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Positive news is advantageous for a political party, but the effects of negative news are less obvious, especially in a multiparty system. Three models are outlined: (1) an indecision model, in which negative information would push voters to the undecided category; (2) a proportional model, in which voters would move to other parties in proportion to their share of the vote; & (3) a proximity model, in which the shift would be to parties holding viewpoints similar to those of the criticized party. These three models were tested using the ideodynamic model for the 1994 elections in the Netherlands & Germany. The explanatory variables were content analysis data obtained daily for major print & electronic news media. The dependent variable was weekly survey data of preferences of voters. The analysis showed the proportional model to be the least plausible, & the proximity model the most promising. Campaign strategists starting from the proximity model will both promote negative news about other parties & adopt their issue positions. 6 Tables, 3 Figures, 31 References. Adapted from the source document.

Abstract. This article shows that issue coverage in the media partly explains both the political landslide at the 1994 elections in the Netherlands and the political continuity in the 1994 elections in Germany. Theories of issue voting guided the research. Issue ownership theory maintains that voters will remember which party has the best record of solving problems in emphasized issue areas. Proximity models and directional models suggest that voters' own issue positions will be compared to the perceived issue positions of parties. A longitudinal content analysis of ten newspapers and five television news programmes was performed to ascertain selective issue emphasis and the issue positions attributed to parties. Election outcomes and weekly opinion polls were used to measure the volatility of the vote.

This article shows that issue coverage in the media partly explains both the political landslide at the 1994 elections in the Netherlands and the political continuity in the 1994 elections in Germany. Theories of issue voting guided the research. Issue ownership theory maintains that voters will remember which party has the best record of solving problems in emphasized issue areas. Proximity models and directional models suggest that voters' own issue positions will be compared to the perceived issue positions of parties. A longitudinal content analysis of ten newspapers and five television news programmes was performed to ascertain selective issue emphasis and the issue positions attributed to parties. Election outcomes and weekly opinion polls were used to measure the volatility of the vote. (European Journal of Political Research / FUB)

The aim of this study is to assess the relative strength of the reciprocal causal relationships between the political agenda (the party agenda), the mass media agenda and the public agenda. Although the research literature is rather confusing and inconclusive, three causal patterns have often been suggested. The economic theory of representative democracy ('public choice' theory) assumes bottom-up agenda-setting. The political agenda is assumed to respond to the public agenda. However, theories on political communication suggest top-down agenda-setting. The political agenda would set the media agenda, which in turn would set the public agenda. The central tenet of mediacracy theory is the proposition that the media agenda sets both the public agenda and the political agenda. This article uses data on economic issues in the Netherlands in the period 1980-1986 and linear structural equations models to test these three causal patterns. The results warrant both bottom-up and top-down agenda-setting, but the mediacracy model is rejected. The conclusion should be that the economic theory of democracy, which prevails in the political science journals, has to incorporate findings from political communication research. (European Journal of Political Research / AuD)

"Der Beitrag behandelt die Frage, ob und wie Informationen über Regierungspolitik in den Medien die Zufriedenheit und das Vertrauen der Bürger in die Regierung beeinflussen. Die Studie geht von der Annahme aus, dass sich die Zufriedenheit der Bürger mit der Regierungspolitik im Laufe der Legislaturperiode in Abhängigkeit von den politischen Informationen über Politiken verändert. Die Autoren erwarten, dass eine neue Regierung versuchen wird, die Zufriedenheit der Bürger zu erhöhen, indem sie das Ziel kommuniziert, sie könne die wichtigen Probleme des Landes lösen. Vor den nächsten Wahlen hingegen müssen die amtierenden Regierungsparteien die Kommunikationsstrategie ändern und von zielgerichteter Kommunikation hin zu erfolgsorientierter Kommunikation wechseln. Die Annahmen werden mit Daten einer täglichen Längsschnitt-Inhaltsanalyse von 24 Zeitungen geprüft. Analysiert wurde die Medienberichterstattung über 55 politischen Entscheidungen. Diese Daten wurden mit Umfragedaten über politische Zufriedenheit sowie Wahlkampfdaten kombiniert. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass während der Mitte der Legislaturperiode auf allen Ebenen Unzufriedenheit herrscht und dass die Zufriedenheit der Bürger in dieser Phase der Regierungsperiode mehr von der Ankündigung von Zielen als von erfolgsorientierter Kommunikation abhängt. Die Wahlkampfdaten zeigen aber, dass die größte amtierende Partei trotzdem von erfolgsorientierter Kommunikation profitieren konnte." (Autorenreferat)

