Anita M. J. van Hoof

Negative News and the Sleeper Effect of Distrust

The role of the media in the creation of distrust is much debated in political communication. Will negative news, for example, relentless attacks on political authorities, result in political cynicism or in a stimulation effect? By and large the media may stimulate political participation,but it is less clear when negative news will nullify this effect. Negative news may not only have short-term behavioral effects but also effects on underlying attitudes such as trust in politicians, which may produce their “sleeper effect” on political behavior only in the long run. This article addresses two related research questions.Will negative news discourage trust in political leaders? Will trust have a sleeper effect for future party choice and future turnout within the months to come? The 2002 Dutch election campaign,being an unprecedented negative campaign as compared to other Dutch campaigns, provides a good case to investigate these questions. On the basis of a biweekly seven-wave panel survey study and a daily content analysis of television news and newspapers,negative news was found to have a significant effect on trust in party leaders in addition to prior vote preference and education.The distrust in party leaders also had a significant sleeper effect in the long run on turnout and on the actual vote in addition to previous intentions.In general,these findings support the malaise theory. They are helpful to explain why the Christian Democrats could win the elections in defiance of the polls.

Media logic in election campaign coverage

The media logic thesis holds that the content of political news is the product of news values and format requirements that media make use of to attract news consumers. This study tests whether three content characteristics – personalized, contest and negative coverage – manifest a single media logic by analysing whether they co-vary over time. It also tests the implicit assumption underlying the media logic thesis that media adhere to a single media logic as one institution. A semantic network analysis measured the degree to which television and newspaper coverage of five Dutch national election campaigns (1998–2010) contained the three content characteristics. The study shows that personalized, contest and negative coverage form three indicators of a single logic that is shared by different media. Since the turn of the century, Dutch political news has simultaneously become decreasingly personalized, less focused on the contest and less negative.

Expecting reciprocity: Towards a model of the participants’ perspective on participatory journalism

This study examines ‘participatory journalism’ from the perspective of participants. Through a series of in-depth interviews with 32 participants from two different participatory journalistic environments set up by professional news organizations, we investigated how participants view and evaluate their participation in journalism. We propose that participants views progress through a series of four stages: anticipation, participation, evaluation and reconsideration. A clear breach is observed between the stage of anticipation and evaluation. We propose that this breach could be couched in terms of both a need and a wish for reciprocity, but also a lack of it. The term ‘reciprocity’ is inspired by Lewis et al.’s notion of ‘reciprocal journalism’ and Loosen and Schmidt’s conceptualization of journalism as a ‘social system’. Implications for the study of participatory journalism and journalism practitioners are discussed.

Diverse politics, diverse news coverage? A longitudinal study of diversity in Dutch political news during two decades of election campaigns

Although diverse political news has been recognized as a requirement for a well-functioning democracy, longitudinal research into this topic is sparse. In this article, we analyse the development of diversity in election coverage in the Netherlands between 1994 and 2012. We distinguish between diversity for party and issue coverage, and look at differences between diversity in newspapers and television news. Results show that news diversity varies over time. Diversity for party types increased over time. We found no clear trend for diversity of issue dimensions. Compared to newspapers, television news is more diverse for party types but less diverse on issue dimensions. The question concerning whether these findings are an indicator of structural bias is discussed.

Media Coverage of Government Policies and Citizen Satisfaction with Information Provision and Policy Results

This study poses the question of how public information contributes to citizen satisfaction or dissatisfaction with government policies. Public information efforts, “irrespective of their importance for the public’s welfare, do not make it onto the radar screens of social science researchers”, according to a recent review of Graber (Graber/Smith 2005: 482, 497). Remarkably enough, satisfaction with government policies is nevertheless believed to be one of the key determinants not only of electoral choices but also of public participation (Mueller 2003). Governments in Western democracies use the Internet, public libraries, press releases, and parliamentary debates to disclose policy information. To further specific policy aims, governments occasionally use advertisements (e. g. reducing cigarette smoking, firework risks, energy consumption) or direct mail (e. g. information pamphlets about the EU constitutional treaty referendum). Since most citizens obtain their information on policies from the news media, however, most public information efforts are targeted directly or indirectly at the media. Politicians and public information officials spend time and effort to influence citizen perceptions and citizen satisfaction by framing the issues for journalists (Jacobs/Shapiro 2000). Hence, our study investigates how the news on government policies influences satisfaction with government policies.