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Conflict framing is key in political communication. Politicians use conflict framing in their online messages (e.g., criticizing other politicians) and journalists in their political coverage (e.g., reporting on political tensions). Conflicts can take a variety of forms and can provoke different reactions. However, the literature still lacks a systematic and theoretically-grounded conceptual framework that accounts for the multi-dimensionality of political conflict frames. Based on literature from political epistemology, political communication, and related fields such as psychology, we present four conceptual dimensions of political conflicts: (1) the style (civil/uncivil); (2) the subject (personal/substantive); (3) whether it is about underlying moral/epistemic principles or not (deep/superficial conflict); and (4) whether it concerns a normative or factual issue. Results of a content analysis of newspaper articles and politicians' tweets confirm the usage of these conflict dimensions in the Netherlands during a non-election period. Interestingly, most of the conflicts are civil, substantive, and do not highlight deep fundamental clashes. In light of the current societal concerns about the lack of respect in political debates and the deepening of our political divides, these findings can be considered encouraging.

In the time since the rise of the Internet, it has often been claimed that it has the potential to contribute to the quality of democracy by fostering citizens' involvement in politics. So far, empirical evidence regarding this purported effect has been mixed, and many questions about the consequences of specific forms of political Internet use (PIU) have remained unanswered. This study expands the knowledge about the relation between PIU and political involvement by examining the effect of active and passive forms of PIU on citizens' political involvement: more specifically, interest and voter turnout during election times. The results obtained from a panel study of a representative sample of the Dutch population ( N = 985) reveal a positive relation between particular forms of PIU on the one hand and voter turnout and political interest on the other hand. In addition, for two specific forms of PIU, the positive effect on voter turnout is more prevalent for citizens who exhibit lower levels of political interest.

Political parties and politicians increasingly use the possibilities of the Internet to communicate interactively with citizens and vice versa. The Internet also offers opportunities for individual politicians to profile themselves. These developments are often said to bring politics closer to citizens, increasing their political engagement in politics. Empirical evidence for such claims is, however, scarce. In a scenario experiment and a laboratory experiment using real-world websites, the authors examine whether more personalized online communication (a focus on individual politicians) and the use of interactive features increase political involvement among citizens. The results from both studies demonstrate that both highly interactive and personalized online communication do increase citizens' political involvement. Moreover, it was also found that political personalization positively moderates the effect of interactivity on political involvement, meaning that the effects of interactivity are even stronger in a personalized setting.

The expanding political role of Big Tech(nology) corporations has triggered concerns about the role of the media in holding corporate power to account. This study provides a comprehensive understanding of role dynamics between journalists and lobbyists toward the agenda for Big Tech's responsibilities. Based on semi-structured interviews with European journalists ( n = 15) and lobbyists representing large technology corporations ( n = 15), we use professional role perceptions as a heuristic for examining the relationship of both actor groups in tandem. Journalists, who report an overlap of audience-focused with passive watchdog role ideals geared toward legislative accountability, interact with lobbyists, who assert a more concrete and active role perception. Journalists cautiously appropriate their normative watchdog role in accordance with the ideals of detachment and balance to maintain their own media legitimacy and access to an oligopolistic information environment. Remaining strategically sovereign over information, lobbyists perceive a strong mandate to establish Big Tech as a relevant stakeholder in the agenda on their regulatory accountability, but in mid of a perceived techlash, the majority of corporations avoid public attention. Both actor groups' limited and off-the-record interaction reflects a defensive corporate stance, keeping their negotiation of Big Tech's accountability off-stage. The technological and regulatory complexity of the information environment might render these corporations unfit for soft regulation by news media. We discuss implications for their co-dependence in the context of fast technological advancement and disruption of (corporate) mediatization processes.

Abstract
As aging populations put pressure on pension systems worldwide, pension reforms have dominated the (political) agenda in many countries for years. The media are essential information providers on such hotly debated issues. By selecting and highlighting certain aspects of an issue and glossing over others, also known as framing, news media can propagate a particular interpretation of the issue to the public. This study therefore approaches pension reform from the perspective of the media by examining how news frames of pension reform (i.e., responsibility frame and justice frame) influence how citizens perceive and respond to pension reform. Findings of an online survey-embedded experiment (N = 762) show that citizens who encountered a news frame that emphasized individual or collective responsibility for pensions showed a stronger preference for this type of responsibility; however, this effect was only positive if news media also framed individual or collective responsibility for pensions as just. In fact, exposure to an unjust frame leads to more negative attitudes toward the specific form of responsibility. Regarding individual differences, lower-educated people are more strongly impacted by the responsibility frame than higher-educated people. The strength of framing effects did not differ among citizens of different ages or levels of solidarity, nor between citizens who received the frames via their primary mode of news use and the ones exposed to a less preferred mode of news use. This study shows the importance of news framing in shaping citizens' attitudes toward pension reforms, suggesting that media coverage matters in the public debate on pensions.

To explain which politicians make it into the news, this study considers the influence of the personal interactions between political journalists and politicians. While theoretically plausible, there is little empirical evidence that the personal interactions between reporters and politicians are associated with news content. This study draws on a survey of political journalists combined with a content analysis of their newspaper articles to analyze how personal interactions with politicians and the background characteristics of journalists relate to their news-making. Overall, it is found that journalists report more often and more positively about politicians they have personal contact with and about those politicians who hold similar political views. Hence, personal interactions with journalists can be useful for politicians to attract (positive) media coverage.

ABSTRACTOlder employees face a severe employability problem, partly because of dominant stereotypes about them. This study investigates stereotypes of older employees in corporate and news media. Drawing on the Stereotype Content Model, we content analysed newspaper coverage and corporate media of 50 large-scale Dutch organisations, published between 2006 and 2013. The data revealed that stereotypical portrayals of older employees are more common in news media than in corporate media and mixed in terms of valence. Specifically, older employees were positively portrayed with regard to warmth stereotypes, such as trustworthiness, but negatively with regard to competence stereotypes, such as technological competence and adaptability. Additionally, stereotypical portrayals that do not clearly belong to warmth or competence dimensions are found, such as the mentoring role stereotype and the costly stereotype. Because competence stereotypes weigh more heavily in employers' productivity perceptions, these media portrayals might contribute to the employability problem of older employees. We suggest that older employees could benefit from a more realistic media debate about their skills and capacities.