Lassen sich mit dem Internet Wählerstimmen gewinnen?

The internet is widely used by political parties and candidates as an instrument in election campaigns in Germany. Voters’ use of the internet for political information is, however, still at a low level. Studies yield mixed results regarding the impact of online campaigning on candidates’ electoral performance but there is some evidence for such an impact. However, the mechanism behind it remains unclear. Can positive effects be attributed to persuasion or mobilization? An analysis addressing this question is lacking for German election campaigns. Based on three candidate surveys during local, state and national election campaigns in Germany, this article presents new results regarding the question of whether the internet helps German politicians to win votes, and how these effects can be characterized. Multivariate analysis reveals that, on all three levels, structural characteristics such as party membership and political status are the most significant predictors of a candidate’s electoral performance. The use of online media as a campaign technique has an effect during the national elections only. This effect is only significant for Web 1.0 applications and not for the more interactive Web 2.0.     

Duell oder Berichterstattung?

Televised debates between the German Chancellor and his challenger were held for the first time in the election campaign in 2002. Hence we had the opportunity to examine the effects of debates as well as the impact of the follow-up news coverage of the debate. By combining a content analysis of debate coverage and a representative survey, we explored how voters’ reception of the first TV debate and their reception of the debate coverage interacted. Voters were influenced both by the impression they formed by directly viewing the debate and by the indirect impression they gained from follow-up media coverage. On the one hand we found an impact on voters’ views of the candidates’ appearance and of who won the debate. On the other hand we found an impact on voters’ general notions of the candidates’ personalities and competences. Furthermore there were — probably rather short-lived — shifts of candidate and party preferences.     

Die Fernsehberichterstattung über die Arbeitslosigkeit und ihr Einfluss auf wahlrelevante Vorstellungen der Bevölkerung — eine Zeitreihenanalyse 1994–1998

There is a considerable amount of evidence suggesting that voters’ political preferences are influenced by domestic economic conditions. This paper examines the assumption that the connection between a specific economic development — unemployment — and the public’s voting preferences are mediated by the way in which television news cover unemployment. Using a time series analysis approach (August 1994–September 1998), it is shown that the media follow negative conditions in the labor market more closely than they follow positive conditions. Although television coverage fails to exert a direct effect on voting preferences for mainstream and radical parties, it does affect voting intentions independently and indirectly through its impact on the public’s perceptions of candidates, party competences and the perceived importance of unemployment as a national problem.     

Endspurt. Mediales Horse-Racing im Wahlkampf

The habit of presenting the candidates in a political election like horses in a race ensures drama and excitement and has therefore proven popular with the media especially during a campaign. For several years, communication and political science have been criticizing the media’s election coverage for not emphasizing the issues but focusing instead on the candidates’ relative standing in the polls. This horse race journalism is said to replace content by entertainment. The assumption that this format has increased over the past years and also grows within a single election year as the election approaches has now been reassessed empirically. A comparison of the two major German newspapers Süddeutsche Zeitung and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of the years 1976 and 2005 revealed surprising findings: the share of the horse-racing format in election campaign coverage is considerably lower than expected and has increased only a little within the past three decades. Quantity has apparently been overestimated, at least considering high-quality newspapers. Therefore it has to be asked whether the newsworthiness of horse racing leads to exceeding consumption and in consequence to a biased perception by its critics.     

Gibt es eine indirekte Wirkung von Wahlumfragen?

The question of whether or not the publication of election poll results has an effect on voting behaviour has been raised since the very beginning of survey research. Various hypotheses on the direction of such effects exist, and many studies attempted to test them. However, the most we know is that we lack support for the assumption of a general influence. Rather than looking at direct effects of published poll results on voting behaviour, this paper tries to measure their indirect effects. Using a combination of trend surveys and content analysis, we investigate the effect of survey results on the coverage of the media. We can show that changes in public opinion slightly precede changes in media coverage. We interpret this finding as a possibility of an indirect effect of published poll results, which should encourage further research on this phenomenon.     

Visuelle Kandidatendarstellung in Wahlkampfbeiträgen deutscher und amerikanischer Fernsehsender – Image Bites,Rollenbilder und nonverbales Verhalten

Political communication research still lacks indepth information about the role of visual information in television news. Based on a content analysis of 158 newscasts of two US and two German channels aired during national election campaigns in 2008 and 2009 respectively, this study examines visual representations of candidates’ performances that allow conclusions to be drawn about underlying campaign strategies. Furthermore, journalists’ reporting strategies are analyzed by coding so-called sound- and image bites as well as other selection processes related to nonverbal news of candidates. Results of our bi-national comparative study confirm expectations about a transnational convergence with regard to the increasing importance of image bites, whereas sound bite journalism is particularly prevalent on commercial TV channels. US news coverage reflects a highly professionalized approach by candidates, for instance by how they stage their ‘mass appeal’ and ‘closeness to the people’. German election news reflects a less populist approach towards campaigning with candidates preferring a public image as ‘statesmen’ and ‘party representative’.     