Issues that touch on the separation of powers, that is, on the relationship between parliament, government and the judiciary, and on the relationship between the Public Prosecution Service, the legal profession and the judge, have been rife in the news of the past twenty years ( for example IRT affair, acquittal of terror suspects, trial Wilders). The separation of powers is part of most Dutch definitions of the rule of law. The research resulting from this WODC publication is aimed at identifying trends and patterns in messages (from newspapers, television news bulletins, news websites, Twitter) over the past twenty years that could affect confidence in the rule of law. It was examined whether text mining, that is, automated text analysis or "content analysis", is an appropriate research tool. - Kwesties die raken aan de scheiding der machten, dat wil zeggen, aan de verhouding tussen volksvertegenwoordiging, regering en rechterlijke macht, en aan de verhouding tussen OM, de advocatuur, en de rechter waren schering en inslag in het nieuws van de afgelopen twintig jaar (bijvoorbeeld IRT-affaire, vrijspraak terreurverdachten, proces-Wilders). De scheiding der machten vormt een onderdeel van de meeste Nederlandse definities van de rechtsstaat. Het onderzoek waaruit deze WODC-publicatie voortvloeit, is gericht op het onderkennen van trends en patronen in berichten (uit dagbladen, televisienieuwsbulletins, nieuwswebsites, Twitter) van de afgelopen twintig jaar die het vertrouwen in de rechtsstaat zouden kunnen beïnvloeden. Nagegaan werd of tekstmining, dat wil zeggen, geautomatiseerde tekstanalyse of 'inhoudsanalyse', daarbij een geschikt onderzoeksmiddel is.

The central question in this study is whether the power of the media agenda over the political agenda has recently increased. The agenda-building dynamics are established using cross-country time-series data on four issues, covering fifteen and eight years respectively of British and Dutch parliamentary debates and newspaper articles. Structural equation models show that the parliamentary agenda is more influenced by the media agenda than the other way around, and that the power balance has shifted even more in favour of the media. It is additionally found that media power is especially associated with issues within the European domain. This study contributes empirically to the 'mediatization' debate in a EU context, which is largely limited to the realm of theoretical speculation. (British Journal of Political Science / FUB)

The central question in this study is whether the power of the media agenda over the political agenda has recently increased. The agenda-building dynamics are established using cross-country time-series data on four issues, covering fifteen and eight years respectively of British and Dutch parliamentary debates and newspaper articles. Structural equation models show that the parliamentary agenda is more influenced by the media agenda than the other way around, and that the power balance has shifted even more in favour of the media. It is additionally found that media power is especially associated with issues within the European domain. This study contributes empirically to the 'mediatization' debate in a EU context, which is largely limited to the realm of theoretical speculation.

Analysis of political communication is an important aspect of political research. Thematic content analysis has yielded considerable success both with manual and automatic coding, but Semantic Network Analysis has proven more difficult, both for humans and for the computer. This article presents a system for an automated Semantic Network Analysis of Dutch texts. The system automatically extracts relations between political actors based on the output of syntactic analysis of Dutch newspaper articles. Specifically, the system uses pattern matching to find source constructions and determine the semantic agent and patient of relations, and name matching and anaphora resolution to identify political actors. The performance of the system is judged by comparing the extracted relations to manual codings of the same material. Results on the level of measurement indicate acceptable performance. We also estimate performance at the levels of analysis by using a case study of media authority, resulting in good correlations between the theoretical variables derived from the automatic and manual analysis. Finally, we test a number of substantive hypotheses with regression models using the automatic and manual output, resulting in highly similar models in each case. This suggests that our method has sufficient performance to be used to answer relevant political questions in a valid way. Adapted from the source document.