James Stanyer

The personalization of mediated political communication: A review of concepts, operationalizations and key findings

Personalization has become a central concept in discussions on how political news, and election coverage in particular, has changed over time. The general belief is that the focus of news coverage has shifted from parties and organizations to candidates and leaders. However, the evidence is far from conclusive. This is due in no small part to a lack of conceptual clarity and an absence of common operationalizations which are a major cause of the unclear or conflicting conclusions about the personalization of political news. This article seeks to remedy this shortcoming. It presents a model for comprehending the personalization of political news based on a review of relevant studies. The article makes a series of recommendations for how the concept might be operationalized for an analysis of media content in order to enable cross-nationally comparative research.

Hard and soft news: A review of concepts, operationalizations and key findings

Over 30 years, a large body of research on what is often called ‘hard’ and ‘soft news’ has accumulated in communication studies. However, there is no consensus about what hard and soft news exactly is, or how it should be defined or measured. Moreover, the concept has not been clearly differentiated from or systematically related to concepts addressing very similar phenomena – tabloidization and ‘infotainment’. Consequently, the results of various studies are hard to compare and different scientific discourses on related issues remain unconnected. Against this backdrop, this article offers a conceptual analysis of the concept based on studies in English and other languages. We identify key dimensions of the concept and make suggestions for a standardized definition and multi-dimensional measurement of harder and softer news. In doing so, we propose to distinguish thematic, focus and style features as basic dimensions that – in their combination – make up harder and softer types of news.

Mediatization: key concept or conceptual bandwagon?

Mediatization is emerging as an influential new concept that places the media at the centre of all kinds of important cultural, political and social developments. However, it has so far attracted little critical evaluation. In this article the authors identify three areas of concern, namely, how causal processes are thought about, how historical change is understood, and how concepts are designed. It is hoped this article will generate critical debate and reflection to prevent the term from being applied so inconsistently and indiscriminately that it becomes a ‘concept of no difference’.

Political Information Opportunities in Europe: A Longitudinal and Comparative Study of Thirteen Television Systems

This study examines the supply of political information programming across thirteen European broadcast systems over three decades. The cross-national and cross-temporal design traces the composition and development of political information environments with regard to the amount and placement of news and current affairs programs on the largest public and private television channels. It finds that the televisual information environments of Israel and Norway offer the most advantageous opportunity structure for informed citizenship because of their high levels of airtime and a diverse scheduling strategy. The study contributes to political communication research by establishing “political information environments” as a theoretically and empirically grounded concept that informs and supplements the comparison of “media systems.” If developed further, it could provide an information-rich, easy-to-measure macro-unit for future comparative research.

Reader opinion in the digital age: tabloid and broadsheet newspaper websites and the exercise of political voice

This article explores interactive opportunities provided by British broadsheet and tabloid newspapers’ websites and the ways their readers make use of these opportunities to express their opinions. The article presents the results of both a quantitative and a qualitative analysis of national British broadsheet and tabloid newspaper websites. The research reveals some similarities between newspapers – for example, that interactive opportunities remain under utilized – but also some significant differences in the ways that visitors to broadsheet and tabloid websites use the interactive facilities on offer and engage in discussion. The conclusion suggests that the deliberative democratic potential of online discussion is a long way from the deliberative ideal.

ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES, ONLINE SELF-PRESENTATION AND THE PERSONAL VOTE:Party, personality and webstyles in the United States and United Kingdom

This article examines the way politicians package themselves to their constituents via the Web. It looks at various aspects of online self-promotion by incumbent representatives in two advanced industrial democracies – the US and the UK. It seeks to ascertain the extent to which personal qualities are a key aspect of an elected representatives online persona, and any differences that exist between these democracies with different electoral cultures. It concludes by considering the findings of empirical research and what it reveals about the relationship between national electoral cultures and the politicians persona.

Comparative media analysis: Why some fuzzy thinking might help. Applying fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis to the personalization of mediated political communication

This article examines the benefits of fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) for comparative media research. It shows the advantages of fuzzy set theoretic thinking in examining the causes of a major feature of contemporary political communication research, namely personalization. The article has three parts. The first is a critique of the method adopted by Hallin and Mancini, a generally laudable and highly influential recent contribution to comparative media analysis. The second is a brief introduction to fsQCA. The third demonstrates the method’s usefulness by investigating the personalized character of mediated political communication.

Political communication in a high-choice media environment: a challenge for democracy?

ABSTRACT During the last decennia media environments and political communication systems have changed fundamentally. These changes have major ramifications for the political information environments and the extent to which they aid people in becoming informed citizens. Against this background, the purpose of this article is to review research on key changes and trends in political information environments and assess their democratic implications. We will focus on advanced postindustrial democracies and six concerns that are all closely linked to the dissemination and acquisition of political knowledge: (1) declining supply of political information, (2) declining quality of news, (3) increasing media concentration and declining diversity of news, (4) increasing fragmentation and polarization, (5) increasing relativism and (6) increasing inequality in political knowledge.

‘Mediatization and’ or ‘Mediatization of’? A response to Hepp et al.:

We welcome Hepp et al.’s (2015) response to our recent critique of the concept of ‘Mediatization’ (Deacon and Stanyer, 2014), which they also use to showcase new literature on this topic. Their article demonstrates why further robust debate on this matter is needed. For when internationally renowned academics start to declare ‘paradigmatic shifts’, then a much wider community of scholars need to consider whether or not the earth is moving for them (see Hepp et al., 2015: 314–315, 321).

Exposing politicians' peccadilloes in comparative context: explaining the frequency of political sex scandals in eight democracies using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis

Political sex scandals are largely absent in some democracies but proliferate in others. However, there have so far been few if any comprehensive attempts to document the actual number of sex scandals that have occurred and to explain their presence (and, indeed, absence), and the one study that has (Barkers 1994 study) ended in the early 1990s and had numerous problems in relation to defining and documenting such scandals. Based on extensive research, this article documents the number of sex scandals in eight advanced industrial democracies and tries to explain their occurrence using Charles Ragins fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis. The article has three goals: to determine the number of sex scandals in different democracies, explain why this might be, and demonstrate the utility of fuzzy set qualitative case analysis for small- and medium-N comparative research.