secondary salience. The election in 2008 had 59.7%
stories with metacoverage and 2012 only 38.2%, showing a decrease in the number of
stories with metacoverage presence. In total, the data showed that a total of 2835 scripts
were coded. The average length of a news story was in total of 180.57 seconds over the
three elections, the election in 2008 showed the longest news stories in average. The
following table provides an overview of the numbers recited in this section.
49 Table 5: Overview of the metacoverage sample of this thesis in absolute numbers
1988
2008
2012
Total
n=180
n=419
n=231
n=830
Stories with press topic
11 (6.1%)
131 (31.4%)
32 (14%)
174
Stories with publicity topic
95 (52.8%)
57 (13.6%)
43 (18.6%)
195
Stories with both press and
27 (15%)
62 (14.7%)
13 (5.6%)
102
133 (74%)
250 (59.7%)
88 (38.2%)
471
Scripts
815
1447
573
Average length of news
147.45
235.51
158.76
publicity topics
Total stories with
metacoverage
2835
180.57
stories in sec
Note: In 1988 only ABC & NBC were available for analysis, whereas for the election years 2008 and
2012 ABC, NBC as well as CNN and FOX were available and were analyzed.
All of these cases were coded to answer the following research question:
How has metacoverage on US presidential elections changed over time?
Because framing analysis best explains how metacoverage performs its functions as it
helps tease out latent meanings of metacoverage, the research question can be applied
specifically to framing and to the elections sampled for this study. Hence the research
question can be posed as such:
How has the framing of the US presidential elections changed from 1988 to 2012?
The aim of this research question is to be able to study the nature of metacoverage and
therefore to be able to say how it has developed. Lastly it might help us understand what
metacoverage means for media and communication studies.
Hypothesis 1
In order to be able to discuss the research question posed above, five hypotheses were
set up. The first hypothesis aimed to examine mediatization tendencies and effects of
media logic, which imply that the media revolves around the media and not around
50 political sources. The media therefore does not play a role in the background of election
campaigns but is an autonomous player in the center of the process, making the media
not only more important for politicians but also for the media itself. This would mean
that the media often refer to other – or their own – media, mention other media or other
journalists. This assumption, applied to the framing perspective of this paper, was put in
the following words:
Hypothesis 1: There is an increase of press frames compared to publicity frames in the
metacoverage of news stories over the three elections.
In order to analyze this, the frequentness of the script types for each election year was
evaluated. Script types were taken into analysis as they indicate the existence of frames
in a news story. The script types were for one summarized as either press or publicity,
as the exact type – conduit, strategy and accountability – is not relevant for this
hypothesis and therefore was not regarded for this step of analysis. As the actual
number of stories varies quite extensively between the years (2008 having almost twice
as many stories than 2012 or 1988), the percentage of the frames for every year was
calculated from the total amount of script types coded in that election year. Referring to
the percentage of the scripts of the total scripts in every year, allowed the comparison of
the data. Also because the election year of 1988 only enclosed data for the channels
ABC and NBC, the frequencies were not differed by channel but concerned the total
number of news stories in percent.
The inquiry showed that this tendency could partly be seen over the years. While in the
election of 1988 there were more publicity frames (75.2% - 613 press related scripts out
of 815) than press frames (24.8% - 202 publicity related scripts out of a total of 815
scripts), in 2008 this tendency changed. In the election of 2008, press frames (63.9% 1002 press related scripts out of a total 1568 scripts) were more frequent than publicity
frames (36.2% - 570 publicity related scripts out of the 1577 scripts). The similar could
be seen in 2012, where press frames (55.2% - 324 press related scripts out of a total of
587 scripts) were more frequent than publicity frames (44.8% - 263 publicity related
scripts out of 587). So it can be said that there was a definite shift from the amount of
publicity frames found to more press frames found over the three elections.
51 Figure 2: Frequency of press frames compared to publicity frames for all channels
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
75.2%
63.9%
55.2%
44.8%
36.2%
Publicity
24.8%
1988
n= 815
Press
2008
n= 1568
2012
n= 587
Hypothesis 1: There is an increase of press frames compared to publicity frames in the metacoverage of
news stories over the three elections.
One could argue that this tendency is only noticeable because the data for the elections
in 2008 and 2012 included the channels CNN and FOX whereas 1988 did not and only
enclosed the channels ABC and NBC. Therefore a new dataset was set up that
combined all three elections, yet only had the data coded for the channels ABC and
NBC. This new dataset contained 379 news stories in total, the number of scripts
dropped in 2012 from 587 to 402 script types and in 2008 from 1568 to 262. This makes
it clear that in 2008, most of the script types were initially found in the channels CNN
and FOX.
Yet even though the channels CNN and FOX were excluded in this new dataset,
because it only had data of the channels ABC and NBC, the data showed the exact same
tendencies as the inquiry before, when the all four channels were used for the analysis.
The numbers didn’t change for the year 1988 (press frames making up 24.8% and
publicity frames 75.2%), as the data remained the same. But in the election year of 2008
the gap closed slightly between the two types of frames (press frames now 55% down
from 63.9% when the data included CNN & FOX, and the publicity frames 45% of the
frames coded that year – up from 36.2%). Yet although these values might be different,
the data still shows a general shift from publicity frames to press frames. The same goes
for data collected in 2012 – press frames making up 54.7% of all the frames found in
that year, publicity frames being at 45.3% (Cramer’s V= 0.241, p = 0.00).
52 Figure 3: Frequency of press frames and publicity frames in ABC & NBC
100%
90%
80%
75.2% 70%
55.0% 60%
45.0% 50%
54.7% 45.3% 40%
30%
Press
Publicity
24.8% 20%
10%
0%
1988
n= 815
2008
n=262
2012
n=402
Hypothesis 1: “There is an increase of press frames compared to publicity frames in the metacoverage of
news stories over the three elections” tested with only the channels ABC and NBC over the three
elections.
The analysis shows that the shift to more press frames than publicity frames does not
depend on the channel – but it is a shift that can be found in general. Yet although press
frames have taken over dominance in presidential election coverage over the years and
remain more frequent than publicity frames, a linear increase cannot be noticed. On the
contrary, it seems that the two types of frames are leveling out rather than increasing.
The hypothesis therefore as such “There is an increase of press frames compared to
publicity frames in the metacoverage of news stories over the three elections” does not
apply to the data collected in this study and would fit better if formulated as such:
“There are more press frames than publicity frames in 2012 than in the year 1988”.
Referrig to the scope of this thesis, these results indicate a growth in the reference from
the media to the media. This results in the conclusion that the metacoverage of
presidential elections has become more press orientated than publicity orientated over
the years. Referring back to the theoretical perspective, mediatization, media logic and
their effects, and considering what this evaluation means for it, it can clearly be stated
that the press over time has become more important for the press itself and is more often
a subject of its own coverage compared to publicity frames, that deal with the publicity
53 efforts of politicians. This is seen as a sign of mediatization. The media gains even more
control over the media content, forcing political communication to revolve even more
around media logic and making communication no longer focused on the public but
instead making communication primarily focused on the media. This can be seen when
simply looking at metacoverage of the elections and the frequency of how many times
the media mentions the media. The next question would be, to discover in what way the
media refers to the media, which is entailed in the next hypothesis.
Hypothesis 2
In order to understand in what way the media talks about press or publicity efforts, a
hypothesis dealing with that matter was introduced in this thesis. The hypothesis deals
with the analysis of what frames are found over the three elections and postulates:
Hypothesis 2: There will be more strategy press and publicity frames over the three
elections than accountability or conduit press or publicity frames.
The strategy frames claim that journalists aim to assert their independence in a style of
political news that is more adversarial and disdainful of politics. The result of that is
that political journalism is less concerned with reporting politicians’ actions and
statements but more concerned with exposing the political motives behind what
politicians do or say, which makes journalism more interpretive and opinionated
(Swanson 2004: 53-55). To have a closer look at this effect and study it for the data in
this paper, a new variable was put together from the already existing data. A new
variable called “frame” was set, which summarized all press conduit script types into
the value (1), press strategy script types were summarized to the value (2), and all press
accountability script types to the value (3). For the publicity frames, similar steps were
made. The value (4) entailed publicity conduit script types, the value (5) that held all the
publicity strategy script types and lastly value (6) summarized all the publicity
accountability script types. The details which exact script types can be summarized to
which frames was defined by the codebook and the specifics to each script type and
frame can be found in the appendix. Script types are used for this part of the analysis as
frames are built from scripts about connectivity, strategy, and accountability. Scripts are
defined as constituent parts of metacoverage frames. Scripts help construct frames as
such. So for this part of the analysis it was decided to look at the script types coded –
54 not the meta-frames because the meta-frames were defined as the most dominant frames
found in a news story. This would sometimes overshadow script types that indicate the
presence of other frames, other than the most dominating frame. Supposing if one
would only use the meta-frames in the examination of this hypothesis, it could be
argued that it would lead to a loss of information. For example an accountability script
type could be coded, yet the script type wasn’t dominant enough and therefore wouldn’t
be coded as a meta-frame. The accountability frame would therefore be neglected and
would not be included in the evaluation of the data, if the variable meta-frame were
used for the analysis. But the hypothesis does not question if there was an increase of
the most dominant frames but if there was an increase of the individual frames. So
instead – as described before – the script types were summarized into their according
frames and then the presence of this new variable was studied for each of the three
elections by using the two variables – the new variable “frame” and the variable “year”
(the variable “date” was transferred into a more simpler version that only showed the
year). These were put in a cross tab and tested for the significance with Cramer’s V.
Once again, this analysis was conducted only taking the channels ABC and NBC into
consideration as the data for the election in 1988 did not include the channels CNN and
FOX. Excluding those channels allowed an unbiased comparison over all of the
elections, as any results in 2008 and 2012 can no longer been attributed to the inclusion
cable channels in the analysis.
Press frames
The analysis showed that for all the elections, the assumption that there are more
strategy frames in the metacoverage of presidential elections than any other kind of
frame does not apply for press frames. Unlike the hypothesis predicted, script types
indicating press conduit frames showed a far larger dominance of frequency than press
strategy frames throughout all the years. In the election of 1988, out of all the frames
coded (including publicity frames), 24% script types could be summarized under press
conduit frames (196 coded scripts out of a total of 815 scripts) while there were only
0.7% script types that indicated press strategy frames (6 scripts out of 815 scripts were
press strategy frames). For an overview, regard table 8.
Similar applies to the other election years. In the 2008 election, 52.3% of the all script
types coded that year indicated the presence of press conduit frames (137 out of a total
55 of 262 script types). 2.7% of all the script types coded could be summarized as press
strategy frames (7 script types out of the total 262 script types) (Cramer’s V= 0.241, p =
0.00).
The election in 2012 showed 53% of all the script types coded indicated press conduit
frames (213 press conduit script types were coded out of 402 total script types that year)
whereas 1.7% (7 out of a total of 402 script types coded that year) were press strategy
frames (Cramer’s V= 0.241, p = 0.00).
Table 6: Press frames in percent for each election
Press conduit script types
Press strategy script types
Press accountability script types
1988
2008
2012
24%
52.3%
53%
n=196
n=137
n=213
0.7%
2.7%
1.7%
n=6
n=7
n=7
0%
0%
0%
Hypothesis 2: There will be more strategy press and publicity frames over the three elections than
accountability or conduit press or publicity frames.
Note: Each of the percentage numbers refers to how much the script type was mentioned compared to all
of the script types that were to be found in the corresponding election year, not just press script types.
Concluding, it can be said that for all of the years there are more press conduit frames in
the metacoverage of presidential elections than any other press frames and that there
was an increase in conduit press frames over the years. There has been a slight increase
in how often press conduit frames are perceived in news stories, from 1988 till the
election year 2008 there is a gradual increase (more than double). From the year 2008
till the election in 2012 the increase in only by 1% and therefore one cannot speak of a
defining increase. Yet what can clearly be stated from the data shown is that none of the
years show a press accountability frame, the frame that stresses democratic and
professional norms that govern news stories.
56 Publicity frames
This discovery – that conduit frames can be found more often than strategy frames in
the metacoverage of presidential elections – may apply to press frames but it does not
apply to publicity frames. The percentage of the script types indicating publicity
strategy frames is in fact slightly larger than the number of script types referring to
publicity conduit frames when looking at how often the script types are mentioned
compared to all the script types coded in that election year. But this assumption only
applies for the comparison between the election years 1988 and 2008, and not when
taking the election in the year of 2012 into account. This will be looked at in detail in a
while. First there will be a step-by-step analysis for each election year.
In the election year of 1988, 39.4% of all the coded script types found in news stories
showed the presence of publicity strategy frames (321 script types out of a total of 815
script types coded that year), 30.2% of the script types could be summarized under
publicity conduit frames (246 script types out of all the 815 script types coded that
election year). And lastly 5.6% script types indicated the presence of publicity
accountability frames (46 script types out of the total 815).
The election in 2008 also showed a dominance of script types that indicated publicity
strategy frames over the other frames – making up 26.6% of all the scripts coded in that
year (70 out of 262 coded script types). Script types that referred to publicity conduit
frames made up 17.9% of all the script types coded (47 out of the total 262 script types).
Again showing less frequency in script types was the publicity accountability frame,
whose script types added up to 0.4% (1 script coded out of 262 script types in total).
Up to this point of the analysis, it can be said that there are more script types that show
the presence of publicity strategy frames in the metacoverage of elections than publicity
accountability and publicity conduit frames. Yet the coverage of the election in 2012
showed a change in the frequency of publicity strategy frames. 18.7% of all the script
types coded could be found under the publicity strategy frame (75 out of 402 total script
types coded). On the other hand the publicity conduit frames’ script types added up to
26.6% of all the script types (107 out of 402). No script types that indicated the
presence of publicity accountability scripts were found in the news stories (Cramer’s
V= 0.241, p = 0.00).
57 Figure 4: Amount of publicity script types in % over the three elections
5.6% 1988 39.4% 30.2% Publicity accountablilty script types 0.4% 2008 26.6% Publicity strategy script types 17.9% Publicity conduit script types 0.0% 2012 18.7% 26.6% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% Hypothesis 2: There will be more strategy press and publicity frames over the three elections than
accountability or conduit press or publicity frames.
Note: Each of the percentage numbers refers to how much the script type was mentioned compared to all
of the script types that were to be found in the according election year.
In contrast to the results of press frames – publicity frames show a different picture.
They do not present a clear majority of the amount of script types indicating publicity
conduit frames in a news story in percent, when being compared to the script types that
summarize publicity strategy frames. But instead the election year 2012 shows a
decrease in the frequency of publicity strategy frames in percent and a decrease in
publicity accountability frames.
While publicity accountability frames completely decreased in the metacoverage of the
election in 2012, an increase in publicity conduit frames can be noted from 2008 up
until the following election of 2012. In order to have a closer look at this development,
the two election years 2008 and 2012 were compared with the inclusion of all the
channels (NBC, ABC, CNN and FOX) to see if the tendencies of the frames (the
increase and decrease they showed in the analysis up to now) remain the same when
58 both the network broadcasting channels and the cable channels were taken into
consideration. The same test (Cramer’s V) and the same variables (frame and year)
were used as before.
Press frames – all four channels
After conducting this analysis, the data showed the same tendencies and behavior
between the frames, as when the analysis only considered the channels ABC and NBC.
For both years, press conduit frames are far more dominant than press strategy frames;
53.5% of the frames were press conduit frames out of all the frames in 2008 (811 out of
a total of 1517 scripts coded in that year could be summarized to press conduit frames).
In contrast, 8.0% of the scripts were summarized to press strategy frames (121 script
types out of a total 1517 script types). Lastly 2.2% of the scripts made up press
accountability frames (33 script types out of the total of 1517). These numbers
demonstrate that script types indicating the presence of press conduit frames remain
more frequently noticeable in news stories, no matter what channels are taken into
consideration. For an overview, refer to table 7.
In the year 2012, 53.2% of the script types that were coded, could be summarized as
press conduit frames (305 script types in a news story referred to press conduit frames
out of a total of 573 script types coded). 1.7% of all the scripts types referred to the
press strategy frames (10 script types out of the total 573 script types coded). Finally, no
script types coded that indicated press accountability frames. The assumption, that there
are more press conduit frames than press strategy or press accountability frames still is
accurate for this election and for the channels included into the analysis – ABC, NBC,
CNN and FOX (Cramer’s V= 0.182, p= 0.00).
Publicity frames – all four channels
Once again when analyzing publicity frames, the data showed the same tendencies
when all four channels were regarded as when only ABC and NBC were taken into
consideration. In 2008, there were more publicity strategy frames than other publicity
frames. 18.7% of the scripts coded could be summarized under publicity strategy frames
(283 scripts types out of the total 1517 scripts coded that year). Script types that
indicated press conduit frames displayed in comparison reached 16.0% of all the script
types coded in 2008 (242 script types out of the total 1517 script types). Again showing
59 a lower percentage value were script types indicating publicity accountability frames,
with a value of 1.8% (27 script types that year out of the total 1517).
Yet in 2012 this distribution of script types in the metacoverage of the news stories for
that election year showed that publicity conduit frames (25.7% - 147 script types out of
573 total script types that year) were coded more frequently than the other two frames;
The publicity strategy frame was coded 111 times out of the 573 cases, taking up 19.4%
of all the scripts coded that year. No publicity accountability scripts were found that
year (0%) (Cramer’s V= 0.182, p= 0.00).
Table 7: Script types summarized in their corresponding frames in percent for the
election years 2008 and 2012
2008
2012
n= 1517
n=573
Press conduit frame
53.5%
53.2%
Press strategy frame
8.0%
1.7%
Press accountability frame
2.2%
-
Publicity conduit frame
16.0%
25.7%
Publicity strategy frame
18.7%
19.4%
Publicity accountability frame
1.8%
-
Hypothesis 2: There will be more strategy press and publicity frames over the three elections than
accountability or conduit press or publicity frames.
Note: This table regards all four channels FOX, CNN, ABC & NBC – therefore only the two election
years can be compared as they hold data for the four channels as 1988 does not.