Der CDU-Parteispendenskandal: Medienberichterstattung und Bevölkerungsreaktion

The general assumption about political scandals is that they have mostly negative consequences. One of the most important negative effects seems to be that the scandalized parties and politicians loose electoral support (e.g. measured by voting intentions). Unfortunately, current empirical studies analyzing the link between political scandals and electoral reactions only found limited support for this simple causal relationship — especially if they focus on individual attitudes and behavior. Using content analysis and survey data on the party financing scandal of the CDU (one of the biggest political scandals in the history of post-war Germany), this article analyzes the connection between media coverage of the scandal and public reactions on both the aggregate and the individual level. While a strong media effect on public opinion exists on the aggregate level, such a relationship does not appear on the individual level. This again raises the question of whether political scandals do affect public opinion as postulated.     

Skandalberichterstattung in den Medien und die Folgen für die Demokratie

The worry that political scandals harm democracy is increasingly discussed whenever political affairs create public clamor. As people mostly learn about scandals by way of the media, the question arises whether intense coverage of scandals will have a detrimental effect on attitudes toward the legitimacy of the democratic system. Using survey and content analysis data, this research tests whether an influence of coverage on attitudes to the democratic system can be ascertained. It turns out that, aside from other factors, the use of certain newspapers and the use of informative media content with few political subjects negatively affect attitudes to the democratic system. Negative effects of scandal coverage were not found, though. Further analyses, however, revealed that the perception and evaluation of news coverage did have a clear effect on attitudes toward the legitimacy of democracy. Perception and evaluation of news coverage, the conception of politics, and attitudes to the political system form a complex cognitive texture that turns out to be rather delicate.     

Dynamiken der WahlkampfberichterstattungDynamics of campaign coverage

This paper examines the TV coverage of the last three federal election campaigns employing two longitudinal perspectives: For one, we analyze long-term developments across several election campaigns. In addition, we study dynamics of media coverage during the course of each campaign and how they evolve over time. We use content analytical data from the “Kampagnendynamik” (campaign dynamics) project 2005 and the German Longitudinal Election Study 2009 and 2013. These allow for a fine-grained analysis of the main evening newscasts of the two public broadcasters ARD and ZDF and the main commercial stations Sat.1 and RTL. The results contradict the assumption of linear trends that have been discussed using catchwords like “Americanization”. Over the course of the 2005 to 2013 period, no increased focus on the competitive character of an election could be detected; quite to the contrary we can observe an increasing focus on policy issues. Neither can we detect an increasing personalization. Looking at the dynamics throughout the campaigns, however, an increasing focus on candidates as well as on politics can be observed. Moreover, public and private broadcasting stations differ in their style of reporting.     

Unter der Tarnkappe

The article deals with the question of whether the economic interests of media companies have an effect on the quality of their media coverage. Such an effect would violate professional journalistic standards. As a case study, we analyze media coverage on the abortive acquisition of the ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG by the Axel Springer Verlag, comparing Springer-owned and competitor-owned newspapers. The professional journalistic standards of relevance, neutrality, balance and transparency are applied to measure the quality of the media coverage. Results show systematic differences in the presentation and evaluation of the acquisition between the two media groups, in line with their economic interests. Springer newspapers apply a two-level strategy: On the one hand, they publish fewer and more neutral articles than the competitors’ newspapers — they obviously do not want to draw attention to the topic. On the other hand, they try to influence public discussion covertly by using »opportune witnesses« and «volatile issues«. The media coverage of both newspaper groups — Springer and competitors — can be explained by their economic interests. This assertion is supported by both theoretical assumptions and empirical findings.     

