International audience ; This study tests competing hypotheses about public support for European integration and projects referendum voting behaviour. It emphasizes anti-immigration sentiments as a key variable for understanding reluctance about integration. Drawing on survey data, it is shown that anti-immigration sentiments, economic considerations and the evaluation of domestic governments are the strongest predictors of both attitudinal support for integration and individuals' propensity to vote 'yes' in a referendum on the enlargement of the European Union (EU).
This study tests competing hypotheses about public support for European integration and projects referendum voting behaviour. It emphasizes anti-immigration sentiments as a key variable for understanding reluctance about integration. Drawing on survey data, it is shown that anti-immigration sentiments, economic considerations and the evaluation of domestic governments are the strongest predictors of both attitudinal support for integration and individuals' propensity to vote 'yes' in a referendum on the enlargement of the European Union (EU).
Media coverage can influence how citizens think about their political leaders. This study explores how three types of media bias (visibility bias, tonality bias, and agenda bias) affect voter assessments of politicians' traits. Bias effects should be stronger for political traits (such as competence) than for nonpolitical traits (such as likability). Biases may also interact in their effects: Specifically, visibility bias should moderate the impact of tonality bias. Combining media, party, and survey data through manual content analysis of newspaper coverage ( N = 2,680) and party press releases ( N = 1,794), as well as a three-wave voter survey ( n = 927) during the 2013 Austrian election campaign, we find substantial effects of tonality bias and agenda bias on political trait perceptions. The effects are less clear for nonpolitical trait perceptions. Although visibility bias has no direct impact, there is evidence that it moderates effects of tonality bias on candidate perceptions.
While news media are frequently criticized for their alleged increasing reliance on 'subsidized content' provided by sources and news agencies, this claim is seldom empirically verified. Based on insights from computer science, this study proposes an approach to quantitatively compare source, news agency and newspaper content over time. Including press releases from two corporate actors and one nongovernmental actor as well as articles of news agencies and newspapers, the approach is applied to the debate about nuclear energy in the Netherlands (2003–2012). Results show no indication of an increased similarity of newspapers' content with either source content or news agency content, thus providing no justification for the concerns about an increasing dependency of newspapers on subsidized content. Contradicting literature, we found that media content is most similar to the nongovernmental organization's content, with the exception of one regional newspaper that strongly reflects the local corporation's content.
Bias in political news coverage may have a profound influence on voter opinions and preferences. However, the concept of media bias actually encompasses different sub-types: Visibility bias is the salience of political actors, tonality bias the evaluation of these actors, and agenda bias the extent to which parties address preferred issues in media coverage. The present study is the first to explore how each type of bias influences party preferences. Using data from the Austrian parliamentary election campaign of 2013, we combine an online panel survey ( n = 1,285) with measures of media bias from content analyses of party press releases ( n = 1,922) and media coverage in eight newspapers ( n = 6,970). We find substantial effects on party preferences for tonality bias and agenda bias, while visibility bias has no clear impact. Voters who are less politically sophisticated and lack a party identification are more susceptible to bias, and media bias can also reinforce existing partisan identities.
Although it is generally acknowledged that national elites and the mass media play an important role in the way that societies come to terms with a legacy of war crimes, there is little empirical knowledge about whether and how the mass media actually do contribute to a process of 'facing the past'. Based on the case of Serbia, this study examines press media coverage of war crimes and war crime judiciary during the country's recent post-war period. Adopting a novel approach to the conceptualization and measurement of media frames, the article compares the reporting of war crimes issues in four Serbian newspapers during the period from 2004 to 2006. Five frames were identified: an injustice frame, a denial frame, a factual frame, a benefits frame, and a rejection frame. In conclusion, the study reveals a discourse that is both 'perpetrator centered' and – particularly for the nationalistic press – ethnically biased.
The phenomenon of (media) personalisation has generated a considerable amount of scholarly attention and is regarded as being a significant aspect of contemporary politics and political communication. To investigate long-term trends in personalisation, this study draws on a unique data set that is composed of Dutch and British newspaper articles from a sixteen-year period. The evidence suggests that personalisation is present in both countries, but its realisation differs in each country: where the UK is characterised by a concentration of attention towards the prominent offices and the Prime Minister, the Netherlands has seen an increased visibility of the 'non-prominent' Cabinet members. The second part of the study investigates the impact of various events on the visibility levels of the most prominent ministerial functions, with particular attention paid to the Prime Minister. Leaders appear not to be more in the foreground during national crises. Finally, the explanatory power of events for determining the visibility of Cabinet members does not seem to increase in importance over time.