Speaking in general, the press conduit frame is the frame that shows up more often in
the metacoverage of presidential elections than any other frame. This can be linked back
to hypothesis one, where it was argued that the press is becoming more and more
important for the press itself and therefore press frames are more likely to be found
when analyzing metacoverage. Publicity frames, in comparison, can only be found
around half as often as press frames in news stories for both elections.
When looking specifically at this data evaluation, it can be said that a noticeable
difference arises by adding cable channels, namely the rise of accountability frames in
60 the metacoverage. The dataset used in the comparison for the two channels ABC and
NBC for all of the three elections showed no press accountability frames. And of all the
script types found in the metacoverage of the 2008 election, only 0.6% were linked to
publicity accountability frames. Yet when adding the cable channels CNN and FOX,
this rose up to 1.8% (three times the amount). This means that by including cable
channels, the data was able to show that accountability frames cannot be excluded when
studying metacoverage in elections, and that they are more likely to be found in cable
channels.
Also another difference in the comparison with all four channels instead of only ABC
and NBC for the election years 2008 and 2012, is that the gap between the publicity
strategy and publicity conduit fame slightly decreased. This is mostly the case for the
election year 2008. When the two channels ABC and NBC were compared, the gap
between publicity strategy and publicity conduit fames was 8.7% (in other words,
publicity strategy frames were coded more than publicity conduit frames by 8.7%). Yet
when including all the channels it was only a 2.7% gap. This indicates that cable
channels add to the amount of publicity conduit frames. For the election year 2012, the
gap between the publicity conduit and publicity strategy frames decreases by 1% when
adding cable channels into the analysis. Though, this amount is rather marginal and
doesn’t speak as much as the gap-drop for the 2008 election.
Yet all in all, although some gaps may have decreased slightly by including the cable
channels CNN and FOX, the gaps still remain the same between the frames and indicate
the same tendencies. So in general, it can be said that the distribution of frequencies
when including four channels and over two elections – has similar tendencies as to
analysis that regarded all three elections and only two channels. This means that the
conclusions can apply to the media in general and do not have to be limited to a channel
or an election.
Hence, summarized for all the frames and for all of the three elections, generally for the
development of metacoverage it can be said that:
§ Press conduit frame
Shows a slight increase over the three elections and
remains the frame most likely to be found in the
metacoverage of presidential elections.
61 § Press strategy frame
Remains less frequent than the press conduit frame,
yet neither shows a general increase nor a decrease
over the elections.
§ Press accountability frame
Can only be found in the 2008 election, and only
when including cable channels – which means the
frame can only be linked to cable channels in 2008
and to no other election.
§ Publicity conduit frame
Was less frequent than publicity strategy frame till
2012, then it became the frame mentioned more than
any other publicity frame.
§ Publicity strategy frame
Frequency decreases over the years.
§ Publicity accountability frame
Frequency decreases over the years.
Unlike the hypothesis predicted, there were not more strategy press frames in the
metacoverage of presidential elections than press conduit frames or press accountability
frames, but more press conduit frames than the other two press frames. For publicity
frames, the hypothesis again can be dismissed as the publicity strategy frames only
occur more often than publicity accountability frames and publicity conduit frames in
the years 1988 and 2008 but not in 2012. In 2012 publicity conduit frames are more
frequent in the metacoverage of presidential elections than the other two types of
frames. These findings would speak against the hypothesis.
Hypothesis 3
Staying on the topic of publicity frames, this next hypothesis dealt with a single
publicity script object, which was the mentioning of communication professionals and
campaign advisers, who brief journalists. Communication professionals are public
information specialists and advisors who are involved in communication activities –
such as media consultants or campaign managers (for more, see page 15 in the
codebook). The rise of publicity efforts can be led back to the changes evoked by
mediatization, which brought the professionalization of political campaigning along
with it (Swanson 2004: 49). This development made the roles of the campaign advisers
more important and their role a bigger part in presidential campaigns and their
campaign communication. Journalists notice the presence of the campaign advisors and
62 their campaign strategies, as well as publicity efforts and expose them in their coverage.
Thus making the mentioning of communication specialists and campaign advisers a
growing phenomenon when looking closely at the metacoverage of presidential
campaigns. The hypothesis was set as to measure this growth of importance, and was
worded as following:
Hypothesis 3: The mentioning of campaign professionals and campaign advisers in
news stories increased from 1988 till 2012.
Once again to be able to compare over the three elections, the dataset that included all
three elections and only the channels ABC & NBC was analyzed, which allowed a
comparison over the years. To limit the data output and thus have a better overview in
the analysis, an additional variable called “Comprf” – short for communication
professionals – was set up which showed the number 1 when the script object 30
(communication professionals, campaign advisors who brief journalists) was coded.
The variable referred to communication professionals who are public information
consultants, and advisors who are involved in communication activities, as well as
media consultants, specialized in the production of media aspects in a campaign, such as
speech writers, media affair specialists, spokespeople and other consultants such as
campaign managers, general strategists and event planners, as well as aides. By
summarizing all of these to one variable “Comprf” and showing simply if they came up
in a news story or not, the two variables Comprf and the year were put in a cross tab to
see how many times per a year the communication professionals were mentioned and
tested by Cramer’s V.
The evaluation showed that the hypothesis as such cannot be confirmed and instead
must be discarded. The election of 1988 showed 147 mentions of communication
specialists, meaning 15.2% out of all of the script objects coded that year (n=815) were
communication professionals. The election in 2008 on the other hand showed that the
number of mentions had dropped to 10.5% of all the script objects coded that year
(coded 25 times out of a total of 239 script objects that year). Lastly the 2012 election
showed a similar value of 11.7% of the script objects coded that year (47 out of the total
amount of 402 script objects) was the script object “communication professionals,
campaign advisors who brief journalists” (Cramer’s V= 0.434, p=0.00).
63 Figure 5: Percentage of script objects devoted each year to communication professionals
30% 20% 15.2% 10.5% 11.7% 2008 2012 10% Communication professionals / campaign advisors 0% 1988 Hypothesis 3: The mentioning of campaign professionals and campaign advisers in news stories will
increase from 1988 till 2012.
In general these percentages may not be that high (neither one of the numbers reached
20%, meaning that in none of the election years not even 20% of all the script objects
coded referred to communication professionals). Yet, when looking at the general
picture and considering all the script objects coded, the data showed that variable coded
most often was at 16.6% (negative campaigning in the year 1988). That puts the 15.2%
of communication professionals at the third most frequently coded script object that
year and shows how frequent that object appeared in the 1988 elections. In the election
of 2008, the mentioning of communication professionals is at third place when it comes
to the frequency of all the script objects mentioned. In the year of the 2012 election, the
script object “communication professionals, campaign advisors who brief journalists”
falls back to fourth place. The next table provides an overview of the script objects till
the relevant object referring to communication professionals and advisors appear.
Table 8: Script objects ordered by how often they appear for every electiony year - in
percent to the all script objects that election
Order
1
1988
2008
2012
n= 815
n=239
n=402
Negative
16.6%
Own media
28.5%
Own media online
16.9%
15.8%
Image
10.9%
Media
16.4%
campaigning
2
Image
management
3
Communication
Professionals
4
management
15.2%
Communication
organizations
10.5%
Own media
12.7%
Communication
11.7%
professionals
professionals
64 The list is ranked by how often a script object is mentioned and shows that the script
object “communication professionals, campaign advisors who brief journalists”,
although no high in percentage in each election year, is a script object that is frequently
found and coded for every election – in 2008 and 2012 it is the publicity script object
coded more than any other publicity script object. This speaks for its relevant role in the
study of metacoverage and presidential campaign coverage in general. The values also
show a decline from the election in 1988 and 2008, then a small yet rather marginal
(1.2%) increase from 2008 till 2012 in the mentions of campaign professionals over the
elections. Although there is this small increase, when looking over the three years it is
clear that there was a decline from 1988 (at 15.2%) in the number of references made
about communication professionals and advisors, thus contradicting the hypothesis.
Also when comparing the years 2008 and 2012, using the same variables – namely the
years crossed with the script objects – yet while including all four channels (NBC,
ABC, CNN and FOX), even then the percentage for 2008 doesn’t change and remains at
around 10% (from 10.5% to 11.2% to be exact) (Cramer’s V=0.179, p=0.00) and for the
election of 2012 the same (from 11.7% to 12.4%) (Cramer’s V=0.287, p=0.00). For
both election years, adding cable channels lead to a rise of exactly 0.7% in the
mentioning of communication professionals and advisors. This led to the question that
maybe the mentioning of communication professionals is dependent on which channel
is being taken into analysis. Therefore in a second step another analysis was conducted
to see which channel mentioned communication professionals most and if there is a
difference between the channels.
First the channels ABC and NBC were compared for all three elections by using the
variable that showed the script object “communication professionals, campaign advisors
who brief journalists” and crossing that with the channel, while dividing the data for
each election year. This showed that NBC mentioned communication professionals the
most. This can be seen throughout all of the election years. This was significant for
2008 (Cramer’s V= 0.403, p= 0.00) and for the election in 2012 (Cramer’s V= 0.362,
p= 0.00), yet not for 1988 (p > 0.05). Which means that in 2008 and 2012 the citing of
communication professionals was dependent on the channel. For the 1988 election this
was not the case.
65 Due to this result, the channels and their citing of communication professionals was
looked at even closer for these two elections (2008 and 2012) in order to see which
channels mentioned communication professions the most. In the year of the election in
2008, the data showed that 11.2% of all the script objects coded were communication
professionals or advisors. When looking on the level of the channels, and seeing how
often (in percent) a channel refers to communication professionals and campaign
advisors, the channel NBC mentioned them at 11.3% and in comparison the channel
ABC mentioned them less (8.8%). Yet the channels do not differ largely, all of them
refer to communication professionals and advisors around 10% out of all the script
objects they mentioned (Cramer’s V= 0.403, p= 0.00).
For 2012 this was significantly different. The data showed NBC mentioned the script
object “communication professionals” up to 20% of all scripts, while ABC only 6.7%
out of all the scripts (Cramer’s V=0.287, p= 0.00). That is almost three times as much,
meaning that in the election of 2012, NBC mostly referred to communication
professionals and campaign advisors in their coverage.
When including the channels CNN and FOX, the election year 2008 showed that all
channels have similar percentages when looking at how often they mentioned
communication professionals out of all the script objects mentioned per channel (9.4%
CNN, 11.6% FOX). This makes it clear that there is no big difference between the
channels and how often they mention communication professionals and campaign
advisors in the election of 2008 (Cramer’s V=0.183, p = 0.00). Yet in 2012, the channel
FOX mentions communication professionals up to 19.7% out of all the script objects
coded for that channel, whereas CNN is at 10.5% (Cramer’s V=0.287, p= 0.00). This
shows clearly that for the 2012 election, different channel referred to communication
professionals to a different extent.
So, with the intent to summarize, it can be said that for the election in 2008, the amount
of references to communication professionals and campaign advisors did not differ in
between the channels by more than 3%. This was not the case in the election of 2012. In
that election, the channels FOX and NBC mentioned campaign advisors and
communication specialists around twice as much than the other two channels ABC and
CNN. This shows that the referencing of campaign advisors and communication does
66 depend on the channel, yet only in the election of 2012 and not for the elections in 1988
or 2008.
To understand better when campaign advisors are mentioned and when not, the
connection to the party was looked at in the data. This was done by putting the script
object “communication professionals, campaign advisors who brief journalists” in a
cross tab with the variable “candidate connection” by each year and with Cramer’s V.
To be able to compare the years, the dataset with only the two the channels ABC and
NBC was taken into analysis. The result was that in the election of 1988, 50% of the
references to communication professionals and campaign advisors were linked to
Democrats and 41.9% of all script objects were connected to Republicans. 8.1% were
linked to several candidates and none of the campaign advisors and communication
professionals were mentioned without a reference to one of the parties (Cramer’s V=
0.321, p=0.00).
In 2008, the data looked different. 64% of the communication professionals and
campaign advisors were connected to Republicans, 28% were linked to Democrats. 4%
of the script objects were connected to several candidates and 4% to no candidate
connection (Cramer’s V= 0.345, p=0.00).
For the election in 2012, the data showed that 59.6% of the communication
professionals and campaign advisors were connected to Republicans, 34% were linked
to Democrats and 6.3% to “several candidates”. None of the communication
professionals or campaign advisors were not connected to a candidate when mentioned
(Cramer’s V= 0.595, p=0.00).
Summarized it can be said that in the election of 1988, communication professionals
and campaign advisors were significantly linked to Democrats, but not to a specific
channel. The election of 2008 showed that the metacoverage of the campaign referred
less to communication professionals than in the election of 1988, that the mentioning
was significantly connected to Republicans. The metacoverage of the election in 2012
showed that mentioning was significantly connected to Democrats, and the channels
NBC and FOX. For this thesis this means that the hypothesis must be dismissed because
communication professionals and campaign advisors were mostly mentioned in the
election of 1988, thus speaking for the assumption that the metacoverage of elections
refers less and less explicitly to communication professional, campaign advisors and
67 other campaign consultants. This is but one of the findings that explains how
metacoverage of presidential elections has developed over the years. The testing of the
next hypothesis gives additional insight into the development.
Hypothesis 4
The previous hypothesis (number 3) showed that even when studying publicity scripts,
one must look at the media – more specifically what kind of media a researcher is
looking at – to understand the metacoverage of presidential elections. The next
hypothesis follows this idea and claims that due to the appearance and growth of
commercial television and the fragmentation of audiences and means of
communication, politicians are forced to be in more active in the media in general to
reach as many people as they might have reached with one medium decades ago. Here,
the rise of the importance of entertainment media can be noted. Entertainment media
tends to play a bigger and bigger role in electoral campaigns, because it is a way to
reach more potential voters and a greater audience all at once. As the first hypothesis
showed, the press is becoming a topic that is being mention more and more frequently
in the metacoverage of presidential elections. So since the media is becoming more and
more important for the media and the importance of entertainment media has grown, the
following hypothesis was set:
Hypothesis 4: The mentioning of entertainment media becomes more frequent in
metacoverage over the three elections.
To measure this, the codebook had a media script object called “entertainment
programs”. This script object was defined as non-journalistic communication such as
entertainment programs or comedy shows with political reference. This could be for
example an interview with the candidate on MTV or on the David Letterman show. In a
first step, the data set with the two channels ABC and NBC was taken because it held
data for all the three elections and allowed a comparison over the three elections. Then
the script object was put in a crosstab with the variable year, which showed how much
percent of all the script objects coded, was the script object “entertainment programs” in
that year. Its significance was tested with Cramer’s V.
68 The analysis showed that the script object “entertainment programs” was never
mentioned in the 1988 election (0%, none of the 815 script objects that year were
entertainment programs). This shows that at that time, entertainment programs were
either not frequent or not relevant enough to be mentioned in the metacoverage of
presidential elections.
For the election in 2008, 3.8% of all the script objects coded for that election were
entertainment programs (9 out of the 239 script objects coded). Out of all the press
script objects found in the metacoverage of that election year, it was one of the least
coded script objects, only found second to last script in the entire metacoverage of the
election.
In the election year in 2012, the script object was coded 11 times out of 402 script
objects found in the metacoverage of the presidential election. That makes up 2.7% of
all the script objects coded. Comparing it to the other press script objects though, it
comes in third place, only behind the references to other media organizations and one’s
own media (Cramer’s V= 0.434, p=0.00).
Unlike the hypothesis predicted, the data does not show that the mentioning of
entertainment media became more frequent in metacoverage over the three elections.
Rather there was an increase from the election of 1988 till 2008, then it more or less
stayed the same (percentage difference between 2008 and 2012 is at 1.1% less script
objects, thus not grave – it doesn’t allow one to speak clearly of a decrease). Therefore
the hypothesis as such must be rejected. One can only speak of an increase over the 20
years but not between the years 2008 and 2012. The hypothesis should rather be
formulated as “There is an increase in the mentioning of entertainment media from 1988
till 2012”.
Having a closer look at those two election years (same variables – script object per
channel per year and Cramer’s V as used above), the election in 2008 showed that most
of the references in the metacoverage to entertainment media was conducted by the
channel NBC. ABC did not make any reference to entertainment media that year. And
when including the other two channels CNN and FOX into the analysis, the channel
NBC showed twice the amount of references in percent to all the script objects in that
year, than CNN or FOX did in 2008 (Cramer’s V= 0.183, p=0.00).
The data for the metacoverage of the election year in 2012 showed similar findings,
namely that NBC used more script objects that referenced entertainment media than the
69 other channels. 3.3% of all the script objects coded that election year for NBC were
entertainment programs, ABC devoted 2.4% of its scripts to entertainment programs,
CNN 1.9% and FOX 1.5% (Cramer’s V= 0.287, p=0.00).
Furthermore, the analysis aimed to see in what way the entertainment media gets
referred to in a news story. By looking at the script object closely, we may be able to
understand its development over the elections better.
First the candidate connection was looked at. For this, the script object and the
candidate connection per year were evaluated by using a crosstab and Cramer’s V.
Because the year 1988 showed no entertainment script objects, only the election years
2008 and 2012 were taken into analysis. Also, all four channels ABC, NBC, CNN and
FOX were used because by adding these the data sample would be bigger and add to the
amount of information gathered. Adding the channels did not make the data biased, as
the election of 1988 could be excluded for the evaluation, as it showed no references to
the script object. After computing the analysis, the data showed that in the election year
of 2008, 74.3% of the script object “entertainment” was linked to Republicans and
25.7% of the entertainment script objects were linked to Democrats. That means that in
2008, when the script object entertainment program was coded, it was always linked to
a candidate and when it was, then it is three times more likely to be linked to a
Republican than a Democrat (Cramer’s V= 0.235, p=0.00).
The data for 2012 showed a completely different picture. Up to 85.7% of the script
object was linked to Democrats, 7.1% was either connected to several candidates or to
neither of the candidates. Not once was the script object connected to Republicans
(Cramer’s V= 0.523, p=0.00).