Politische Skandalberichterstattung: ein Forschungsüberblick und Systematisierungsversuch

Political scandals are a frequent feature of political communication around the world nowadays. Scandals serve important societal functions, e.?g., public discussion and reformation of norms in a society; holding political actors accountable for certain (political) behaviors. Scholars have argued that the news media are increasingly reporting about norm violations of political candidates. Surprisingly, no review of international research dealing with the dissemination and media coverage of political scandals is available. Thus, in the current paper the state-of-the-art in research on political scandals is systematically reviewed. Based on an extensive literature research a total of 20 relevant studies (published in German and English language) could be found. These studies were selected and examined in depth. The results revealed that – within the last two decades – there is an increasing number of political scandals around the world (data from 31 countries were examined). Besides increases in news reports about political scandals in Germany and the United States these studies show, for example, that there is a steep increase of political scandals in northern European countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden), and therefore in countries that used to be considered as rather “scandal-free” in the past. Furthermore, the results indicate that in specific countries (e.?g., United States, UK) political news are increasingly presented in a scandalizing way. Based on these findings, the number of political scandals (the number of individual cases published by the news media) has to be analytically separated from scandalization in political communication more generally (e.?g., the expression of public anger, the use of language of escalation, or the public condemnation of a behavior in political communication). Moreover, the results reveal that particular ownership structures, partisanship of a news organization, and the competitive context tend to influence news coverage about political scandals. The results also show that the definition and operationalization of political scandals – partially – remains unclear. More precisely, definitions used in previous research are either too unspecific and broad and thus do not allow for a precise operationalization and measurement of political scandals. In contrast, other definitions used in previous studies are too specific and needlessly restrict the measurement of political scandals. Thus, quite relevant cases are not accounted for. Therefore, an improved definition and operationalization of political scandals is proposed. According to that, scandals are defined as follows:Political scandals refer to real or conjectured norm transgressions of political actors or institutions. A particular norm transgression may occur in the context of political processes or in a politician’s private life and may or may not have legal consequences (e.?g., official investigation by the office of the district attorney). National scandals have to be repeatedly covered by two or more independent media organizations (e.?g., The New York Times and CNN in the U.S.). Regional scandals have to be repeatedly covered by two or more independent regional media organizations (however, the above-mentioned criterion for national scandals does not have to be fulfilled). News coverage about an alleged norm transgression must be framed as scandalous (scandal frame) and the scandalous behavior has to be unambiguously condemned.Based on the review, several research gaps are identified and a model for predicting the intensity of political scandal news coverage is introduced. The model comprises four central dimensions to predict the intensity of scandal news coverage (intensity is defined as duration, frequency, thematization, extent, and valence of coverage). The first dimension relates to the features of a particular scandal. Cases relating solely to verbal norm transgressions (talk scandals) are differentiated from cases involving other forms of scandalous behavior. Furthermore, cases with/without official investigations are differentiated and cases high/low in moral reprehensibility are distinguished. The second dimension relates to specific features of a particular politician (e.?g., type of position, popularity, if he or she has made moralizing/hypocritical statements in the past). As a third dimension, the model takes the particular reaction of a politician to scandal allegations into account (reaction appropriate/inappropriate). Finally, the fourth dimension takes the general context into consideration (e.?g., the particular media agenda, political leaning of a news outlet, social/cultural/economic context). Based on these four dimensions, as is argued, the intensity of scandal news coverage can be predicted and – in line with the model – specific assumptions are formulated that may be tested in future research. For instance, it is assumed that the news media will cover a case intensively when a political candidate is accused of transgressing a norm (e.?g., corruption) that engenders an official investigation (e.?g., state’s attorney) and is high in moral reprehensibility. Furthermore, the model predicts that the coverage will be intense when a politician’s popularity is rather low (compared to high), when a candidate made moralizing/hypocritical statements in the past (compared to no such comments), when he or she holds a high office (e.?g., president, minister compared to a back-bencher), and when he or she reacts inappropriate (e.?g., unconfident, contradictory, incredible statements) to an allegation (compared to more appropriate reactions). Finally, the model predicts that the news coverage of a political scandal will be more intense, when there are no other important topics (e.?g., terror attack, disaster) on the news agenda and when a potential norm violation is culturally especially relevant in a particular society (e.?g., sex scandals in the United States).     

Interaktion und Dialog? Eine quantitative Inhaltsanalyse der Aktivitäten deutscher Parteien bei Twitter und Facebook während der Landtagswahlkämpfe 2011

The present study examines post-2009 developments on political social media communication in Germany. 2011 presented itself as an ideal period of investigation, as seven new state parliaments were elected in this year – both in largely agricultural and rural states with comparatively low population density (e.g. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania), heavily populated city states with a modern, urban electorate (e.g. Hamburg and Berlin), and states with several regional and local centres (such as Rhineland-Palatinate or Baden-Württemberg). The total of seven cases provided sufficient variance for a cross-sectional study. In all seven state election campaigns, the social media communication of six parties was examined. In spite of the heterogeneous results of the study, clear trends are evident: All political parties are especially active immediately prior to the election. A connection between a party’s political orientation and its activity on social media could not be shown. A tendency towards mobilization is seen at for all parties. In some cases they can actually promote participation and interaction, but never achieve a sustainable dialogue with interested citizens.     

