Nael Jebril

Infotainment, cynicism and democracy: the effects of privatization vs personalization in the news

This cross-national study examines the effects of infotainment on cynicism about politics in Denmark, Britain and Spain. Drawing on panel surveys and media content analyses the study distinguishes between privatization and personalization elements in infotainment content and tests for their separate effects on political cynicism. The results suggest that the differential presence of infotainment elements is more consistent among countries than between media or news outlets. Exposure to privatization content has a positive effect on cynicism across the board. Exposure to personalization elements only increases cynicism among segments who are more interested in politics, and it decreases cynicism among the less interested segments. The results are discussed in the light of research on conditional media effects.

Political Journalism in Comparative Perspective: Does Infotainment Journalism Lead to Political Cynicism?

The Effects of Privatization versus Personalization in the News In the previous chapter we examined the effects of human-interest and conflict frames on political knowledge, and showed how especially those with lower levels of political interest may benefit from exposure to such political news. Along the same lines we will now examine the effects of infotainment coverage on citizens with various levels of political interest. Our key question is whether political journalism that draws on entertainment features in the news leads to political cynicism. Journalists are often criticized for blurring the line between news and entertainment. This phenomenon, also known as “infotainment,” is subject to continuous debate among political communication scholars regarding its causes, meaning, and most importantly its effects on citizens and democracy (see Brants, 1998). While differentiation between information and entertainment is much contested, it is important to note that news is never likely to be 100 percent entertainment. Traditionally, however, the expectation has been that news should be informative. In Chapter 1 we outlined the information-entertainment continuum as one of the core concepts of this book. We investigated the importance of this dimension for journalists’ self-perceptions (Chapter 3) and the content they produce (Chapter 5). In this chapter we turn to the effects of exposure to infotainment.