In a next step, the data was analyzed to show the connection between the script object
entertainment programs and the script type per election year (cross tab, Cramer’s V). By
looking at this, it would be clearer in what way entertainment programs were referenced
to in the metacoverage of presidential elections in the US. In this context, the data
revealed similar results for 2012 and 2008. In both of the election years the data showed
that the entertainment programs were mostly used for media coorientation, which means
entertainment programs were only referred to in the coverage as a source of news
coverage for a particular campaign topic. In 2008, 71.4% of the script object was used
that way (25 out of the 35 script objects coded was connected to the script type media
70 coorientation) (Cramer’s V=0.43, p=0.00). In 2012 it was 85.7% (12 out of the 14
coded script objects) (Cramer’s V=0.488, p=0.00). For the election of 2008, the second
most used type was “story magnitude”, which refers to the amount of coverage the story
receives, or the public interest. This was at 17.1% of the script object being connected
to story magnitude. In 2012, it was more media impact that was connected to the script
object at 14.3%, which meant that the media has power and consequences. Both of the
scripts, although different, compose the fact that the media are big and the media are
important.
All in all it can said that that the mentioning of entertainment media has not become
more frequent in metacoverage of the three elections but over 20 years, from the 1988
till the 2008 election. And although the mentioning hasn’t become more frequent from
2008 till 2012, it seems that compared to the other press script objects, the object has
grown slightly in importance, from being one of the least coded script objects to one of
the top three most coded in that year, although percentage-wise the number in 2012 isn’t
as large as in the election of 2008. It was just that in the election in 2012, the reference
to entertainment media wasn’t found as much in comparison to all the other script
objects found in the metacoverage of the presidential elections. Also, the data showed
that the channel NBC in its metacoverage referred to entertainment media more than
any of the other channels. And that entertainment programs are usually only referred to
as a source of a news story and while in 2008 they were mostly connected to the
Republican candidate, in 2012 they were mostly linked to the Democratic candidate.
Hypothesis 5
Although the findings so far make the media seem powerful, by dominating the way
presidential candidates communicate and how their communication is covered –
presidential candidates and civilians do have other means to communicate to voters
while bypassing the media. The rise of the internet has enabled citizens and politicians
to communicate to each other with messages unfiltered by the media. Journalists notice
the rise of online communication, and try to add their own spin to the communication,
by referring to the message, tweet, online video and such and by integrating it in their
coverage. This last hypothesis was set to test this assumption as the following:
71 Hypothesis 5: Metacoverage shows that the internet is used more and more in
campaigns and their communication between the years 2008 and 2012.
As already mentioned in chapter 5, “Hypotheses and research questions”, only the two
elections in 2008 and 2012 can be compared as the internet was founded in 1990 –
hence after the 1988 election – and the rise of the internet in campaigns can only be
dated back to the beginning of the 21st century.
For this hypothesis the dataset with all four channels was used, as all four channels were
coded for both election years and it allows the opportunity to study more data.
The codebook had introduced new variables for the new media for the election in 2008.
Following objects all can be summarized as new media for this study. These are to be
found in in the codebook and were coded if found in the metacoverage of the
presidential elections in 2008 and 2012:
New media (professional)
§
Online – news Websites
§
Citizen surveys
§
News blogs
§
Tweets from media organizations or professional journalists
§
Professional online videos
§
Professional appearances on social networks
§
Chats with journalists of a media organization
§ Others
New media (non-professional)
§
Blogs
§
Tweets from citizens or users
§
Non-professional online videos
§
Posts from users of social media
§
Chats for users to a political topic
§ Others
Own media online
§
The internet presence of one’s own media is mentioned
(audio or visual).
These were taken for the analysis of this hypothesis (summed up under the variable
“new media”) and looked at for each channel and for each year. The test employed was
Cramer’s V to see the extent of the connection between the mentioning of new media
and the election year.
72 The analysis showed that this hypothesis has for now been confirmed and can be
retained for the time being. In the election coverage of 2008, new media was referred to
81 times out of the total 1447 scripts coded, reaching therefore 5.6% of all the scripts
(Cramer’s V=0.183, p=0.00). Although this is not a strong relationship between the
mentioning of the new media and the election year, the results are significant.
But in 2012 this changed, and the object “new media” reached 18.8% of all the scripts
coded in that election year (108 scripts out of 573 script objects coded in that year)
(Cramer’s V=0.222, p=0.00). This shows that compared to the other script objects
coded, the presence of the internet and its features grew from 2008 to 2012. The next
two paragraphs will look at this development in detail, by exploring the characteristics
of the variable “new media” in the metacoverage of the elections.
The Internet in the 2008 election
Putting the script object “new media” into relation to the other press script objects, in
the election of 2008 the most used press script object was “referencing to own media”
(28.3%, 409 script objects found in the total of 1447 script objects that year). Second
most frequent press related script object in the metacoverage was the mentioning of
other “media organizations” (13.8%, 200 script objects out of a total of 1447). After that
followed the script “media in general” (8.9%, 129 scripts out of the total 1447) and then
“new media” (5.6%, 81 script objects out of 1447 total coded that year). It seems that
referencing to one’s own media, and then other media organizations was far more
relevant for the metacoverage of the presidential election in 2008. Both channels CNN
and FOX referenced new media the same amount (each 6.2% of all script objects coded
that year in that channel) just like ABC and NBC (each 2.6%). Meaning, cable channels
referenced new media more than the other broadcasting channels (Cramer’s V=0.183,
p=0.00).
To understand how the script object “new media” in the metacoverage of the elections
was put into use, the script object and the visual information for each election year was
analyzed in a crosstab using the Cramer’s V test. The aim was to see how much of the
script was only visual information, or only audio-information, overlapping or nonoverlapping information. The analysis showed that most of the information given on
new media was overlapping, with 63% of the script being broadcasted with visual and
audio information, then second most frequently new media was referenced to audio only
73 (32.1% of the script was audio-only). Only 3.7% was not overlapping and 1.2% was
visual-only.
Also taken into analysis was finding out in what way the new media was referred to in
the metacoverage of the election. The goal was to find out if it was linked more to one’s
own media or the media in general. For this, the relationship between the script object
“new media” and the script types were looked at for each of the two election years. The
data showed that most of the new media script for the 2008 election was used to refer to
other media (“media coorientation”). This means that 64.2% of the script object “new
media” was used when simply refer to or citing a news outlet, program, website and so
forth as a source of news coverage for a particular campaign topic. 13.6% of the script
object new media was used for self-promotional purposes, to refer to the channel’s own
products and 4.9% to describe the story magnitude, how much coverage a campaign
received and the size of the audience or public interest (Cramer’s V=0.430, p=0.00).
In a last step, the analysis aimed to find out if the mentioning of the script object “new
media” was dependent on the candidate. For this, the script object was put in a cross tab
with the variable “candidate connection”, and listed for each year. The test used was
Cramer’s V to better determine the extent of the connection between the two variables.
The evaluation showed that the script was mostly linked to Republicans (42.0% of the
script object was linked to the Republican candidate). Democrats were linked to new
media up to 27.2% of the script object. 21% of the script object new media was linked
to neither of the candidate in 2008 and 9.9% was linked to neither of the candidates.
The findings are significant (Cramer’s V= 0.235, p=0.00).
The Internet in the 2012 election
The script object “new media” was the most used script type in the metacoverage of the
2012 election. This development shows the shift in how media orientated scripts are
used in the metacoverage of presidential elections, from the traditional form of the
media to the new media, as the hypothesis predicted. The channel ABC showed the
most references to the script object “new media” (26.6% of all script objects coded that
year in that channel) compared to the other channels. CNN followed with 19% of its
script objects being new media, then NBC with 10% and lastly FOX with 9.1% of all of
its script objects that year being new media (Cramer’s V=0.222, p=0.00).
74 To see how the script object “new media” was put into context, the script object and the
visual information for each election year was analyzed in a crosstab using Cramer’s V
tests. It was mainly aimed to see how much of the script was only visual information, or
only audio-information, overlapping or non-overlapping information. The data showed
that significantly, the script object was mostly used in a visual-only context (77.8% of
the script object new media was visual only). 14.8% of the script object had overlapping
information – meaning that the information was visual as well as audio and that this
overlapped. Lastly 7.4% of the script was used in a audio-only manner, no-overlapping
was never coded (Cramer’s V= 0.495, p=0.00).
The next step of analysis was finding out in what way the new media was referred to in
the metacoverage of the election. The goal was to find out if it was linked more to one’s
own media or the media in general. For this, the relationship between the script object
“new media” and the script types were looked at for each of the two election years.
Unlike in the election metacoverage of 2008, the new media script object was mostly
used in 2012 for self-promotion purposes (73.1%) and then for media coorientation
purposes (26.9%). Which means that there was once again a shift in for what new media
was used for, in 2008 as a part of the news coverage, in 2012 more to promote ones own
programs and products (Cramer’s V= 0.488, p=0.00).
Same as for the analysis in 2008, the next step aimed to find out if the mentioning of the
script object “new media” was dependent on the candidate. For this, the script object
was put in a cross tab with the variable “candidate connection”, and listed for each year
while using Cramer’s V to test its significance. Unlike the data in 2008 showed, the
script “new media” was mainly not linked to a candidate (77.8% of the script was linked
to neither of the candidates). If the script object “new media” was linked to a candidate,
then it was more to the Republican (13%) than to Democrats (7.4%). Only 1.9% was
connected to several candidates (Cramer’s V= 0.523, p=0.00).
75 Table 9: New media in comparison 2008 & 2012
2008
n= 81
2012
n=108
Compared to
other script
objects
Connection
to channels
Visual
information
Connection
to candidate
Connection to
type
§ 4th most
frequent
media object
(5.6%)
§ Mostly
linked to
CNN &
FOX (6.2%
each)
§ Mostly
overlapping
(63%)
§ Least:
visual only
(1.2%)
§ Mostly
linked to
Republicans
(42%)
§ Mostly: media
coorientation
(64.2%)
§ 2nd: selfpromotion
(13.6%)
§ Most
frequent
media object
(26.6%)
§ Mostly
linked to
ABC
(26.6%),
§ Least to
FOX
(9.1%)
§ Mostly
visual only
(77.8%)
§ Least: no
overlapping
(0%)
§ Mostly not
linked to a
candidate, if
then to
Republicans
(13%)
§ Mostly: selfpromotion
(73.1%)
§ 2nd: media
coorientation
(26.9%)
Hypothesis 5: Metacoverage shows the presidential campaigns employ new media more and more in their
campaigns between the years 2008 and 2012.
Recap of the results
For a general overview of what the data results have told us about the hypotheses, this
chapter sums up what the evaluation showed before moving to the next chapter to
understand what the results mean for this thesis.
§ Hypothesis 1: There is an increase of press frames compared to publicity frames in
the metacoverage of news stories over the three elections.
By comparing press and publicity frames for all three elections with the channels ABC
and NBC, the data showed that this hypothesis could only partly be retained. There was
an increase of the press frames from 1988 till 2008, while in 1988 there were more
publicity frames than press frames and in 2008 this changed, showing more press
frames than publicity frames. This increase didn’t continue for 2012, rather it remained
more or less the same (p < 0.01).
§ Hypothesis 2: There will be more strategy press and publicity frames over the three
elections than accountability or conduit press or publicity frames.
This hypothesis could not be confirmed. On the contrary, press frames showed more
conduit frames than any of the other press frames. In general the most common frame in
76 all of the elections was the press conduit frame. For the publicity frames the opposite
could be shown. There was rather a decline of publicity strategy frames than an
increase. The increase could be accounted for publicity conduit frames (p< 0.01).
§ Hypothesis 3: The mentioning of communication professionals and campaign
advisors in news stories will increase from 1988 till 2012.
The data showed in this case the opposite of what the hypothesis postulates. It rather
showed a decrease in how often communication professionals and campaign advisors
are mentioned over the three election. In 1988, when communication professionals and
campaign advisors were mentioned, they were usually connected to Democrats. In 2008
and 2012, communication professionals and campaign advisors were more frequently
connected to Republicans (p<0.01). The data also showed that in the election 2012, it
was important to make sure which channels were used for the analysis (p<0.01). For the
other two elections this did not matter.
§
Hypothesis 4: The mentioning of entertainment media becomes more frequent in
metacoverage over the three elections.
The election in 1988 showed no reference to entertainment media, but the election in
2008 did, which speaks for an increase over the 20 years. This increase though halted
though – when one compares 2008 and 2012 there is a slight decrease (by 1.1%)
(p<0.01). Therefore the hypothesis cannot be retained and must be rejected.
§
Hypothesis 5: Metacoverage shows the new media is used more and more in
campaigns and their communication between the years 2008 and 2012.
This hypothesis could be retained for the time being (p<0.01). The new media from
2008 till 2012 shifted in its components; for the 2008 it was linked to the channels CNN
and FOX, in 2012 mostly to ABC. In 2008 it was mostly used in the context of media
coorientation – yet in 2012 for self-promotion. It also grew from the 4th most frequent
media orientated script object, to the most frequent one. All of these findings were
significant (p<0.01).
What these results mean for the development and understanding of metacoverage in US
presidential elections will be explained in the next chapter.
77 8. Summary and interpretation
At the beginning of this thesis, it was explained that the aim of this master thesis was to
analyze what messages and events were picked up and reflected by the news media in
the metacoverage of the presidential elections in the United States. Most importantly, it
aimed to see how and in what way the news media refers to political incidents and
events and the media that cover the election. The thesis was constructed to see whether
in evolving time metacoverage has evoked out of mediatization and media logic and
how it has developed over years. This was analyzed by using content analysis and
framing analysis, built on the previous works of Esser and D’Angelo (2003, 2006), and
the three frames they introduced in their research as of date – conduit, strategy and
accountability frames. The presence of metacoverage was aimed to be empirically
proven through an analysis of various US evening news shows hosted on the channels
ABC, NBC, CNN and FOX news in a two month time frame before the presidential
election 2012, 2008 and 1988 in the USA. For this, the data sets from the elections of
2008 and 1988 were provided by Prof. Dr. Esser and the data from the 2012 election
was coded for this thesis to answer the research question, how has the metacoverage on
US presidential elections changed over time.
Chasing the answer to the research question, the analysis of the first hypothesis showed
a growing presence of press frames over the elections. This finding speaks for the
assumptions made in the thesis, namely that a new form of journalism was built on the
effects of mediatization and media logic, the presence of a metacoverage is noted. And
this metacoverage has shown that the media has become – from the election in 1988 till
the election in 2012 – more revolved around itself. As the production logic of the media
logic stated, what is seen as news often depends to a large degree on the news in other
media. Journalists spend a lot of time listening, watching and scrolling through other
media, before making it a part of their own news story. This is seen as a sign of
mediatization - the media gains even more control over the media content, forcing
political communication to revolve even more around media logic and making
communication no longer focused on the public but instead making communication
primarily focused on the media. The media is henceforth a player in the center of
political processes, making the media not only more important for politicians but also
for the media itself. This evolvement was shown by the data, by clearly showing a shift
78 from the dominance of publicity frames over press frames in the 1988 to a dominance in
press frames over publicity frames in 2008 and 2012. Although there is no general
increase from the 2008 till the 2012 election, a general shift to press frames was noted
over all the channels comprised in this study. It shows that not even politicians’
publicity efforts can beat the power and influence the media has over the media. This
trend can clearly be seen in the US, where the elections are generally more mediatized
(see pages 18-22) compared to other countries, as shown by Stömbäck et al. (2011)
(page 8). This factor was facilitated by the McGovern-Faser Commission, whose
regulations increased the dependency on the mass media as an electoral intermediary
(Davis 1992: 254). Because this made the media more important for elections, one can
no longer speak of the mediation of politics, but the mediatization of politics and
supports the approach of a media-driven republic (page 5). The media no longer just
report news, but refer to themselves as a part of the news coverage and a part of
elections, by stating their presence at events, their inner thoughts and their achievements
in the news coverage. This study showed an even stronger shift in this direction.
Metacoverage has shown the growth of the relevance of the media in presidential
elections over the years. The story of the campaign is really the story of the media in the
campaign (Kerbel 1998: 46).
But certain characteristics of metacoverage were not found so strongly in the data as the
references to the media. That would be for one, that journalism has become more
interpretative over the years. Interpretative journalism is built on the concept that
political journalism is less concerned with reporting politicians’ actions and statements
but more concerned with exposing the political motives behind what politicians do or
say. This idea was composed in the press and publicity strategy frame variables.
Generally said, it means that in the news has become more skeptical of motives, more
centered on the journalists as independent actors and adversaries of politicians. Yet the
data showed that this assumption does not apply to the elections of 1988, 2008 and
2012. The press conduit frame was the strongest frame in all of the elections and even
showed an increase over the three elections, meaning the metacoverage of presidential
elections became more intermediated over the years. This could be led back to the
nature of American presidential campaigns, which in every step, from the primaries to
the election are highly mediated. Mediated means the neutral act of transmitting
79 messages through the media and experiencing politics through mass communication
channels.
Next to that, the strength of the press conduit frame can also be brought back to the
American media system and its characteristics. The press conduit frame simply means
mentioning other media channels and their products as the source of information but not
going further than that. This goes hand in had with the strongly rooted objectivity in the
US news, which distinguished American journalism from a more interpretive European
tradition (Donsbach 1995: 17-30). The data speaks more for the fact that the American
news coverage has remained more objective than interpretative when referring to press
frames. If one chooses to analyze interpretative journalism, it might be more effective to
do it in comparison to another country or in another context outside of the metacoverage
of presidential elections (as Umbricht/Esser 2013 did), as the interpretative journalism
in the US might only be found to a small degree due to its objective nature. The data
supports the assumption that elections seem to be more about who is in front of the race
and who is behind, than going into the depth about the motives of the candidates.
As the press conduit frame has grown over the years, so has the publicity conduit frame,
once again speaking against the hypothesis’ assumption that the media has become
more interpretative of presidential elections. Publicity strategy frames decreased from
the election of 1998 on, as well as publicity accountability frames. Once again, it could
be argued that this can be lead to the nature of American news media broadcasting. Yet
this aspect only answers why there is a presence of conduit frames in the 2012 election,
not why there was an actual increase over the three elections. There are various reasons
that could have lead to this development, one being that the media has become more
diverse and fragmented over the years – there are more channels in the media system
that deliver news 24 hours a day, making the fight for an audience an even bigger battle.