Frames in der medienpolitischen ?ffentlichkeit

This study sheds light on the media in their role as political actors and analyzes how the media cover political processes that involve their own interests. How far are the media able to fulfill, in such cases, quality demands such as diversity? The press coverage on the 12th amendment of the Interstate Treaty on Broadcasting and Online Media in Germany served as an example to study this problem. The assumption is that publishing houses had a strong economic interest in regulating the online activities of public service broadcasting. By means of a qualitative content analysis the frames used by five national print media were identified and their diversity was discussed. The findings show that the press tried to narrow down opinion formation on this topic. Frames with a negative evaluation of public service online activities prevailed regardless of the media??s political orientations, and alternative frames only occurred fragmentarily and sporadically.     

Publizistische Chancengleichheit in der Wahlkampfberichterstattung?

A true democracy is based on political competition. Political parties set up programmes and suggest solutions which the electorate is then asked to choose between. Competition for tomorrow??s leadership positions can only be fair if today there are equal opportunities for all parties. The German legislative body passed several laws which are meant to guarantee equal opportunities in this contest. In times of an ever increasing importance of the mass media for political communication, this paper is meant to answer the question of whether??besides equal political opportunities??there is something like equal media opportunities, and if so, which indicators can be used to measure them. After a broad theoretical examination, an empirical analysis of the media coverage prior to the general elections in 1998, 2002 and 2009 follows. It reveals that??from a quantitative point of view??there certainly are equal media opportunities for the political parties sitting in the German Bundestag. The chances for media coverage are, especially for smaller parties, better than the gradation of equal chances by formal regulations.     

Die These der Negativitätsumkehrung

The article explores the effects of negativity bias in political coverage on cognitions, emotions and attitudes. Starting from psychological considerations on cognition and emotion as well as from the assimilation-contrast-effect, the article develops a hypothesis of ‘negativity inversion’. This postulates that cumulative media criticism that politicians are unable to solve political problems does not only shape a negative image of politicians, but also establishes the impression that many political problems remain unsolved. This impression is the backdrop for judgments on specific political solutions which appear more positively and find more approval among recipients than without such a contrasting background. Results from an experiment manipulating (1) media images of politicians’ capability to solve problems and (2) media images of a regional political problem support the hypothesis of negativity inversion.     

Sportskandale in der Presse

Scandal research questions the normative social corrective function of scandal coverage. For political scandals, a correlation between coverage and disenchantment with politics has been proven. Similar effects can be expected in other domains. However, empirical evidence for this is yet missing. This study examines whether the coverage of sport scandals displays those characteristics known from the coverage of political scandals and considered to be a condition of negative effects on the recipients. To this end, the press coverage of two recent German sport scandals was analysed. Results show that the presumed characteristics known from political scandals also appear in sport scandal coverage. Finally, the extent of these negative effects and their possible consequences for journalism are discussed against the background of additional external survey data about one of the analysed scandals.     