The phenomenon of (media) personalisation has generated a considerable amount of scholarly attention and is regarded as being a significant aspect of contemporary politics and political communication. To investigate long-term trends in personalisation, this study draws on a unique data set that is composed of Dutch and British newspaper articles from a sixteen-year period. The evidence suggests that personalisation is present in both countries, but its realisation differs in each country: where the UK is characterised by a concentration of attention towards the prominent offices and the Prime Minister, the Netherlands has seen an increased visibility of the 'non-prominent' Cabinet members. The second part of the study investigates the impact of various events on the visibility levels of the most prominent ministerial functions, with particular attention paid to the Prime Minister. Leaders appear not to be more in the foreground during national crises. Finally, the explanatory power of events for determining the visibility of Cabinet members does not seem to increase in importance over time. Adapted from the source document.
Although it is generally acknowledged that national elites and the mass media play an important role in the way that societies come to terms with a legacy of war crimes, there is little empirical knowledge about whether and how the mass media actually do contribute to a process of 'facing the past'. Based on the case of Serbia, this study examines press media coverage of war crimes and war crime judiciary during the country's recent post-war period. Adopting a novel approach to the conceptualization and measurement of media frames, the article compares the reporting of war crimes issues in four Serbian newspapers during the period from 2004 to 2006. Five frames were identified: an injustice frame, a denial frame, a factual frame, a benefits frame, and a rejection frame. In conclusion, the study reveals a discourse that is both 'perpetrator centered' and -- particularly for the nationalistic press -- ethnically biased. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder]
With the rising popularity of digital reading media, leisure reading is undergoing a transformation process. However, the reasons for readers to adopt e-book reading or to stick to traditional printed books are mainly unknown. Therefore, we explored demographic and motivational differences between print readers, digital readers, and readers using both reading media. We further studied their book-reading practices, like the amount of reading, the preferred genres, the different reading situations, and if there are dedicated reading media for specific genres or situations. Additionally, we explored if digital reading media have changed the reading process or just appeal to a certain type of reader. Therefore, we conducted a survey ( n = 779) of adult book readers about their leisure reading behavior. The results show that print readers, digital readers, and readers using both media differ in age, gender, amount of reading, genre preference, and the situations in which they read. Furthermore, digital reading media especially foster reading on the move.
We present Meteor, a new inventory for European news sources (i.e. EU + UK, CH, NO, IL): https://wp3.opted.eu/ . This inventory will facilitate researchers' efforts to select sources across platforms and gather related textual data. It contains the names of print and online news sources, social media accounts, news blogs, and alternative news media sources, as well as rich meta-information for each entry (e.g. language, audience size, topical focus, ownership structures, access to full-text archives, secondary data, related research). Meteor accounts for the fuzziness of hybrid media systems through an interlinked knowledge graph. Entries are submitted by researchers, validated, continuously updated, and openly accessible to the public. Our inventory allows users to find various European news sources based on a wide range of criteria, putting scholars in a better position to navigate the European media landscape.
The EU is diagnosed with a participation deficit, rooted in a lack of public communication. While news media are the primary source of information about EU politics, social media have become an important channel for political information. Importantly, social media platforms offer unique opportunities for citizens to engage with information about the EU. Such engagement is under-researched despite users' responses offering valuable information about the potential effects of EU news on public engagement. Therefore, we systematically analyze social media users' engagement with news about the EU. Drawing on the concepts of news values and shareworthiness, we investigate the proximity, conflictuality, negativity, and emotionality of EU news content posted on mainstream media Facebook accounts to explain the variation in reactions, shares, and number of comments. Using semi-supervised machine learning, we analyze articles from the largest newspapers in Austria for the period 2015–2019, along with Facebook users' reactions to them. Results resonate only partly with prior literature, with negativity of EU news leading to more reactions and shares but fewer comments; emotionality, to fewer reactions and shares but more comments; and conflict mainly decreasing user engagement. Concerning proximity, a national angle leads to distinctly more engagement, whereas news about other EU member states and the EU as such do mostly not. Our study contributes to the discussion on how citizens engage with information on the EU and how to promote informed debate on social media through elites' communication.