The growth of commercial television, an increasing number of channels and the rise of
the internet, resulted in a fragmentation of audiences and means of communication,
which has led to growing media competition. Not only politicians but also the media
and journalists themselves have to compete for fragmented, individualized audiences
and for attractive news. Next to that, the rise of the internet not only fragmented the
audience but has also increased the pace of information delivery, meaning news
broadcasting must adapt to this pace. All the while, the media is affected by constraints
(referring back to page 10) – the media are heavily constrained in available time,
amount of reporters, their ability to check stories and the allocation of cameras and
80 other equipment to produce stories. So with the fight for the audience growing harder,
yet the pace to deliver a news story becoming quicker and being limited by the
constraints, the metacoverage of presidential campaigns has become more about just
delivering the news than understanding the motives behind them.
This assumption could also help explain why there was no increase of the mentioning of
communication professionals and campaign advisers, who brief journalists. The
metacoverage of the presidential election in 1988 showed the most references to
communication professionals and campaign advisors. The other two elections showed a
decline compared to the election in 1988. Next to arguing that this has to do with the
fact that journalists work with more constraints and have less time to dig into a story
and refer to their sources, one could also argue that communication professionals and
campaign advisors have just become such a common part of presidential campaign
elections, that journalists have grown accustomed to them and no longer refer to
exclusively or specifically in their news coverage. They may be the ones giving the
information on the campaign but journalists do not mention them per se as a source in
their news story. The script object that refers to communication professionals and
campaign advisers is one of the most frequently coded script objects in all of the
elections. This speaks for the importance of communication professionals and campaign
advisers. The analysis of this thesis also showed that when it comes to communication
professionals and campaign advisers, it is important to check which channels were taken
in the analysis as some channels mention communication professionals and campaign
advisers more than others. Also the connection between the candidate and the
mentioning of communication professionals and campaign advisers differ for each
election. This could have to do with personal ties between journalists or the media
network and certain parties and their candidates and therefore should in the future be
regarded in the analysis.
Similarly, the mentioning of entertainment media was closely linked to a channel, for
the both of the elections 2008 and 2012 – it was clearly linked to the channel NBC. This
could simply have to do with the reporting style of the channel, that perhaps the channel
just prefers to refer to entertainment shows for commercial reasons. The election in
1988 shows no mentioning of entertainment media, thus speaking for a slight increase
of the 20 years, this though stagnated between the elections 2008 and 2012, no longer
81 showing a gradual increase. Still, this finding of entertainment media in the two
elections speaks for the blurring of the boundaries between politics and entertainment.
Entertainment programs often bring political news and presidential candidates frequent
in entertainment media. Just as political news provides material for a range of media
content, entertainment media provides larger audiences for political communication
(Waisbord 2012: 439). Yet a growing trend to the entertainment format could not be
found, but a general growth over the 20 years. It may not speak for the hypothesis set
specifically in this thesis but does speak for the theory that entertainment programs have
become more important players in presidential elections because there was an increase
of the references to them from the election 1988 till 2008.
In the 2008 election, the entertainment media was mostly linked to Republicans, while
in 2012 to Democrats, meaning no general tendency towards a party could be found. It
is most likely that the mentioning of entertainment media is not dependent on the party
but the election – and the party’s campaign strategy – itself. All the while, entertainment
media was mostly used for media coorientation, which means entertainment programs
were only referred to in the coverage as a source of news coverage for a particular
campaign topic. All in all it can be said that the mentioning of entertainment media in
the context of the metacoverage of the presidential elections in the US is dependent on
the channel one looks at and the elections one decided to analyze. The finding, that
entertainment media is mostly used in a sense of media coorientation speaks for the
findings in the first hypothesis, that the media have become an important player for the
media itself. This can be seen by simply looking at how often the media refer to the
media in general.
Although the conclusions so far referred to the power of the media – presidential
candidates and civilians do have other means of communicating to voters while
bypassing the media. The internet allows for candidates and also civilians to go around
the media to reach their public directly and therefore create an additional public sphere,
with its low costs and easy access and low legal barriers. In the 2008 election, the
internet with all its features, such as tweets and Facebook posts, were not rather
prominent but behind the more traditional media when it came to how often they were
mentioned. This means that although the internet was referenced in the metacoverage of
the election in 2008, the media still cared more about its own media outlets, and not the
ones where civilians and politicians can directly communicate throught the new media.
82 This speaks once again for the findings mentioned previously, that media is becoming
more relevant for the media itself.
This changed completely for the 2012 election, showing the distinct rise in the reference
to the internet and its importance between the two elections, only four years apart. This
speaks for a gradual growth of the internet’s role in the metacoverage of presidential
elections. Interestingly, most of the references of the new media were – if linked to a
candidate – then more likely to be linked to Republicans, even though most of the
literature on the elections mentions the importance for the new media and the
Democratic base (page 41). This could be explained by the fact, that the Obama
campaign made communication tailored directly to voters and were not of interest to the
media, thus taping on to the internet’s quality to offer unfiltered communication, refined
for each voter group. With that it was able to bypass the media in the most sense.
Yet if the new media was picked up in the metacoverage of the elections, the analysis
showed that while in the 2008 election, references to the new media were mainly used
in a media coorientation sense, in 2012 the internet was mostly used for selfpromotional purposes. This indicates that the media (in this specific case television
channels) have learned about the importance of the internet and have used it for one’s
own benefit. Also the fact that in 2008, new media was mostly referenced to verbally
and acoustically in an overlapping sense and in 2012 only in a visual sense speaks for
the fact that the internet has become an integrated part of the metacoverage of
presidential campaigns in the US and that it has grown as important as the traditional
media. The tendencies to an electronic democracy (page 16) have been confirmed and
indicate that future analysis cannot neglect the role of the internet for elections.
All findings lead to the conclusion that the claims in the theoretical part of the paper are
indeed valid – that due to mediatization and media logic the changes in political
communication and their campaigns have led to a metacoverage of the elections, a kind
of journalistic trend in which journalists make news media and communication efforts
aimed a them important aspects of the story itself. This metacoverage consists of the
press talking about the press more often and through that it seems to assert the
mentioning of one’s own media and then other media a lot of importance. Journalists
have indeed developed from passive communicators of information about political
figures, and have increasingly emerged from the background to talk about themselves.
They have diverged from their customary role as transmitters of information to one of
83 reporting on how it is to be one of the actors in the political arena (Esser/Spanier 2005:
30). All the while, the metacoverage has not become more interpretative, but instead
more intermediary – more about delivering the news than understanding, which speaks
for the arguments laid out in the media logic theory. Also, communication
professionals, campaign advisers and entertainment media are referred to more
frequently in the metacoverage when one looks at the changes in the 20 year gap
between the election in 1988 and the election in 2008. Although there was no linear
increase of the references to communication professionals, campaign advisers and
entertainment media, a clear jump in the level of frequency can be noted towards more
references over the 20 years. Next to that, it can generally be said that references to the
internet and it’s forms of communication have become more frequent in the
metacoverage of presidential elections and can not be neglected in further studies as
they have become an important and integrated component in the metacoverage of
presidential elections in the US over the elections. The lack of studies in this area and
the growing importance of the internet for elections stresses the need for further
research for this aspect.
Even though this study allowed such conclusions about the development of
metacoverage over the three elections, one might have found more significant changes
if the three elections, especially the 2008 and 2012, were further apart. That way more
gradual increase might have been noted. Also if time and resources allow it, it would be
interesting to compare the results to another country, as comparing countries allows one
to be able to make more decisive statements about a country’s developments. The study
showed that using the codebook for the analysis of metacoverage revealed that none of
the variables were redundant and provided significant results. This speaks for the
strength of the study and that the procedure of the analysis can further be used in future
studies.
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93 10. Appendix
10.1 Appendix - Additional tables
Reliability test – Krippendorff’s alpha Krippendorff’s
Story level
Script level
Krippendorff’s
alpha
alpha
Topic
0.912
Object
0.562
Topic Media
0.875
Type
0.601
Topic Publicity
0.819
Position
0.646
Frames
0.697
Source
0.627
Topic – Frame Connection
0.646
Candidate Connection
0.665
Average value
0.789
Candidate Evaluation
0.735
Visual Info
0.709
Visual Type
0.579
Average value
0.640
Hypothesis 3 – Amount of references to communication professionals in percent
Channel
Communication
Professionals
2008
Communication
Professionals
2012
ABC
10
NBC
Total
21
CNN
58
FOX
88
9.8%
11.9%
10.6%
11.7%
11.2%
17
30
11
13
71
6.7%
20.0%
10.5%
19.7%
12.4%
177
94 Hypothesis 3 – Candidate connection and communication professionals in percent
1988
2008
Candidate
connection
Communication
Professionals
2012
Candidate
connection
Communication
Professionals
Candidate
connection
Communication
Professionals
Democrats
62
50.0%
Democrats
7
28.0%
Democrats
16
34.0%
Republicans
52
41.9%
Republicans
16
64.0%
Republicans
28
59.6%
Several
Candidates
10
8.1%
Several
Candidates
1
4.0%
Several
Candidates
3
6.4%
No
Connection
0
.0%
No
Connection
1
4.0%
No
Connection
0
.0%
Hypothesis 4 – Overview of the results: Entertainment media in the metacoverage of
presidential elections
References
Channels
Candidate connections
Script type
1988
0%
-
-
-
2008
3.8%
NBC 5.8%
FOX 2.2%
CNN 2%
ABC 0%
Republican 74.3%
Democrat 25.7%
Media coordientation 71.4%
Story Magnitude
17.1%
2012
2.7%
NBC 3.3%
FOX 2.4%
CNN 1.9%
ABC 1.5%
Democrat 85.7%
Republican 0%
Media coordientation 85.7%
Media impact
14.3%
95 10.2 Appendix – Codebook
IPMZ -­‐-­‐ UNIVERSITÄT ZÜRICH Codebook Metaberichterstattung Fully revised follow-­‐up instrument of the metacoverage project by Esser/D’Angelo(2003, 2006) + ERWEITERUNG ONLINE Frank Esser 18 May 2014 Summary of concept: Metacommunication is communication about communication; it is reflexive in the sense that it emphasizes the communicative character of mediated events rather than conveying their manifest meaning only. Metacoverage, more specifically, refers to a trend by journalists to make the news media, and communication-­‐related publicity efforts aimed at them, important aspects of their stories. This study defines metacoverage as news stories that report on election topics in their connection to the role of the news media (i.e., media actors, media practices, media standards, media products, or media organizations) or political PR/publicity (i.e., protagonists and practices of news management, advertising or communication-­‐based strategic communication). It assumes that metacoverage is a logical outcome of mediated politics, that metacoverage occurs in conjunction with other campaign topics, that ‘media’ and ‘publicity’ dimensions of metacoverage occur in relatively distinct fashion from each other, and that campaign journalists frame media behaviors and publicity processes in the course of creating metacoverage. Esser and D’Angelo (2003) observed enough different script structures in election news reports to warrant the claim that there are at least three media frames (“conduit”, “strategy” and “accountability”) and three publicity frames (also called “conduit”, “strategy” and “accountability”). Scripts convey ideas or arguments and consist of sentence-­‐level propositions (by journalists and other sources) about the news media and political publicity. Scripts are macro-­‐level building blocks of frames. Scripts integrate verbal and visual propositions into hypotheses about how, or to what extent, the press and publicity are consequential to campaign outcomes. 96 I.
STORY FORMAT Nation 1 = USA 3=CH 5=D 2= I 4=F 6=UK Story Nr. / Story ID: Jeder Beitrag bekommt eine unverwechselbare ID. ACHTUNG: Nur Beiträge mit Wahlbezug werden analysiert. Careful: Only election stories are being coded in this study. In operational terms, the universe of this study consists of all stories that contained a clear verbal or visual reference to the upcoming general election – usually, but not always, in the form of a background logo or an anchor remark. Stories that are not labeled or framed as general election stories are being omitted. Sender / Channel: Auf welchem TV-­‐Sender wurde der Bericht ausgestrahlt? 1 = ABC News at 6:30 EST 2 = NBC News at 6:30 EST 3 = CNN Anderson Cooper 360 at 10:00 EST 4 = FOX News Special Report with Brit Hume at 6:00 EST 5 = Italy RAI 6 = Italy Media5 8 = Swiss 10vor10 7 = Swiss Tagesschau 9 = French TF1 10 = French F2 11 = German ARD 12 = German RTL 13 = British BBC1 14 = British ITV1 Datum / Date: An welchem Tag wurde der Beitrag ausgestrahlt? 20071017= 17. Oktober 2007 Beitragslänge / Story length Time in seconds II.
ELECTION TOPICS AND META TOPICS 10 Politiksystem, Wahlsystem / Electoral and Political System Beschreibung der politischen Parteien und ihrer Flügel. Beschreibung der Parlamentskammern, ihrer Funktion und/oder ihrer Zusammensetzung. Bundesdepartemente und Institutionen. Erklärungen zum Wahlverfahren (Majorz/Proporz, Briefwahl etc.). Zustand von Demokratie, Parlament und Parteien. Politische Kultur, Nationenimage, Konkordanz. English: Portrayals of political parties (fringe and mainstream) and institutions (Congress, Senate, Electoral College); explanation of voting procedures and regulations, of debate commission and procedures, of political culture, of state of democracy and parties. 20 Ideologie, Weltsicht / Ideology, Political Worldview 97 Weltsicht der Parteien, ihre Ideologie, politische Philosophien. Prioritäten im Wertesystem: Freiheit vs. Regulierung, Umwelt vs. Wirtschaftlichkeit etc. Hier wird übergeordnetes Orientierungswissen vermittelt im Sinne einer Kontexteinordnung der Ideen, Werte, Überzeugungen und politischen Weltanschauung der Kandidaten. Es geht um Grundsatzfragen, bei denen die Wahl als Alternative zwischen politischen Weltbildern diskutiert wird. Beispiele: Merz betont, das Lebensgefühl der Freiheit sei mit ein schlagendes Argument für die FDP. English: Election as a choice between different world views, different sets of ideas, different ideological positions, different political beliefs or philosophies. 30 Prospektive & Retrospektive Kandidaturbewertungen / Prospective and Retrospective Evaluation Substanzbasierte Einschätzungen hinsichtlich der Erfahrungen, Fähigkeiten, Erfolge und Misserfolge der Kandidaten in der Vergangenheit und ihrer vermutlichen zukünftigen Schwerpunktsetzung und Kursrichtung. Kompetenzausweisung von Personen (für ein Amt) oder von Parteien (in einem Politikfeld), Politischer Werdegang sowie politische Ziele, Vorhaben, Kursausrichtung für die Zukunft. Beispiele: Die CVP hat sich bereits in der letzten Legislatur erfolgreich in den Kommissionen für eine Flexibilisierung der Arbeitszeiten eingesetzt und wird dies weiterhin tun. English: Candidate’s past competence, former accomplishments, political track record, experience – and likely future actions, decisions, course, focus, performance 40 Inhalte, Positionen / Issues, Plans Inhaltsbezogene Information über politische Sachthemen, Problemerläuterung, Standpunkte, Lösungsvorschläge. Substanzielle Informationen über Programme, Positionen, Politikfelder. Verweise auf programmatische Themen wie Arbeitsmarkt, Wirtschaftspolitik, Finanzen, Aussenpolitik, Irak u.ä. English: Substantial information about public policy matters, programs, platforms, issue stances, problems and proposals for solutions. 50 Skandalisierung, Fehler, Non-­‐Issue / Non-­‐issues, Mistakes Null-­‐Themen, negative Enthüllungen und wie damit umgegangen wird. Angeprangertes Verhalten von Politikern, öffentliche Ausrutscher, schädliche Gerüchte. Allgemeine Fauxpas, Übertreibungen, Charakterschwächen (negative Charakterzüge), Jugendsünden. Thematisierung von scherzhaften/bissigen Bemerkungen oder negativen Anspielungen auf den Gegner. Beispiele: Schafplakate und fragwürdigen Stil. Verwicklungen der Roschacher-­‐Blocher Affäre. Grüne werfen einen Kandidaten von der Liste weil er die Krawall-­‐Demo mitorganisiert hat. English: Negative revelations and handling of it, public blunders, gaffes, and exaggerations, character difficulties and youthful indiscretions, or unsubstantiated rumors, or political jokes as news. 60 Persönlichkeit, Charakter / Personal Character Personenzentriertheit der Wahlberichterstattung, Politiker als „Stars“, Charakterzüge von Kandidaten, von Exponenten der Parteielite oder anderen Politikern, deren Aura, Psyche, Vertrauenswürdigkeit, Integrität, Ehrlichkeit. Verweise auf biographische Entwicklung, privates Umfeld, persönliche Eigenschaften und Wesensart. English: Candidate’s personality, character traits, psyche, trustworthiness integrity, honesty – often dwelling on problematic aspects. 