Sharon Coen

Cross‐National versus Individual‐Level Differences in Political Information: A Media Systems Perspective

Abstract We propose a context‐dependent approach to the study of political information. Combining a content analysis of broadcast news with a national survey measuring public awareness of various events, issues, and individuals in the news, we show that properties of national media systems influence both the supply of news and citizens’ awareness of events in the news. Public service‐oriented media systems deliver hard news more frequently than market‐based systems. It follows that for citizens living under public service regimes, the opportunity costs of exposure to hard news are significantly lowered. Lowered costs allow less interested citizens to acquire political knowledge. Our analyses demonstrate that the knowledge gap between the more and less interested is widest in the US and smallest in Scandinavia.

Auntie Knows Best? Public Broadcasters and Current Affairs Knowledge

Public service broadcasters (PSBs) are a central part of national news media landscapes. In many countries, PSBs are the first choice of citizens when it comes to news providers. And in perhaps more countries still, PSBs are thought of as specialists in provision of hard news. We test this proposition here using survey data from a large crossnational survey involving indicators of current affairs knowledge and media consumption. Specifically, we examine whether exposure to public versus commercial news influences the knowledge citizens possess about current affairs, both domestically and internationally. We also test, using propensity score analysis, whether there is variation across PSBs in this regard. Results indicate that compared to commercial news, watching PSB has a net positive influence on knowledge of hard news, though not all PSBs are equally effective in contributing to knowledge acquisition. This knowledge gap between PSB and commercial news media consumption appears to be mitigated by factors such as de jure independence,proportion of public financing, and audience share.

Crime, foreigners and hard news: A cross-national comparison of reporting and public perception

The Finnish media devote more attention to hard news than the British media, yet Finns are less interested in politics than the British. The principal reason for this difference in news values is that Finnish TV is more subject to public service influence than British TV, and the Finnish press is more strongly influenced by a professional journalistic culture than its British counterpart. While a number of national differences contribute to different levels of public knowledge, the Finns are better informed about hard news topics partly because they are better briefed in these areas by their media.

Sources in the News

In analysing the news medias role in serving the functions associated with democratic citizenship, the number, diversity and range of news sources are central. Research conducted on sources has overwhelmingly focused on individual national systems. However, studying variations in news source patterns across national environments enhances understanding of the medias role. This article is based on a larger project, “Media System, Political Context and Informed Citizenship: A Comparative Study”, involving 11 countries. It seeks, first, to identify differences between countries in the sources quoted in the news; second, to establish whether there are consistent differences across countries between types of media in their sourcing patterns; and, third, to trace any emergent consistent patterns of variation between different types of organization across different countries. A range of findings related to news media source practices is discussed that highlights variations and patterns across different media and countries, thereby questioning common generalizations about the use of sources by newspapers and public service broadcasters. Finally, a case is made for comparative media research that helps enhance the news medias key role as a social institution dedicated to informed citizenship.

Online Threat, But Television is Still Dominant

As news media change, so media news consumption changes with them. This paper, part of a larger international research project involving 11 countries in four continents (Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia), is focused on news consumption. As the range of media outlets has increased dramatically in recent years, this paper asks which news sources are people regularly watching, listening to or reading to understand what is happening in the world. Moreover, the paper tries to detect whether television news remains at the top of the news hierarchy, seeking to identify differences in news consumption in different countries with different media cultures and, consequently, different media behaviour, as well as to reveal differences in news media uses between older and younger generations.

Internet revolution revisited: a comparative study of online news

While numerous studies view the internet as a patron of internationalism and public empowerment, this comparative study of leading news websites in nine nations shows that online news is strongly nation-centred, and much more inclined to cite the voices of authority than those of civil society and the individual citizen. Online news is very similar, in these respects, to newspaper and television news. This convergence is due to the way in which leading media conglomerates have extended their hegemony across technologies. It also reflects the constraints exerted by the wider societal context across all media.

Reconsidering ‘virtuous circle’ and ‘media malaise’ theories of the media: An 11-nation study

This study, based on a content analysis of television news and survey in eleven nations, explores the split between those who see the media as politically alienating and others who see the media as encouraging greater political involvement. Here, we suggest that both positions are partly right. On the one hand, television news, and in particular public service television news, can be very effective in imparting information about public affairs and promoting a culture of democracy in which news exposure, public affairs knowledge, sense of democratic competence and political interest feed off each other. On the other hand, the views represented in public affairs news are overwhelmingly those of men and elites, which can discourage identification with public life.

Intergroup identity perceptions and their implications for intergroup forgiveness: The Common Ingroup Identity Model and its efficacy in the field.

Three studies revisited the application of the Common Ingroup Identity Model (CIIM) to the Northern Irish conflict and shed light on the factors that potentially limit the scope of the CIIM. Study 1 (N =61) showed that both conflict protagonists unanimously viewed “Northern Ireland” as the most inclusive superordinate category relative to other viable categories. Employing a longitudinal design, Study 2 (N = 67/43) examined the stability of the intergroup identity perceptions that the Northern Irish Protestant and Catholic groups hold in relation to the superordinate category “Northern Ireland”. Moreover, Study 2 also provided evidence that the Protestant group engages in ingroup projection (i.e. perceiving a large overlap between their ingroup identity category and the superordinate category). Study 3 (N = 307) successfully replicated previous research revealing that, while the Catholic group’s willingness to forgive the outgroup benefits from identifying with the superordinate category, the Protestants’...

The use of religious metaphors by UK newspapers to describe and denigrate climate change.

British newspapers have denigrated anthropogenic climate change by misrepresenting scientific consensus and/or framing climate change within unsympathetic discourses. One aspect of the latter that has not been studied is the use of metaphor to disparage climate change science and proponents. This article analyses 122 British newspaper articles published using a religious metaphor between summer 2003 and 2008. Most were critical of climate change, especially articles in conservative newspapers The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail and The Times. Articles used religion as a source of metaphor to denigrate climate change in two ways: (1) undermining its scientific status by presenting it as irrational faith-based religion, and proponents as religious extremists intolerant of criticism; (2) mocking climate change using notions of sin, e.g. describing ‘green’ behaviours as atonement or sacrifice. We argue that the religious metaphor damages constructive debate by emphasizing morality and how climate change is discussed, and detracting attention from the content of scientific data and theories.

Measuring and Explaining the Diversity of Voices and Viewpoints in the News

News media can be considered to fulfil their democratic role as a “marketplace of ideas” only if they present a diverse content that gives space to a wider range of ideas and viewpoints. But how can content diversity be assessed? And what determines actor and viewpoint diversity in the first place? By employing measurements of actor and viewpoint diversity at the article and newspaper level, this study provides a complete overview on the content diversity of immigration news, and it investigates factors that have an impact on content diversity of immigration newspaper articles in Belgium, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom (2013–2014). The results of a multilevel analysis indicate that both the articles’ size and the elite character of a newspaper play a key role in enhancing news’ multiperspectivalness. Also, the findings show that these two measurements of content diversity are different yet related to each other.