98 70 Umfragen, Bevölkerungsmeinung / Voters, Public Opinion Prognosen, Befragungen, Ergebnisse der Meinungsforschung, (Fokus-­‐) Gruppendiskussionen (ohne Kandidaten) moderiert durch Medien oder Kampagnenverantwortliche. Verweis auf öffentliche Meinung, öffentliche Stimmungen und Einstellungen von Bürgern. Die Meinung von einzelnen Wählern, Wählergruppen oder Wählersegmenten. Wählerunterstützung. English: Polls, surveys, focus groups conducted by media or campaign teams; reference to public attitudes and public opinion; voter segments and voter support. 80 Wahlkampf, Kampagne / Electioneering, Campaigning Kampagnentaktik, -­‐Technik und -­‐Organisation, strategische Ziele und Manöver, Gewinnchancen. Die Wahl als ein Wettbewerb der Parteien, die Handlungen der Parteien und Kandidaten als politische Winkelzüge im Konkurrenzkampf (Horse Race). Momentum/Schwung. English: Campaign tactics and techniques and organizations, maneuvering, efforts of winning and risk of losing, traveling, etc. 100 Medien / Media Gemessen über verbale oder visuelle Designatoren, die auf Presse, Fernsehen, Studio, Kamera, Artikel, Berichterstattungsserien, Reporter, Medien, Namen von Zeitungen oder Sendungen usw. „Medien“-­‐Thematisierungen verweisen z.B. auf Ausmass, Ton und Inhalt der Medienberichterstattung. Resonanz auf Berichterstattung oder mediatisierte Ereignisse. Erwähnungen von Akteuren, Handlungsweisen, Normen oder Produkte des Journalismus. Wenn zum Beispiel anwesende Reporter oder der Einfluss einer Zeitung oder die Vorbereitungen eines Senders vor einer TV-­‐Debatte oder Diskussionen in einer Zeitungsredaktion über eine Wahlempfehlung oder Klagen über eine vermeintlich einseitige Spiegel-­‐Berichterstattung oder eine Verteidigung des Ausgewogenheitsprinzip beim ZDF in einem Beitrag diskutiert werden, liegen Medienselbstthematisierungen vor. English: A story must contain direct references to the news media (e.g., “journalists,” “news media,” “website”, “coverage,” “story”, “bias,” “objectivity,” “reporters”) and discuss the role of the news media, of media actors, media practices, media standards, media products, or media organizations in elections. (for details see MO category below) 200 Publicity Gemessen über verbale oder visuelle Designatoren, die auf Massnahmen des Kommunikationsmanagements, Werbung, Image, Kampagnen-­‐ und Medienberater, inszenierte Auftritte usw. Publicity-­‐Thematisierungen umfassen v.a. Erwähnungen von Akteuren, Handlungsweisen, Zielen oder Strategien der politischen Werbung oder Öffentlichkeitsarbeit. Wenn in einem Wahlkampfbeitrag z.B. Auftrittsplanung, Choreographie, Kameratauglichkeit, Kommunikationsdisziplin oder Selbstdarstellerqualitäten eines Politikers oder die Arbeit seiner Kommunikationsberater und PR-­‐Strategen oder Tätigkeiten wie Themen-­‐, Image-­‐, Ereignis-­‐ und Newsmanagement oder Werbe-­‐ und Marketingmassnahmen, liegen Publicity-­‐Thematisierungen vor. Dazu gehören auch Telegenität, Routiniertheit/Gewandtheit der Politiker im Umgang mit Medien. Bemühungen von Politikern ein positives Image herzustellen durch inszenierte Ereignisse. (Pseudoereignisse sind Ereignisse, welche zur Hauptsache auf Publikumswirksamkeit/ Medienaufmerksamkeit abzielen). Berichte bei denen die bewusste versuchte Einflussnahme auf den Bürger im Vordergrund steht -­‐> durch Werbemittel, durch (pseudo)politischen Handlungen oder durch die Herausstreichung der Persönlichkeit des Politikers. English: A story must contain enough direct references to publicity (e.g., “spokesperson,” “orchestrated message,” “briefing”, “advertising,” “spin control,” “restrictions on reporting”, “news management”, “strategic communication”, etc) in its textual or visual content to 99 warrant the claim that the story is “about” the publicity process, its protagonists and practices. Such stories are usually about political advertising, political marketing, consultants and media advisers, image making, event management, issue and news management (for details see PO category below). Beachtungsgrad des Themas im Beitrag / Topic Salience +3 = Hauptthema (primary salience +50%): Das Thema dominiert die Anmoderation und wird in der Beitragseinleitung des Studiomoderators bzw. des Reporters als „Kerngehalt“ genannt (Position Salience = Prominenz durch Position). Alternativ/ergänzend durchzieht das Thema mit bedeutungstragenden Aussagen den Grossteil (mehr als 50%) des Beitragsumfanges (Proportional Salience = Prominenz durch Anteil). +2 = Nebenthema (secondary salience 15-­‐50%): Das Thema wird u.U. in der Anmoderation des Studiomoderators oder Reporters angesprochen (Position Salience = Prominenz durch Position). Innerhalb des Beitrags stellt das Thema einen wichtigen Nebenaspekt dar; entsprechende bedeutungstragende Aussagen durchziehen ca. 15-­‐50% des Beitragsumfanges (Proportional Salience = Prominenz durch Anteil). +1 = Randthema (peripheral salience 5-­‐15%): Das Thema hat eine nachrangige Bedeutung für den Gesamtbericht; themenrelevante Aussagen durchziehen ca. 5-­‐15% des Beitragsumfanges (Proportional Salience = Prominenz durch Anteil) III. Script Objects & Script Types “MEDIA” MO Script Object “Medien” [script object ‘media’] Was ist Gegenstand der Medienselbstthematisierung? Welches Bezugsobjekt ist dieses Medien-­‐“Selbst”? (Malik 2004: 134) English: When we classify a television news story as “reporting on the mass media” we wish to know more specifically what aspects of “mass media” are being covered. The category differentiates between individuals (MO1), organizations (MO2) and institutions (MO3). It further differentiates between traditional (MO1-­‐3) and new media (MO4). And it includes three special cases: relationships between journalism and external spheres (MO5), political entertainment (MO6) and those rare cases when the own news organization becomes the focus of the story (MO7) 1 Individuelle Journalisten und deren Verhalten (oder deren Berichte), auf die Bezug genommen wird [individual journalists or individual actions as object of reference – code here only journalists from traditional mainstream media, otherwise code MO4] 2 Medienorganisation und deren Sendungen, Berichterstattung [media organisations and their coverage – if new media code MO4] 3 „die“ Medien als Institution, „die“ Berichterstattung allgemein – ganz allgemeine Verweise ohne impliziter oder expliziter Bezug auf spezifische Medienorganisation [„the“ media as an institution, „the“ coverage in general, the media „in general“ without implicit or explicit reference to specific news organizations ] 4 Neue Medien, z.B. Blogger oder Websites etc., die nichts mit Publicity Massnahmen der Kampagnenteams zu tun haben [clear reference to new media, websites, bloggers, non-­‐
mainstream media and their output] 41 Neue Medien, die von den untersuchten Fernsehnachrichtensendungen als professionell dargestellt werden. (z.B. wird ersichtlich, dass die Inhalte, die über die neuen Medien übermittelt werden, von professionellen Journalisten bzw. von Medienunternehmen generiert wurden.) 100 411 Online-­‐Nachrichtenseiten 412 Bürgerbefragungen (wie z.B. Wahl-­‐O-­‐Mat, smartvote, etc.) (vgl. Schweitzer/ Albrecht 2011) 413 Nachrichten-­‐Blogs 414 Tweets von Medienunternehmen bzw. professionellen Journalisten 415 professionelle Online-­‐Videos 416 professionelle Auftritte von Medien in Sozialen Netzwerken (Facebook, Google+, Xing, LinkedIn, etc.) 417 Chatangebot mit den Journalisten eines Medienunternehmens zu einem politischen/ Wahlthema 418 419 Sonstige 42 Neue Medien, die von den untersuchten Fernsehnachrichtensendungen als nicht-­‐
professionell dargestellt werden (Es wird ersichtlich, dass die Inhalte, die über die Neuen Medien übermittelt werden, beispielsweise von Nutzern/ Laien/ Bürgern, etc. generiert wurden.) 421 Bürger-­‐Blogs 422 Tweets von Nutzern, Bürgern 423 nichtprofessionelle Online-­‐Videos 424 Beiträge von Nutzern in Sozialen Netzwerken 425 Chatmöglichkeit für die Nutzer untereinander zu einem politischen/ Wahlthema 426 427 428 Sonstige Hinweis: Die Ziffern 418 und 426, 427 werden vergeben, wenn die Online-­‐Aktivitäten von Journalisten oder Nutzern über ein Instrument erfolgt, das in der Auflistung bisher noch nicht enthalten ist. In diesem Fall wird die nächste freie Nummer vergeben und daraufhin im Codebuch ergänzt. 5 Beziehungen der Medien mit Politik, mit politischer Publicity oder anderen externen Sphären. Hier auch Einflüsse auf Journalismus oder Beschränkungen durch äussere Faktoren, auch kommerzielle [journalism is covered not as an isolated unit but in its interactions and relations with politics, political publicity or other external spheres. External influences on or constraints of journalism due to outside factors, including commercial] 6 Unterhaltungssendungen oder andere nicht-­‐journalistische Kommunikation wie comedy shows mit politischem Gehalt [Non-­‐journalistic communication such as entertainment programs or comedy shows with of political relevance] 7 Eigenes Medium: Das eigene Medium bzw. Journalisten, Programme, Produkte des eigenen Mediums werden zum Objekt / Thema gemacht. Codierhinweis: Wird codiert bei cross-­‐promotion/Programmhinweis, Berichte über eigene Umfragen sowie Interviews mit eigenen Journalisten, Interviews mit “CNN-­‐Contributors”. [Special case: own medium, own journalists, own coverage is focal point of story. Here we code cross-­‐promotion, promo for own programs, reports of own polls, interviews with own journalists, interviews with “CNN-­‐
Contributors”] 71 Eigenes Medium im Online 101 Es wird auf die Internetpräsenz des eigenen Mediums in Form einer Webseite, o.ä. aufmerksam gemacht. (Bsp.: Hinweis auf weitere Informationen unter der URL www.sf.tv am Ende eines Beitrags) MC Script-­‐Typen des Medien-­‐Vermittlungs-­‐Frame [Script Types of the Media Conduit Frame] Beschreibung des Medien-­‐Vermittlungs-­‐Frame: Journalisten können bei ihrer Thematisierung der Rolle der Medien im Wahlkampf einen „Vermittlungsframe“ verwenden, wenn sie die Medien als Informationsvermittler präsentieren. Dies kann geschehen, indem sie die Präsenz von Kameras oder berichtenden Reportern bei einem Ereignis betonen oder den Umfang der Berichterstattung und das Ausmass der Mediennutzung bei einem Thema beschreiben. Die Medien werden dargestellt in ihrer Rolle als neutrale Zwischenhändler von Information. Sie erscheinen im Beitrag als ein technisch notwendiges Bindeglied und eine Plattform für politische Kommunikation. Dies kann auch geschehen, indem Medien, Journalisten oder Sendungen als Quelle für eine Information oder als Anlass für den Beitrag genannt werden. Typische Beiträge lauten: "Sogar im Ausland berichten Medien über das Schaf-­‐Plakat der SVP" "2 Mio. Zuschauer haben das TV-­‐Duell verfolgt." "Politiker x ist in der Arena aufgetreten, um über y zu diskutieren.“ Description of the Media Conduit Frame: Press conduit frames in news stories emphasize the basic connectivity function of mass communication in modern media societies. With press conduit frames, the news media are portrayed as the main conveyance for disseminating information in an environment of mediated wars with no specific intention other than stressing the transmission function (e.g., by showing reporters or cameras present at a site). Background: The professional standards and news values of relevance, completeness and factuality require news reporters to include the obvious presence and factual significance of the mass media in their reports of mediated campaigns. Note on level of analysis of conduit scripts: Skripts des Medien-­‐Vermittlungsframes sind von einer geringen (basalen) Selbstreferenz gekennzeichnet (Malik 2004: 99). Hier werden Medien werden erwähnt oder genannt, ohne dass eine Auseinandersetzung mit der Rolle der Medien stattfindet, dass die Rolle der Medien reflektiert oder in einen übergeordneten Kontext eingebettet wird. Basale Selbstreferenz findet sich in der Verwendung journalistischer Angebote als Quelle für nachfolgende Berichterstattung; die Recherche in journalistischen Archiven; die Veröffentlichung von Pressestimmen; das Zitieren journalistischer Produkte in der Berichterstattung; oder wenn Journalisten sich in ihrer beruflichen Arbeiten an anderen Medienprodukten orientieren. [level of reflection is low; basic reference Script-­‐Typen des Medien-­‐Vermittlungsframes MC-­‐11: Verweis auf Medienorganisationen oder Medienprodukte als Quelle für eigene Berichterstattung [media coorientation] Aufgreifen von Informationen, Inhalten, Themen [media as source of news]: Hier werden andere Medien oder Journalisten oder Sendungen/Zeitungen oder Websites oder blog als Quelle für eine Information (Nachricht, Umfrage) oder als Anlass für den Beitrag genannt werden. Hier werden auch Verweise auf andere Medien codiert, die als Beleg dafür dienen, dass ein Thema existiert, bedeutsam und nachrichtenwürdig ist. Inhalte anderer Medien werden neutral wiedergegeben, referiert (dann wird hier codiert). Hier werden auch alle sonstigen Verweise auf andere Medien codiert, die gegenseitige Beachtung der Medien untereinander ausdrücken (wie USA TODAY heute berichtet….). Ein Medium wird als Quelle einer Information oder eines Themen erwähnt. 102 English: A proposition that refers to, or cites, a news media outlet, program, website, blog or journalist as being a source of news coverage of a particular campaign topic. This can be seen as an indicator of co-­‐orientation or inter-­‐media agenda setting: Journalists refer to, and rely on, other news media outlets as guidelines for what is news or what is newsworthy. – Important: The medium is treated as the source here, not a politician who said something in that medium. This distinguishes this category from the next. Aufgreifen von Medienauftritten oder –aussagen von Akteuren [media as platform for actors]: Hier werden die Medien als Plattform, Sprachrohr, Informationsvermittler für andere Akteure dargestellt. Medien dienen als Informationsüberbringer und verleihen anderen Akteuren (z.B. Politikern) Publizität. Es handelt sich typischerweise um Erwähnungen, welcher Kandidat, Politiker, Kampagnenmitarbeiter, Experte oder sonstiger Akteur wo aufgetreten ist und dort etwas gesagt hat. Bei Wiedergabe eines Interviews von anderem Sender wird hier auch codiert. English: A proposition that refers to a candidate, activist, advisor/operative, or member of the public as being “in,” “on,” or “from” a mediated news program. The proposition is unaccompanied by any other remarks or statements attributed to a candidate, operative, or public, or unaccompanied by a reporter paraphrase, as being “about” the nature, quality, or amount of news coverage Aufgreifen von Medieninhalten mit politischer Satire, politischem Humor Saturday Night Live, Late Night Jokes, Daily Show, and the like MC-­‐12: Präsenz der Medien bei Ereignis [press corps’ presence at event] Hier werden Reporter, Journalisten, Techniker, Sendegeräte als bei einem Ereignis anwesend gezeigt. Man sieht sie bei der Arbeit und erkennt den mediatisierten Charakter des Ereignisses. Auch: Aussagen über Anzahl der anwesenden oder akkreditierten Journalisten. English: References to the presence of journalists of media technicians. Images of reporters taking notes, journalists at press briefings, journalists asking questions, photographers taking pictures, cameras filming, studio technology, media equipment, TV sets – all illustrating the mediatised character of the event. MC-­‐13: Medieninsiderismus: Innenleben von Journalisten; interne Operationsweisen von Medienorganisationen [media insiderism: inner life of journalists; internal operations of media organizations] Aussagen, bei denen es darum geht, was eine Journalistin „so fühlt“, was Journalisten in der Presselounge zu essen bekommen, dass Journalisten „bei den Siegern sein wollen“ oder dass Journalisten nach dem ersten Duell „überrascht sind von Stoiber“. Ausserdem Beschreibungen der Organisationsstrukturen und Arbeitsweisen von Medien. Berichte darüber, wie Medien eine Übertragung (z.B. der Debatten) vorbereiten. Alles ohne reflexive Analyse! English: Propositions on the inner life of journalists, what they feel, get delivered for lunch from caterers, on what they believe and how they allegedly click. Also propositions on work conditions, editorial structures, and internal operations of media organizations. All without reflexive analysis! MC-­‐14 Journalist als Quelle, Interviewpartner, Experte [journalists as sources] Interviews mit Journalisten, die als Experten behandelt werden – entweder vom eigenen Sender oder von anderen Medienorganisationen. Auch Interviews mit NBC-­‐ oder CNN-­‐
„Contributors“, welche gleichzeitig als Journalisten anderer Medienorganisationen arbeiten oder ehemalige Publicity-­‐Experten/Kampagnenberater sind (Gergen, Rollins), die nun aber als „sendereigene“ Analysten tätig sind. English: Journalists are being interviewed as experts – either journalists of own network or journalists of other newspapers, newsmagazines, networks. This does *not* refer to the usual 103 interactions between anchor/moderator and campaign trail correspondents before and after film packages. It only refers to those instances where journalists are deliberately been brought into the newscast are being interviewed *instead* of other potential experts on the matter at hand. Journalists as panellists e.g. Brian Williams interviewing Chuck Todd and Andrea Mitchell at Rep Convention; Cooper interviewing King, Gergen and Borger as “CNN political analysts”. MC-­‐15 Self Promotion/Cross-­‐Promotion Aussagen, welche nachfolgende Sendungen ankündigen, welche weitere Programme derselben Senderkette erwähnen, welche die Website der Senderkette erwähnen, welche auf Umfragen oder andere Produkte des eigenen Senderkonzern verweisen. Dies sind meist sehr kurze, vom eigentlichen Beitrag abgegrenzte Teile der Sendung. English: A proposition that refers to the networks’ own programs, own polls, website as being a source of news or a place for the viewer to get news coverage of a campaign topic. Also refers to products of the same conglomerate (à cross promotion). MC-­‐16 Story magnitude: Umfang der Berichterstattung, Nutzung der Berichterstattung, Technik der Berichterstattung [amount of coverage, audience size, technical aspects of coverage] Aussagen über Publikumsgrösse eines Medienevents, über Reichweite, Einschaltquote, öffentliche Beachtung, etc. Ebenso Aussagen über grosse oder kleine Berichterstattungsresonanz der Medien, über Ausmass der Medienbeachtung, Intensität der Berichterstattung, etc. Hier auch: technische Aspekte der Berichterstattung English: Propositions that refer to the (large or small) amount of coverage a campaign event receives, the size of the audience (ratings), households that tuned in, public interest. Here also: technical aspects of coverage. MC-­‐17 Rest [Other] MS Script-­‐Typen des Medien-­‐Strategieframe [Script Types of the Media Strategy Frame] Beschreibung des Medien-­‐Strategie-­‐Frame: Journalisten berichten über die Rolle der Medien als aktiver, autonomer Akteur, der nicht zurückhaltend-­‐neutral berichtet, sondern dramatisierend, parteilich, negative, disproportional, skandalisierend (siehe Skripts). Auf diese Weise mischen sich Medien aktiv in den Politikvermittlungsprozess ein. Dies wird häufig in Form von Vorwürfen berichtet. Zum Beispiel durch Wertungen zum Umfang der Berichterstattung "Es wird zu viel über Blocher berichtet", Wertung zum Ton "Die Medien berichten zu negativ über Kandidat x", Mutmassung über die Ziele von Journalisten "Die wollen nur immer einen Skandal vom Zaun brechen" Die wollen die SVP diskreditieren weil Journalisten eh alle links sind", Mutmassung über die Folgen ihrer Strategie, "Den Medien kann man nicht trauen". Journalisten berichten aber auch über das Verhältnis der Medien zur Politik mit „Strategieframes“. Weil Journalisten viel Zeit mit Kampagnenberatern und Kandidaten verbringen, lernen Journalisten, wie diese „Strategen“ über die Rolle der Medien denken. Journalisten übernehmen diese strategische Denkweise in ihrer Berichterstattung. Von diesen Gesprächen lernen Journalisten auch, dass viele Politiker die Medien als eigensinnig, potent und konsequenzenreich wahrnehmen (siehe Skripts). Aber: Eine stark an an Einmischung und Eigeninteressen orientierte Medienselbstdarstellung wird mit Politikverdrossenheit und sinkender Medienglaubwürdigkeit in Verbindung gebracht (Kerbel, 1997, 1999, 2001). 104 Aufmerksamkeitsökonomie: Aber auch die kompetitiven Marktzwänge setzen den Politikjournalismus unter Druck, ein möglichst spannendes, unterhaltendes Nachrichtenprodukt zu kreieren; dies ist mit einem Fokus auf wirkungsvolle oder fehlgeschlagenen Wettkampfstrategien eher zu realisieren als mit tiefschürfenden Problemdiskursen (Theorie der Aufmerksamkeitsökonomie). Erfahrene, und deswegen oft zynische, Journalisten vermuten hinter Politikeraktivitäten bald nur noch strategische Manöver zur Beeinflussung der Medien-­‐ und Öffentlichkeitsagenda; ähnlich wie sie werden auch ökonomisch denkende Journalisten das politisches Geschehen vornehmlich durch die Strategiebrille wahrnehmen. English frame description: Strategy press frames portray the news media as engaged in a continuous conflict over message control. With press strategy frames, the news media is portrayed as an autonomous, consequential actor in the strategic game of politics, locked in contentious interplay with political actors. Background: Journalists want to be more than mere mouthpieces of politicians; instead, journalists seek to control, frame and interpret the flow of political communication themselves. Their sense of professionalism, in which autonomy and independence figure prominently, leads them to seek ways to “stamp their marks on political stories” (Blumler & Kavanagh, 1999, p. 215). Media actors pursue their own interests (striving for public attention, economic success, and professional reputation) and follow a distinct media logic (in terms of selection criteria and presentational styles) that often clashes with the political publicity logic (striving for message control, strategic communication, and public opinion formation). In this sense, strategy frames are very attractive to journalists because they allow them to describe the relationship between the news media and political news management in a compelling and arresting way and they also satisfy important news values like drama and conflict. (Zaller, 1999) Note on media roles: -­‐
attention grabber, kommerzielle Interessen der Medien, Theorie der Aufmerksamkeitsökonomie (Siegert, Eilders, Iyengar über strategy) -­‐
king makers or killers, umpire, exaggerated watchdog, attack dog, impact journalism, adversarialism, advocacy (Graber) -­‐
political arbiter (Johnson Cartee); political actor, politische Machtspiele, left/right wing bias, -­‐
publizistische Machtspiele, agenda setter, leitmedien-­‐anspruch, reputation, -­‐
strategiespiel, consultant-­‐perspective, (Kerbel, Esser Wien) Note on media intrusion: Es verweist auf das Einmengen, Einmischen, Intervenieren der Medien in den Politikvermittlungsprozess, sowie die Störungen, Belastungen und Ablenkungen, die davon ausgehen. Script-­‐Typen des Medien-­‐Strategieframe MS-­‐21: Dramatisierung, Sensationalismus, Entertainment / Intrusion through dramatization Role: Media, commercial self-­‐interests, and the economy of attention Aussagen darüber, dass die Medien (oder einzelne Medien) zu simplifizierender Zuspitzung, Schlagzeilenorientierung, Personalisierung, Boulevardisierung, Unterhaltungs-­‐ und Soft News Orientierung, oder Sensationalismus neigen (in der Wahlkampfberichterstattung oder generell) Auch: Gerüchte, Spekulationen English: Propositions that refer to a tendency (of ‘the’ media or an individual media outlet) toward infotainment, mixing seriousness and fun, blurring the distinction between information and entertainment, dumbing down, market-­‐driven reporting styles, and decline of civic culture as a result of commercialization and intermedia competition (in election coverage and otherwise) / Also: Intrusion through unsubstantiated claims 105 MS-­‐22: Negativorientierung / Intrusion through media negativism (Patterson) Role: Media and the fixation on the negative Aussagen darüber, dass Medien über Negatives, Kontroverse, Kritik, Mangel, Gefahren, Risiken, Bedrohungen, Unfähigkeit, Misserfolg, Scheitern berichten. Dabei ist es egal, wer das Bezugsobjekt dieser negativen Schilderungen ist. English: Propositions about media orientation toward conflict, critical attitude, confrontational style, deficiency, risk or threat, failure, incompetence, defeat. MS-­‐23: Verzerrung & Unfairness wegen Parteilichkeit / Intrusion through media bias Role: Media as political actor Aussagen darüber, dass die Medien (oder einzelne Medien) zu Parteilichkeit, Einseitigkeit, Unausgewogenheit, ideologischer Beeinflussung usw neigen; Liberal Mainstream Media English: Propositions that refer to perceptions of partisan, unbalanced, one-­‐sided reporting. Propositions that refer to media support of candidate, to journalists’ political sympathies, to endorsements of newspapers. Requests for fairer coverage. MS-­‐24: “Falsche” Prioritätensetzung, “Falsches” Themensetzen / Intrusion through giving too much, too little emphasis (news hypes vs news holes; see Vastermann; Kepplinger) Role: Media as self-­‐interested Agenda Setters Too much emphasis: There is a big story, a news hype, that crowds out other more substantial issues. Here we code propositions which state that the ‘press’ covers a campaign topic (e.g., a nonissue) too much based on financial, professional, or political motives. In media hypes, the media set their focus on a specific topic or event and enlarge it; and the resulting amount of coverage seems disproportionate considering the relevance and newsworthiness of the event. Example: Complaints that media attention to an event is distracting a candidate, or diverting his resources, away from discussion about substantive issues. Example: Complaints that media focus on wrong issue, blow something out of proportion, give distorted picture of campaign Too little emphasis: News holes refer to distortion of coverage through neglecting issues out of financial, professional or political motives. MS-­‐25: Medien als Meute, Medien als Jäger, Medien als Königsmörder / Intrusion through media feeding frenzy: hunting (with a dose of scandalization / attack journalism / media exposé) (Hartung; Sabato) Role: Media as exaggerated watchdog; as attack dog M edia feeding frenzy refers to journalists hunting a public figure for alleged misbehavior or unacceptable utterances or private indiscretions. Media feeding frenzy involves a critical mass of journalists leap to cover the same embarrassing or scandalous subject and pursue it intensely. Media feeding frenzies often involve images of pack journalism (see PressC3), reporters pressing tough questions, press conferences being turned into tribunals, politicians trying to dodge questions. Topic connections: Media feeding frenzies appear to be linked to aspects character, private life, suspected breach of norms or law, or discrepancy between public declarations and private behavior. Frenzies emerge out of competitive pressures, pack journalism, press frustration or preconceived notions about candidate, press bias or dislike of candidate, partisan sources, etc. 106 MS-­‐26: Recherche-­‐, Enthüllungsjournalismus / Intrusion through investigative journalism: Revealing, discovering (Graber) Role: Media as watchdogs Journalists seek out the story behind the story, expose wrongdoing, investigate carefully, and conduct countless interviews to verify facts. Investigative journalism focuses on serious political, economic or social concerns. It abides by professional rules and ethical guidelines as far as possible and shuns illegal reporting methods. Investigative journalism takes on powerful targets and is often confronted with their counterefforts to challenge the investigation. For journalists, investigative stories are attractive because they appeal to audiences and produce public excitement; they win praise from colleagues and superiors; and can trigger political action or corrective measure. MS-­‐27: Ansehensverlust der Medien / Fall out for the press Role: Media as target of critcism A proposition which states that the news media, press, or individual journalists will suffer in the polls or among the public for (a) doing a poor job; (b) lacking standards; (c) amplifying topics; (d) being overly interested in commercial rewards or financial incentives; or (e) intruding into the campaign. MS-­‐28: Medien als Königsmacher Role: Media As Kingmaker, Political Arbiter (Gebieter) Aussagen darüber, dass Medien durch Themenwahl, Prioritätensetzung, Berichterstattungsumfang, Polls, Spekulation, Kommentierung, Berichterstattungsaufmerksamkeit und -­‐images, unterstützende Fakten einem Kandidaten Vorteile einbringen. MS-­‐29: Medien haben Einfluss und Konsequenzen / Intrusion through media impact (influence of news coverage on politics and audience) Role: Media as causes of influences Oberkategorie, wenn keine andere spezifischere Kategorie codiert werden kann. Medien als einflussreicher konsequenzenreicher Akteur, Medien mit eigener Stimme, eigenem Standpunkt. Propositionen über den Einfluss der Duell-­‐Nachberichterstattung auf Wähler, über den Druck der Medien auf einen Politiker wegen seiner umstrittenen Äusserungen, über die kampagnenhafte Berichterstattung einer Zeitung. English: Media has power; reports have consequences (real or assumed irritation caused by coverage, real or assumed effects of news reports, “media impact” in the widest sense] MA Skript-­‐Typen des Medien-­‐Verantwortlichkeitsframe [Script types of the Media Accountability Frame] Beschreibung des Medien-­‐Verantwortlichkeits-­‐Frame: Derart geprägte Metaberichterstattung lässt die Medien in einem reflektierten, analytischen, selbstkritischen Umgang mit ihrer gewachsenen Bedeutung erscheinen. „Verantwortlichkeitsframes“ thematisieren die Medien als Instanz der Demokratie, die sich ihrer Sozialverantwortung bewusst, zur kritischen Auseinandersetzungen mit eigenen Fähigkeiten und Fehlleistungen in der Lage und zur Vermittlung von Medienkompetenz geeignet ist. Neben dem demokratienormativen Bezug ist dieser Frame auch Ausdruck eines professionsinternen Qualitätsbewusstsein und Selbstkontrollmechanismus, indem die Vernachlässigung von Sorgfaltspflichten und 107 Berichterstattungsnormen öffentlich kritisiert und berufsethische Grundsätze im Journalismus geschärft werden sollen. Typische Beispiele: "Zu viel Skandalisierung lässt den Bürger das Vertrauen in die Politik verlieren" "Journalisten berichten so und so, weil sie bestimmten (ökonomischen, inneren) Drücken/Zwängen unterliegen" English frame description: Press accountability frames in news stories discuss press coverage within the context of democratic functioning, e.g., how far media actors fulfill their role as instruments of democracy. Press accountability frames portray the news media as performing a public service by providing citizens with useful and self-­‐critical information on press behavior itself. Background: The concept of media accountability asks journalists not only to hold politicians or business people accountable but also to inquire whether media professionals fulfill their primary responsibility, which is to provide a good public service. Citizens need news reporting of good quality to maintain their rights and make informed political choices. The value of public information influences the quality of government and democracy. As a consequence, the media ought to be held accountable for the quality of their news performance through criticism and debate. A concrete example of what it means to be held accountable is given by the Society of Professional Journalists in the USA. Under the heading, "Be Accountable", its code of ethics states that journalists should, for example, “clarify and explain news coverage and invite dialogue with the public over journalistic conduct” and “expose unethical practices of journalists and the news media”. This thinking goes back to the recommendations of the Hutchinson Commission on Freedom of the Press (1947, p. 94) which urged “vigorous, mutual criticism” as a key to media accountability. In this sense, “accountability frames” demonstrate a concern on behalf of journalists to uphold professional standards by monitoring and self-­‐critically analyzing developments in political reporting. Since the mass media have become one of the nerve centers of modern campaigns, the public needs to be informed about the performance of the media and of government institutions that try to influence the media. A related purpose of media accountability is to restore citizens’ trust in the media. Like other institutions in democracy, the news media depends on public support for the preservation of its independence and freedom from state control and external pressures. (von Krogh 2008; Fengler, 2003; McQuail 2005; Pritchard, 2000) Note on level of analysis of accountability scripts: Propositionen des Verantwortlichkeitsframes sind von einem höheren Analyseniveau gekennzeichnet als Propositionen des Vermittlungs-­‐ oder Strategieframes. Sie bieten Reflexion des Journalismus. Sie bieten eine Auseinandersetzung mit dem System Journalismus, seiner Funktion in der Gesellschaft, seiner Leistungen, seiner Leistungsgrenzen, sowie seiner Interaktionen mit der Politik und seiner Abhängigkeit von äusseren Einflüssen und Rahmenbedingungen (Malik 2004: 103). Eine Diskussion, die die gegenseitige Beeinflussung von Politik und Journalismus durchleuchtet, wäre ein typisches Beispiel. Beispiele für institutionalisierte Reflexionsinstanzen des Journalismus sind Fachpublikationen wie ‚Journalist‘ oder ‚Columbia Journalism Review‘. [level of reflection high; self analytical introspection of own role] Script-­‐Typen des Medien-­‐Verantwortlichkeitsframes MA-­‐31 Selbstthematisierung zur Aufklärung der Rezipienten: Erklärung der Wahlkampfberichterstattung unter Verweis auf Logik und, Operationsweise sowie auf die spezifischen Werte, Zwänge und Kontexte, unter denen Medienorganisationen und Nachrichtenjournalisten ihre Arbeit verrichten Ziel: Orientierungs-­‐ und Bildungshilfe für die Bürger (Enlighting the audience) – z.B. unter Beiziehung von Fachleuten 108 Durch die transparente Darstellung der eigenen Operationen bietet der Journalismus eine Orientierungshilfe für die Bürger im Medienwahlkampf an. Es wird eine Bildungsaufgabe erfüllt, in dem über die Bedingungen medialisierter politischer Kommunikation aufgeklärt wird. Die demokratische Kompetenz der Bürger wird gesteigert; ihnen wird ein "Meta-­‐Wissen" bzw. eine "Meta-­‐Kompetenz" über Journalismus vermitteln (vgl. Malik 148, 191). Mit diesem Skript legen die Nachrichtenmedien i. S. eines Selbstverständnisprozesses Rechenschaft über ihre eigene Rolle in der Demokratie ab, klären über Anpassungs-­‐ und Instrumentalisierungsbestrebungen politischer (Publicity-­‐) Akteure bezüglich der Medienlogik auf und befähigen den Zuschauer zum kompetenteren Umgang mit den Regeln der Mediengesellschaft English: Propositions that educate the audience about the role of the media in elections. Since the mass media have become one of the nerve centers of modern campaigns, the public needs to be informed about the performance of the media. This script discusses media coverage within the context of democratic functioning, e.g., how far media actors fulfill their role as instruments of democracy. It provides citizens with useful and self-­‐critical information on media behavior itself. The operations of the news media and the realities of election news coverage are being explained / discussed with reference to : MA Market principles and commercialization, inter media competition, MA Media laws and regulation, political structure and political culture MA Historical and professional context: A proposition which states that there are historical or professional precedents for covering a particular campaign topic. MA Editorial decision making, editorial restraint, reasons and difficulties of the journalistic decision-­‐making process, and possibly the dilemmas entailed in covering the campaign topic. MA News value of story: focus on the application of news values to coverage of a particular campaign topic. MA Role perceptions, political affiliations, professional values and personal preferences of news workers; or political slant or editorial preferences of news organization MA Ethical & quality values: A proposition which states that the news media or individual journalists observe (or try to or fail to) observe ethical values such as Neutralität, Objektivität, Sorgfalt, Vollständigkeit, Ausgewogenheit, Pietät, Rücksichtnahme, Wahrheitstreue. Aber auch auch die Hindernisse, Dilemmas, Grenzen, Schwierigkeiten, die die Befolgung und Nichtbefolgung erklären. MA Media effects: and on how the resulting coverage, in turn, impacts the audience MA-­‐32 Selbstthematisierung zur Kritik und Kontrolle der eigenen Profession; Aufarbeitung von Medienunfällen, Medienkontroversen; Ziel: Korrektur und Niveauverbesserung der Berichterstattung; Selbstreguierung durch Medienkritik; (Self-­‐policing through media criticism) Es werden Vorwürfe, Grenzüberschreitungen, Defizite, Fehlleistungen oder Kontroversen im Journalismus besprochen. Durch öffentliche Fehleraufarbeitung und Selbstkritik wendet der Journalismus seine Kritik-­‐ und Kontrollfunktion auf sich selbst an. Sie dient zur Selbstregulierung der Profession sowie zur Qualitätssicherung der Wahlkampfberichterstattung insgesamt. Im Idealfall trägt es zur Korrektur und Niveauverbesserung bei (vgl. Malik 145, 191) English: Propositions that address failures or controversial behavior of the media. This script demonstrates a concern on behalf of journalists to uphold professional standards by monitoring and self-­‐critically analyzing developments in political reporting. It offers media 109 criticism and exposes, for example, unethical practices of fellow journalists. Background is that the concept of media accountability asks journalists not only to hold politicians or business people accountable but also to inquire whether media professionals fulfill their primary responsibility, which is to provide a good public service. The media ought to be held accountable for the quality of their news performance through criticism and debate.
IV. Script Objects & Script Types “PUBLICITY” PO Script Object “Publicity” [script object ‘publicity’] Was ist Gegenstand der Publicity-­‐Thematisierung? Was genau ist das Bezugsobjekt? English: When we classify a television news story as “reporting on the publicity process” we wish to know more specifically what aspects of the publicity process are being covered. In general, political publicity is equivalent to strategic political communication. It entails political advertising (PO1), political marketing (PO2), political professionalization (PO3), and political public relations (PO4). 10 Political advertising / General (Kaid 2008; Filzmaier Plasser 2005) Political advertising refers to a wide range of non-­‐personal communication by candidates, parties and advocacy groups that is usually paid for (=unique characteristic) and that promotes their superior attributes or policies over those of their opponents. But in an international context, it comes in various types: -­‐
Media buying (planning and spending decisions, Werbebudgets, Werbeschaltungen, Werbestrategien, ad cluttering = Werbeübersättigung, Fokussierung auf Regionen oder Märkte) -­‐
paid infomercials and TV spots (= purchased airtime on commercial channels) -­‐
allocated TV spots free of charge (=free airtime on public channels for so-­‐called PEBs) -­‐
Sponsoring -­‐
Newspaper and magazine ads -­‐
Radio commercials -­‐
Internet advertising (= pop up ads, banner ads, innovative web products) -­‐
Print and display advertising (=brochures, flyers, pamphlets, cards, bumper stickers, posters, signs, billboards) 11 Negative Ads. Negative political advertising can be defined as advertising that targets the attacked candidate’s weaknesses in issues or image and that highlights the sponsoring candidate’s strengths in these areas by sending a negatively framed message. In the form of attack ads it involves an aggressive, one-­‐sided assault designed to draw attention to an opponent’s weaknesses in either character or issue positions. In the form of negative comparative ads it identifies a competing candidate and, by drawing comparisons, implies inferiority and degrades prospective voters’ perceptions of the targeted candidate. Comparative messages may use opposing candidates’ records, experiences, or issue positions either to communicate negative information about these or to imply the sponsoring candidate’s superiority. (Andrew Hughes) ! FILTER: Die folgenden Kategorien NUR dann codieren, wenn es sich im Beitrag um Online-­‐
Werbung (positiv/neutral oder negativ/angreifend) handelt! 110 Codieranweisung: Die Codes für die Kategorien ‘positive/neutrale Online-­‐Wahlwerbung’ und ’negative/angreifende Online-­‐Wahlwerbung’ sind dreistellig. Dabei wird jeweils die erste Ziffer für die Funktion der Publicity-­‐Massnahmen (s.o. Political Advertising General= 10 und Negative Ads= 11) vergeben. Die letzten beiden Ziffern bezeichnen im Falle von Online-­‐Werbung das Instrument, mit welchem die Publicity-­‐Massnahme an die Öffentlichkeit übermittelt wird. Codierbeispiel: Ein Online-­‐Videoclip einer Partei, der in der Nachrichtensendung gezeigt bzw. besprochen wird, erhält die Codierung 103. Falls der gezeigte Spot ein angreifender Spot im Sinne der Definition unter ‘11 = Negative Ads’ ist, lautet der zu vergebende Code 113. Hinweis: Die Ziffern 105 bis 108, bzw. 115-­‐118 werden vergeben, wenn die Online-­‐Publicity über ein Instrument erfolgt, das in der Auflistung bisher noch nicht enthalten ist. Beispiele dafür wären Online-­‐Werbemassnahmen wie z.B. Verbal Placements, In-­‐Text-­‐Werbung, Site Branding, Layer Ads, etc.) In diesem Fall wird die nächste freie Nummer vergeben (Vermerkung auf dem Codebogen machen!) und daraufhin im Codebuch ergänzt. 100 positive/ neutrale Online-­‐Wahlwerbung 110 negative/angreifende Online-­‐Wahlwerbung 101 Banner-­‐Werbung 111 Banner-­‐Werbung 102 Pop-­‐Up-­‐Werbung 112 Pop-­‐Up-­‐Werbung 103 Online-­‐Wahlwerbespots (Videos) 113 Online-­‐Wahlwerbespots (Videos) 104 Internet-­‐Radio-­‐Spots 114 Internet-­‐Radio-­‐Spots 105 115 106 116 107 117 108 118 109 Sonstige 119 Sonstige 20 Political marketing -­‐
Market & opinion research: A key element of successful strategic communication management is audience research. Focus groups and public opinion polls serve to inform strategic communication campaigns and determine the relevant issues. The first step is identifying the audience(s) most important concerns for accomplishing the goals of the campaign. The second is using polling and market research to develop a message and a delivery strategy that reaches those audiences in ways that promote the goals. -­‐
Unique characteristic: Usually it is related to opinion research/voter research/voter targeting: o
Direct mail (=brochures, flyers, pamphlets sent home) o
Telemarketing (= computerized calls, phone banks) o
Databases for profiling and computer-­‐based micro-­‐targeting, data mining o
Internet-­‐campaigning via own web sites, web portals; viral videos o
Email databases, email-­‐campaigning (contacts, mobilization, fundraising, newsletter) o
Get out the vote operations 30 Communication professionals; Campaign advisers who brief journalists Campaign communication relies on professional consultants instead of amateurs. Communication professionals are public information specialists and advisors who are involved in communication activities. 111 -­‐
Media consultants – consultants who specialize in the production of or advice about media aspects of a campaign (direct mail, ads, new tech), and communicate candidate’s image via the media. They include speech writers, media affairs specialists, spokespersons, etc. -­‐
Other consultants – campaign managers, general strategists, event planners, advisers, aides. 40 Political PR in general (bitte so spezifisch wie möglich codieren; please try to code PO-­‐41 to PO-­‐44 first) (Zipfel 2008; Pfetsch 2008; Plasser Hüffel Lengauer2004; Bennett 2005; Zaller 1999; Esser Spanier 2005). The aim of political PR is to control the flow of political communication to the candidate’ objectives, to create popular consent and support, and to achieve an advantageous position in the electoral competition. Unique characteristic: Usually it is related to journalists or the media but not paid for! -­‐
Styles o
Policy-­‐oriented pol PR = PR is used to better communicate political decisions, goals, issues – to pursue political objectives & party goals o
Media-­‐oriented pol PR = PR is used to influence the electorate and the media – aimed at generating positive news coverage and popular support for which the media audience is a surrogate -­‐
Actors o
Political PR is used by candidates / politicians (appearances in talk shows, at choreographed campaign events) o
Political PR is used by external consultants / outside professionals (hired experts from specialized agencies) o
Political PR is used by party organizations / campaign organizations (organizations as ‘corporate actors’ with -­‐
Channels (direct personal communication or mediated mass communication) o
campaign speeches o
background meetings with journalists o
developing and maintaining a working relationship with media representatives o
offering interviews and exclusive information to media representatives o
holding press conferences and issuing press releasesi o
inviting journalists to accompany the candidate on trips o
distribution of printed materials (brochures, flyers, pamphlets) o
televised appearances o
websites -­‐
Methods: see PO-­‐41 to PO-­‐44 41 Image management & Media performance / Medienkompetenz, Medienauftritte (building & selling a positive image on TV, in debates, interviews, etc) Referenzen im Beitrag weisen hin auf Aufbau bzw Verstärkung eines positiven eigenen Images -­‐
durch kameragerechte Selbstdarstellung in TV-­‐Debatten oder Interviews, professionelle Vorbereitung/Training, ein auf positive Wirkung bedachtes öffentliches/telegenes Erscheinungsbild -­‐
durch Einsatz von Symbolen und Prominenten, welche Führungsstärke, Autorität, Unterstützung, Positiv-­‐Werte ausdrücken -­‐
durch Betonung der fachlichen Kompetenz, Erfahrung, Qualifikation, etc. des Spitzenkandidaten 112 -­‐
durch Betonung der menschlich sympathischen Seite, positiver Charakterzüge des Spitzenkandidaten, seiner Biographie, Überzeugungen, Werte 42 Event management & Inszenierung & Auftrittsvorbereitung (arranging photo opps & staging events) Referenzen im Beitrag weisen hin auf den geplanten, vorbereiteten choreographierten Charakter von Ereignissen, Auftritten, Präsentationen, Pressekonferenzen, Reden, Besuchen, Reisen etc. -­‐
Auftritte in TV-­‐Debatten etc. sind trainiert, vorbereitet -­‐
sie sind mediengerecht oder für die Medien oder zur Berichterstattung bestimmt -­‐
sie dienen dem Kandidaten zur Übermittlung einer Botschaft oder zur Verbreitung positiver Bilder -­‐
sie sind an die Öffentlichkeit, Anhänger, bestimmte Gruppen gerichtet -­‐
sie sind gedacht um Aufmerksamkeit Themen oder Öffentlichkeit für Kandidaten zu wecken -­‐
sind finden vor ausgesuchtem (treuem, freundlich-­‐gestimmten) Publikum statt 43 Issue & News Management (agenda building & message control) Referenzen im Beitrag weisen hin auf eine der folgenden Strategien: -­‐
Thematisierung / Media access: Interview geben (aus strategischen Gründen: Palin!); Lancieren Pushen Promoten Besetzen Betonen Hochspielen eines Themas, eines Problems zum eigenen Nutzen (strategic agenda building, strategic priming) -­‐
Framing: Definieren eines Themas in die gewünschte Richtung, Deuten oder Umdeuten, Lenken oder Ablenken, Interpretieren oder Uminterpretieren zum eigenen Nutzen (strategic framing) -­‐
De-­‐Thematisierung: De-­‐Problematisierung, Dementierung, Unterdrücken, Herunterspielen, Vermeiden, Abstreiten eines Themas (agenda cutting). -­‐
Spin control / Media restrictions: Verweigern der Stellungnahme oder eines Interviews (Palin!), nur schriftliches Statement aber kein Interview, trotz Anfragen keine Pressekonferenz, Kandidat gibt nur ausgesuchten Journalisten Interview, bei Auftritt ist keine Presse erlaubt, Massnahmen zur Eindämmung der Berichterstattung, Abschirmen von Kameras (media restrictions) 44 Negative campaigning; Political attacks Referenzen im Beitrag weisen hin auf eine der folgenden Strategien: -­‐
Angriff auf gegnerische Seite durch negative Bewertung von Personen, Politik, Pläne, Programme. -­‐
Angriff auf gegnerische Seite durch Bekanntmachung von Informationen oder Begebenheiten, die schädlich sind oder ein negativ-­‐diskreditierend Licht werfen -­‐
Rebuttal: Demonstrative Zurückweisung von vermeintlichen Angriffen durch öffentliche Missbilligung / Verurteilung -­‐
Kontrast: Demonstratives Betonen von Gegensätzen in Inhalt / Stil / Standpunkten, die die gegnerische Seite in einem negativ-­‐diskreditierenden Licht erscheinen lassen Wichtig: Diese Strategien zielen mehr auf Massenmedien und Publikum als direkt auf den Kontrahenten! ! FILTER: Die folgenden Kategorien NUR dann codieren, wenn es sich im Beitrag um Online-­‐
Marketing oder um Online-­‐PR handelt! 113 Codieranweisung: Die Codes für die Kategorien ‘Online Marketing’ und ‘Online Public Relations’ sind vierstellig. Dabei werden die ersten beiden Ziffern für die Funktion der Publicity-­‐
Massnahmen vergeben (s.o. wie z.B. Political Marketing (20) und Political PR (40), aber auch die Unterkategorien von politischer PR, z.B. Image (41) oder Event Management (42). Die letzten beiden Ziffern bezeichnen im Falle von Online-­‐Marketing bzw. Online-­‐PR das Instrument, mit welchem die Publicity-­‐Massnahme an die Öffentlichkeit übermittelt wird. Codierbeispiel: Ein PR-­‐Event, das von einem Politiker beispielsweise auf der Plattform Twitter angekündigt wird, würde die Codierung 4204 (42=Event Management, 04=Twitter) erhalten. Hinweis: Die Ziffern 2012 bis 2014, bzw. 4?12 bis 4?14 werden vergeben, wenn die Online-­‐
Publicity über ein Instrument erfolgt, das in der Auflistung bisher noch nicht enthalten ist. In diesem Fall wird die nächste freie Nummer vergeben und daraufhin im Codebuch ergänzt. 2000 Online Marketing 4000 Online Public Relations 2001 Partei-­‐ oder Kandidaten-­‐Websites 4001 Partei-­‐ oder Kandidaten-­‐Websites 2002 Soziale Netzwerke wie z.B. Facebook, 4002 Soziale Netzwerke wie z.B. Facebook, Google+, Xing, LinkedIn, etc. Google+, Xing, LinkedIn, etc. 2003 Blogs (einzelner Kandidaten, ganzer 4003 Blogs (einzelner Kandidaten, ganzer Parteien, zu bestimmten Events etc.) Parteien, zu bestimmten Events etc.) 2004 Twitter 4004 Twitter 2005 Videos, die ausdrücklich keine Werbe-­‐ 4005 Videos, die ausdrücklich keine Werbe-­‐
Videos sind (Informationsvideos o.ä.) Videos sind (Informationsvideos o.ä.) 2006 Podcasts 4006 Podcasts 2007 E-­‐Mail (Newsletter, Rundschreiben, 4007 E-­‐Mail (Newsletter, Rundschreiben, Information, partei-­‐interne Verständigung, Information, partei-­‐interne Verständigung, etc.) etc.) 2008 Webforen (wo über bestimmte Themen 4008 Webforen (wo über bestimmte Themen interaktiv diskutiert werden kann) interaktiv diskutiert werden kann) 2009 pdf-­‐Informationsbroschüren 4009 pdf-­‐Informationsbroschüren 2010 virtueller Pressebereich 4010 virtueller Pressebereich 2011 Intranet von Parteien 4011 Intranet von Parteien 2012 4012 2013 4013 2014 4014 2015 Sonstige 4015 Sonstige PC Script-­‐Typen des Publicity-­‐Vermittlungsframe [Script types of the Publicity Conduit Frame] Beschreibung des Publicity-­‐Vermittlungs-­‐Frame: Journalisten berichten über politischer PR/Öffentlichkeitsarbeit unter Betonung ihrer Vermittlungsfunktion; d.h. bei der Darstellung politischer PR/Öffentlichkeitsarbeit überwiegt das Skript reiner „Vermittlung von Publicity-­‐
Informationen“. English frame description: Stories with “publicity conduit frames” contain references that report publicity acts by politicians in a neutral, merely descriptive way (i.e. the media convey briefings or campaign-­‐supplied material in an uncontextualized way). 114 Note on level of analysis of conduit scripts: Skripts des Publicity-­‐Vermittlungsframes sind von einer geringen (basalen) Selbstreferenz gekennzeichnet (s.o.). Hier werden Publicity-­‐
Massnahmen erwähnt oder genannt, ohne dass eine Auseinandersetzung mit ihrer Rolle stattfindet. Die Publicity-­‐Erwähnungen bleiben unreflektiert und werden in keinen grösseren Bedeutungskontext eingebettet. [level of reflection is low; basic reference] Script-­‐Typen des Publicity-­‐Vermittlungsframes PC-­‐41 Neutrale Weiterleitung von Publicity-­‐Inhalten, Publicity Methoden, Publicity-­‐
Personen [neutral dissemination of publicity messages, methods, personnel] Weiter-­‐/Wiedergabe der Botschaft, des Inhalts von politischer Werbung (TV-­‐Spot, Radiospot, Inserate, Plakate) oder Marketing-­‐Materialien (direct mail, etc). Verweis auf Existenz von Publicity-­‐Akteuren, Kanälen, Tätigkeiten (Political Marketing, Kommunikationsberater, Image management, event management, issue management, ...) English: The content of a publiciy message is being disseminated one-­‐to-­‐one; e.g. news on ads, depictions of print ads, re-­‐runs of TV spots, etc. Uncontextualized reference to the fact that a publicity measure exists and is being used by a campaign. PS Script-­‐Typen des Publicity -­‐Strategieframe [Script types of the Publicity Strategy Frame] Beschreibung des Publicity-­‐Strategie-­‐Frame: Der Strategie-­‐Frame drückt den Generalverdacht aus, dass alle Publicity-­‐Massnahmen auf ein inszenatorisches Motive, auf taktisches Kalkül zurückgeführt erden können. In den Augen der Journalisten versuchen Politiker und Publicity-­‐
Experten beständig, die öffentlichkeit und die Medien in ihrem Sinne zu beeinflussen. Anstatt sich diesen Nachrichtensteuerungsbemühungen zu unterwerfen, machen Journalisten diese Strategien in ihren Beiträgen selbst zu Thema. Dies kann einerseits als dekonstruierende Abwehrreaktion gegen Instrumentalisierungsversuche und andererseits als Demonstration der eigenen professionellen Autonomie gedeutet werden. -­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐ Mit diesem Frame werden Publicity-­‐
Maßnahmen wie Werbe-­‐, PR-­‐ und Medienaktionen als hauptsächlich von strategischem Kalkül und taktisch instrumentellen Überlegungen geprägt beschrieben. Politische PR/Publicity wird vielleicht nicht verteufelt, aber als stark interessenbezogen dargestellt. Politische Journalisten gehören sowieso eher zur Gruppe der Public-­‐Relations-­‐Skeptiker (Altmeppen & Löffelholz 1998; Jo 2003; Weiss 2005; McNair 2000). Allerdings wird die intensive Verwendung des Publicity-­‐Strategieframes in den USA mit Politikverdrossenheit und sinkender Medienglaubwürdigkeit in Verbindung gebracht (Kerbel, 1997, 1999, 2001; DeVreese 2008; D’Angelo 2008). English frame description: In general, “strategy frames” emphasize the performance, style, and perceptions of politicians; analyze their maneuvers in the light of calculated underlying rationales; use war and sports language; and focus on generating (public, political and media) support for ones goals. In the present context, “strategy frames” portray political communication as a continuous conflict over message control. Such stories stress the importance of both free and paid media as political tools, as well as stressing the politicians’ desire for positive press and their efforts to achieve it. At times these stories evince a cynical undertone of exposing the manipulative efforts to control information. Stories with “publicity strategy frames” emphasize the tactical considerations and strategic purposes behind publicity moves—usually aimed at influencing the public or the news media. Note on the relationship between this category and the „publicity object“ category: Die meisten Publicity Massnamhmen haben bereits eine inhärent strategische Komponente. [Most publicity measures – as listed in the PO category – have an implicit strategic dimension; this explains some overlap with the PS category.] 115 Script-­‐Typen des Publicity-­‐Strategieframes PS-­‐51 Publicity erfordert Expertise, Diskussion und Bewertung der Strategie und Taktik hinter Publicity-­‐Massnahmen Role: umpire of campaign strategy Allgemeine Oberkategorie, wenn keine andere spezifischere Kategorie codiert werden kann. Publicity-­‐Massnahmen werden thematisiert in ihrer strategischen Bedeutung für den Wahlkampf, in Kontext von Taktik, Kalkül. Im Hinblick darauf, wie gut, erfolgreich sie sind. PS-­‐52 Publicity-­‐Ziel: Beeinflussung der Öffentlichkeit und der Medien [Influencing / persuading the public or the media] (Pfetsch 2008; Hutton 1999; Jo 2003; Plasser Hüffel Lengauer 2004) Publicity-­‐Massnahmen werden thematisiert als Instrument zur Beeinflussung der Öffentlichkeit, der Wähler. Dies sei die angestrebte Intention, das Motiv ihres Einsatzes. Betont wird das strategisch taktische Kalkül hinter ihrem Einsatz. English: Influencing / persuading public opinion, the public agenda, the voters – and the strategic reasoning behind it Publicity-­‐Massnahmen werden thematisiert als Instrument zur Beeinflussung der Medien, im Bemühen um positive Bilder und positive Medienberichterstattung. Betont wird das strategisch taktische Kalkül hinter ihrem Einsatz. English: Influencing / persuading the media, the news agenda, the journalists – and the strategic reasoning behind it PS-­‐53 Publicity-­‐Ziel: Verbesserte Vermittlung von politischen Themen und Zielen [effective ways of communicating policy] (Pfetsch 2008; Zipfel 2008; Hutton 1999; ; Plasser Hüffel Lengauer 2004) Effektivere Vermittlung von politischen Anliegen, von politischen Themen, von politischen Zielen. Der Fokus liegt nicht auf Beeinflussung, Überzeugung, Manipulation, etc sondern auf strategischen Bestrebungen zur verbesserten Vermittlung von Inhalten. [ English: Publicity is used in strategic ways to better communicate political decisions, goals, issues – to pursue political objectives & party goals. This category is more policy-­‐oriented, more ‚European‘ than the more ‚American‘ PS1 category: strategic ways of better communicating political ideas, themes PS-­‐54 Publicity Ziel: Präsentation eines telegenen Images; Aufbau eines positiven Images; strategische Aspekte der Selbstdarstellung [building & selling a positive image] (Pfetsch 2008; Zipfel 2008; Hutton 1999; Jo 2003; Plasser Hüffel Lengauer 2004) Propositionen im Beitrag weisen hin auf den strategisch-­‐kalkulierten Aufbau bzw. der Verstärkung eines positiven eigenen Images English: Strategic personalization of leadership; strategic exploitation of personality features that cater to the human interest dimension of news reporting; portraying politcians as stars; stimulating a politive image in the electorate -­‐
durch kameragerechte Selbstdarstellung in TV-­‐Debatten, professionelle Vorbereitung/Training, ein auf positive Wirkung bedachtes öffentliches/telegenes Erscheinungsbild -­‐
durch Einsatz von Symbolen und Prominenten, welche Führungsstärke, Autorität, Unterstützung, Positiv-­‐Werte ausdrücken -­‐
durch Betonung der fachlichen Kompetenz, Erfahrung, Qualifikation, etc. des Spitzenkandidaten 116 -­‐
durch Betonung der menschlich sympathischen Seite, positiver Charakterzüge des Spitzenkandidaten, seiner Biographie, Überzeugungen, Werte PS-­‐55 Publicity Ziel: Verteidigung -­‐-­‐ Reaktiver Umgang mit öffentlicher Krise, öffentlichen Vorwürfen, Verstrickung in Kontroverse, Verteidigung [defense against accusations, criticism, controversal behavior] (Hutton 1999; Jo 2003) Rebuttal: Demonstrative Zurückweisung von vermeintlichen Angriffen durch öffentliche Missbilligung / Verurteilung English: This category also refers to persuasive publicity but differes from “PS1” in the fact that it arises out of controversy or active opposition. The analogy is to law, insofar as publicity measures serve the role of defending the candidate in the court of public opinion. “Defending” does not necessarily mean defensive tactics, however, given that an aggressive offense is often the best defense. The presence of controversy or active opposition usually dictates this type of publicity strategy. PS-­‐56 Publicity Ziel: Angriffe über die Medien [attack via media], Negative campaigning (Pfetsch 2008) Strategische Motive hinter einer der folgenden Strategien: -­‐
Angriff über die Medien auf gegnerische Seite durch negative Bewertung von Personen, Politik, Pläne, Programme. English: launching messages via the media that attack the opponent -­‐
Angriff auf gegnerische Seite durch Bekanntmachung von Informationen oder Begebenheiten, die schädlich sind oder ein negativ-­‐diskreditierend Licht werfen -­‐
Kontrast: Demonstratives Betonen von Gegensätzen in Inhalt / Stil / Standpunkten, die die gegnerische Seite in einem negativ-­‐diskreditierenden Licht erscheinen lassen English: launching messages via the media that emphasize the contrast between political choices and are imed at discrediting opponent Wichtig: Diese Strategien zielen mehr auf Massenmedien und Publikum als direkt auf den Kontrahenten! English: Important: These strategies are aimed more at the media audience than the opponent. PA Script-­‐Typen des Publicity-­‐Verantwortlichkeitsframe [Publicity Accountability Frame] Beschreibung des Publicity-­‐Verantwortlichkeitsframes: Mittels Publicity-­‐
Verantwortlichkeitsframes wollen Medien die Rezipienten über die beruflichen Praktiken und Orientierungen von PR-­‐und Publicity-­‐Experten aufklären. Beim Framing der politischen Publicity werden instruktive, erhellende Informationen über den Politikvermittlungsprozess hervorgehoben, die den Wählern helfen sollen, realitätsgerechtere Vorstellungen über mediatisierte Politik zu entwickeln. Bei einer derartigen „gemeinwohlorientierten Transparenzmachung und Aufklärung über die Rolle der politischen Publicity im Wahlkampf“ -­‐
bemühen sich Journalisten um eine abwägende, konstruktive Analyse der Bedeutung und Notwendigkeit politischer Publicity bemühten. Dies geschieht z.B., indem Behauptungen in Wahlspots oder TV-­‐Duellen auf ihre Wahrhaftigkeit und Evidenz geprüft worden (i.S. der in den USA üblichen „Reality-­‐Checks“). English frame description: “Accountability frames” in news stories discuss publicity actions within the context of democratic functioning, e.g., how far publicity actors fulfill their role as instruments of democracy. “Publicity accountability frames” provide citizens with useful, instructive and insightful information on the public relations aspects of political action. These explanatory frames are welcomed as an intelligible and potentially empowering commentary. 117 Note on level of analysis of accountability scripts: Propositionen des Verantwortlichkeitsframes sind von einem höheren Analyseniveau gekennzeichnet als Propositionen des Vermittlungs-­‐ oder Strategieframes. Sie bieten Reflexion der PR/Publicity im Wahlkampf. Sie bieten eine Auseinandersetzung mit dem Tätigkeitsfeld, seiner Funktion in der Gesellschaft, seiner Leistungen, seiner Leistungsgrenzen, sowie seiner Interaktionen mit (Medien-­‐) Öffentlichkeit und seiner Abhängigkeit von äusseren Einflüssen und Rahmenbedingungen (Malik 2004: 103). [level of reflection high; self analytical introspection of own role] Script-­‐Typen des Publicity-­‐Verantwortlichkeitsframe PA-­‐61 Publicity-­‐Thematisierung zur Aufklärung der Rezipienten: Erklärung der PR/Publicity Methoden, indem auf das Verhältnis von Medien und Politik erklären eingegangen wird, und/oder indem auf Konsequenzen für Öffentlichkeit, Gesellschaft, Demokratie, Wahlausgang eingegangen wird Ziel: Orientierungs-­‐ und Bildungshilfe für die Bürger (Enlighting the audience) – z.B. unter Beiziehung von Fachleuten A comprehensive discussion of the press/politics relationship needs to take into account the legitimate interest of politicians, parties, and governments in asserting themselves against an autonomous and powerful journalism that pursues an agenda of its own and whose mechanisms and motives are not always exclusively oriented toward the public welfare. A comprehensive, two-­‐sided discussion will take into account that (1) the news media too pursue specific self-­‐interests and that (2) political publicity provides essential information without which the media could not possibly serve their public task. One could even argue that political publicity is a valuable element of the modern democratic process. Effects on quality of the political discourse, quality of democracy, on questions of legitimacy and accountability of political communication actors, on election atmosphere and political culture, on voters attitudes toward politicians and the political system, on participation and turn-­‐out, on involvement of voter segments or societal groups. PA-­‐62 Kritik und Kontrolle von Publicity-­‐Behauptungen / Policing: Holding politicians accountable through ad watch, debate watch, campaign style watch: (Carlin 2008; Tedesco 2008; Mills-­‐Brown 2008) WERBEANALYSE / AD WATCH – a news report that explains and evaluates political advertising content, scrutinizes the claims made in the ad, sorts out truth and falsehoods, checks the facts, and uncovers distortions. It helps voters understand questionable publicity measures and provides citizens assistance in processing and evaluation the content, purpose, role of ad. By questioning true and false (or misleading) claims and serving as an independent source of information, the news media fulfill their fourth estate function and contribute to political discourse. KAMPAGNENANALYSE / CAMPAIGN STYLE WATCH – Attempts to police dishonest or ethically suspect campaigning AUFTRITTSANALYSE / DEBATE WATCH – informative, explanatory or educational accounts that help voters learn something from debates. Facilitate viewers’ acquisition of issue knowledge. Promote civic engagement and heighten viewers’ interest in the election. Debates are viewed as one of the most important forms of campaign communication by the public. Generate the largest viewing audience of any single televised campaign event. Focus on candidates’ issue positions and in-­‐depth arguments and debate and citizen engagement and policy proposals. Or OTHER KINDS OF PUBLICITY WATCHES -­‐ … V. ZUSATZ-­‐KATEGORIEN ZU DEN SKRIPTS [additional categories for each script] Jedes Skript ist um folgende Zusatzcodes zu ergänzen [each script is to be supplemented by the following additional categories] 118 Script-­‐Position [Placement of Script] (Matthes, 2007: 65; Johnson-­‐Cartee 2005: 173; Neuman, Just, and Crigler Common Knowledge 1992: 55, 117). 3 = Primary salience: Das Skript kommt vor in der Anmoderation des Moderators vor, oder es kommt vor in der Beitragseinleitung des Reporters, oder es kommt im Schluss-­‐Statement, der abschliessenden Zusammenfassung des Reporters vor. (Position Salience = Prominence by placement. Script is placed prominently in intro or wrap-­‐up, at beginning or end of story). 2 = Secondary salience: Das Skript kommt im Mittelteil des Beitrags vor, also nicht in Intro oder Wrap-­‐up. (Proportional Salience = Script is placed in middle part of story). Skript-­‐Source, Script Sponsor, Script Initiator [Source of Script] (Matthes 2007: 136, 152, 180) Who is the ‚sponsor‘ of the script? It may be the person who utters it, or another source whose position is re-­‐stated by someone else on screen. If no sponsor is explicitly mentioned, the script will be attributed to the speaker on screen. 1.
Journalist ist zentraler Urheber: der Verfasser des Beitrags oder anderer Medienakteur [Journalist, media pundit like Borger or Gergen] 2.
Politischer Akteur ist zentraler Urheber: Kandidat, Kampagnenmitarbeiter, Parteimitglieder, Unterstützer [Politician, partisan] 3.
Anderer Urheber, der weder der Mediensphäre noch der Politsphäre angehört: Experte, Bürger, … [Other, independent] 4.
Ad-­‐Einbettung durch Journalisten [ad placed in news story] Candidate Connection = Kandidatenbezug im Skript: Zu welchem Kandidaten/zu welcher Partei/zu welchem politischem Lager wird eine Verbindung hergestellt [Reference to Candidate: Is a connection being made to a candidate/party or to the media?] (Matthes 2007: 136, 152, 180) 1.
MitteLinks (Kandidat / Partei / Lager / Unterstützer/ Campaign ): USA = Democrats; IT = PD, Veltroni; CH = SVP, FDP, SD; D = CDU/CSU, FDP; F = SP/Royal 2.
MitteRechts (Kandidat / Partei / Lager / Unterstützer/ Campaign): USA = Republicans; IT = Pdl, Berlusconi; CH = CVP, SP, Grü; D = Linke, Grü, SPD; F = UMP/Sarkozy 3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Alle andern Parteien 8 Zu mehreren; connection to several candidates or parties 9 Zu keinem; no connection to candidate or party Candidate Evaluation = Kandidatenbewertung im Skript: Impliziert Kandidatenbezug eine negative Bewertung? (Matthes 2007: 136, 152, 180) 1.
Negative: Kandidat / Partei / Lager erscheinen in einem Kontext von kritischen / distanzierten / hinterfragenden / kontroversen / unvorteilhaften / negativen Stimmen und Stimmungen. Ein negativer oder pessimistischer Tenor liegt vor, wenn Kritik, Mangel, Gefahren, Risiken, Bedrohungen, Unfähigkeit, Misserfolg, Scheitern, thematisiert wird. [Script is placed in context which conveys a negative, distancing, disadvantageous, controversial atmosphere.] 119 2.
Neutral Or Positive: Kandidat / Partei / Lager (or media) erscheinen in einem Kontext von neutralen oder positiven Stimmen und Stimmungen. [Script is placed in context which conveys a positive or neutral atmosphere.] Visual Info – Contribution of visuals to scripts (Graber Processing politics 2001: 93; Brosius 1990; Grabe & Bucy ICA 2008) 1.
Audio-­‐only: Media oder Publicity Script wird nur durch Text-­‐Information bestimmt [Script is determined only by textual information] 2.
Overlap – Parallel verbal and visual information: Bildinformation entspricht, wiederholt bestätigt unterstreicht Textinformation des Skripts [close word-­‐image relationships; visuals mirror verbal text; visuals offer same information as in text; scene shows literal match between on-­‐screen image and spoken voice-­‐over; spoken words explicitly refer to what is being shown in the visual] 3.
No overlap – Other visual information: Bild liefert andere/ zusätzliche relevante Informationen zur Textinformation des Skripts [Visuals add new information to the verbal text; contribute relevant substantive information to the script] 4.
Visual-­‐only: Media oder Publicity script wird nur durch Bildinformation bestimmt [Script is determined only by visual information] Visual Type – What kind of televised images are used for script? (Graber 1994 The Infotainment quotient)] Pierce: ikonisch indexikalisch symbolisch]. Code only if “Visual Info” is 2, 3, or 4. 1.
Iconic pictures / direkt wiedergebende Bilder: Direkte Darstellung des Script; Script wird live gefilmt; Kamera ist beim script live dabei und filmt es mit. [Live, on-­‐the-­‐scene pictures of the actual script. Authentic visual representation of script. Camera of record-­‐approach. Classic realist representation] 2.
Indexical pictures / interpretierende oder stellvertretende Bilder: Weil direkte Beobachtung des Scripts nicht möglich oder Live Bilder nicht verfügbar sind, werden stattdessen stellvertretende Bilder gezeigt, die das Gemeinte ausdrücken sollen. Es werden Analogien gezogen, Metaphern verwendet, symbolische Köpfe oder Gesten gezeigt. Etwas anderes Ähnliches wird gezeigt. Stand-­‐In pictures. More montage structured journalistic effort. 3.
Schematic / Grafik, Schrifttafel, Tabelle: the use of diagrams, charts, tables, and captions which offer a schematic representation of the audio text. IGNORE BUT DON’T DELETE!!! Selbstthematisierung zur Selbstlegitimierung (Ziel: Paradigm Repair, Image Restoration) Indem Medienselbstthematisierungen die Operationen des Journalismus darstellen sollen Anreize für Vertrauen und Akzeptenz im Publikum gesteigert werden. Ein Ansehens-­‐ und Reputationsverlust der Medien soll durch einen offene Thematisierungsstrategie vermieden werden. Bei Publikum soll Verständnis für die eigenen Operationen erzeugt werden, um eine Abwendung zu verhindern. Insofern liegt es ganz im Sinne des Journalismus selbst, seinem Publikum Selektions-­‐ und Verstehenshilfen zur Verfügung zu stellen -­‐ und damit zum eigenen SystemerhaIt beizutragen (Malik 147ff) Wichtigste Strategie zum Paradigm Repair ist die Marginalisierung der Normenbrecher durch rhetorisches Ausgrenzen von normverletzenden Medienangehörigen; durch klares Abgrenzen von zweifelhaften Methoden; durch eine klare Grenzziehung zwischen Uns (guter Journalismus) und Denen (zweifelhafter Journalismus); durch eine Kontrastierung zwischen insensitiven und sensitiven Journalisten (Hindman 2005; Frank 2003). English: A related purpose of media accountability is to restore citizens’ trust in the media. This is done by distancing good from bad journalism. Stories with this script explore what happens when the paradigm of news is challenged; that is, when a journalist or news organization does not follow the standards and routines expected of an objective professional. One way of dealing with it is that the news organization sets ‘objective’ journalists apart from the ‘unobjective’ journalists. Paradigm repair consists of journalists explaining how ‘we’ represent good, sound common sense while ’they’ have allowed their narrow interests to override the public welfare. The first step is that these reports reassert the value of the paradigm itself. This takes place through affirming the value of objectivity and its consequent professional norms. Second, the news media distance themselves from the threat that the “wayward” journalist represents, primarily by marginalizing the errant journalist and/or news organization or by distinguishing “good journalists” from “those” journalists who have failed to uphold the paradigm. The end result of paradigm repair is that news media can continue operating as before because they have isolated and dismissed the anomaly. 120 10.3 Appendix – Declaration of authorship
121 10.4 Appendix – Curriculum vitae
Person
Name:
Stracabosko
Vorname:
Nika
Geburtsdatum:
29.11.1989
Adresse:
Wattstr. 9
8050 Zürich
Email:
[email protected]
Ausbildung
09/2012 – 06/2014
Universität Zürich
Master of Arts in Sozialwissenschaften
HF: Publizistik- und
Kommunikationswissenschaften
NF: Politikwissenschaften, Psychologie
09/2009 – 06/2012
Universität Zürich
Bachelor of Arts in Sozialwissenschaften
HF: Publizistik- und
Kommunikationswissenschaften
NF: Politikwissenschaften, Psychologie
08/2005 – 07/2009
Kantonsschule Wettingen, AG
122