Das Medienbild in der islamistischen Online-Propaganda

Islamic terror attacks can be regarded as an endpoint of radicalization defined as a process that takes place on a cognitive and a behavioral level (Neumann 2013b). The analysis of Islamic online propaganda seems to be important when it comes to explaining radicalization processes, as it can be defined as the “deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist” (Jowett and O’Donnell 2012). The arguably most prominent Salafi propagandist in Germany is Pierre Vogel who has about 300,000 Facebook likes and who is said to be an extremely sucessfull missionary on the Internet (Wiedl and Becker 2014). Given Wiktorowicz’s (2006) differentiation of Salafi factions, Vogel belongs to the politicos who emphasize application of the Salafi creed to the political arena, but who do not call for violence. While previous research has analyzed several aspects of propaganda made by politicos and the violent jihadis (e.?g., Payne 2009), the media image Islamic propagandists hold has remained unexplored so far. This is an important deficit, as from the perspective of journalism ethics of responsibility, one can argue that journalists should know how their media coverage is perceived and instrumentalized by Islamists.Against this background, the present paper explores Vogel’s media image by analyzing Facebook posts that explicitly contain references to media. At first, the basic question of the Salafi’s understanding of the media arises, as a more technical view on the media can be distinguished from the perception of media as political actors bound by directives by the state (Neumann and Baugut 2017). Moreover, we were interested in the type of media and distinct media outlets Vogel refers to. Secondly, we wanted to find out in how far hostile media perceptions (Vallone et al. 1985), well-explored in other contexts, also occur among Islamists like Vogel that can be characterized by a considerable degree of cognitive and affective involvement that triggers hostile media perceptions (cf. Hansen and Kim 2011, S. 173–174; Matthes 2013, S. 375–376). Third, we were interested in the Salafi’s assumptions on media impact on third persons (Davison 1983), as previous research has pointed to cultural distance as one among several factors enforcing third person perceptions (Tsfati 2014). Fourth, as the perceptions mentioned above possibly foster radicalization, we were interested in whether Vogel consequently shows extremist tendencies in his statements on the media’s role. Methodologically, we conducted a qualitative content analysis (Mayring 2015) of all of Vogel’s media-related Facebook posts in the years 2014–2016 (N?=?137). In those years, Islamic terrorism became a major issue in consequence of terrorist attacks in Germany and other European countries.At first, our analysis shows that Vogel mostly refers indiscriminately to the media in general, not at least because he perceives journalistic cooorientation. In cases in which distinct media outlets are named, all types of journalistic media ranging from local newspapers to public and private broadcasting stations are concerned. The broad media repertoire suggests that the Salafist scene comes into contact with content of established journalistic media—albeit not always directly, but rather through the Salafist opinion leader Pierre Vogel in the sense of a “two-step flow” (Lazarsfeld et al. 1944).Second, we found strong hostile media perceptions indicating that the media are perceived as political actors “spending millions to fight Islam”. Vogel especially complains about media coverage portraying him in the context of terrorism. He traces this kind of media coverage back to both economic editorial imperatives and the media’s alleged political goal to divide the Muslim community. The public complaints about hostile media on Facebook can be interpreted as a contribution to the victim-narrative that is characteristic of Islamic propaganda (Payne 2009).Third, while Vogel criticizes media coverage in many respects, not at least in terms of credibility, he assumes that the media influence on third parties is relatively strong. For example, discrimination against Muslims in everyday life is ascribed to the media. Journalists are even made responsible for supporting terrorism by portraying non-radicalized individuals in the context of terrorism.Fourth, the occurrence of both hostile media and third person perceptions did not result in extremist statements on the role of the media. For example, we found no crimes such as an explicit verbal threat to journalists. Being aware that his critics might encourage supporters to attack the media which in turn could have legal consequences, Vogel emphasizes that complaints about ostensible lies should be raised in a reasonable way.All in all, this study shows journalists that their media coverage is intensively monitored by Germany’s most prominent Salafi and that hostile media and third person perceptions may at the same time also occur among extremists who use exemplars of media coverage for propaganda purposes. Especially an undifferentiated portrayal of Salafists as terrorists appears as grist to the mills of those who want to mobilize and recruit scene members by means of the victim-narrative. Clearly, this study has limitations. Given the heterogeneity of the Salafi scene (Wiktorowicz 2006), findings from a leading German Salafi cannot be simply transferred to the whole scene. Besides the problem of generalizability, an interview with Vogel is needed to understand the motives behind his analyzed postings and to find out whether his media image explored by a scholarly interview is congruent with his media image presented on Facebook.     

Kriegsberichterstattung in deutschen Qualitätszeitungen

As the gulf wars and the wars in former Yugoslavia occured in the 1990s, researchers and journalists alike began to discuss anew the conditions, role, and effects of war coverage. Despite the comparatively large number of empirical studies on war coverage, longitudinal analyses of the development and change of the media’s performance in constructing an image of war are lacking to date. The study introduced here pursues this subject with a broadly conceived content analysis. Starting with the fact that the media do not only merely take up issues, but process them in a specific way, we looked for coverage patterns into which frames of interpretation were worked during the journalists‘ production of the media image of events — a process referred to as framing. It was the aim of the study to investigate more closely the framing of German war coverage. It appeared that media reconstruction of war changed over time. German war coverage retains, however, a strong focus on the military and combat action. It is rather these subjects than, for instance, the causes or consequences of war that are most intensely covered.     

Synchronisation von Nachricht und Werbung

Advertiser pressure has always been seen as a potential source of bias in the coverage of ad-financed media. The effects of advertiser pressure, however, have seldom been subject to systematic empirical research. Content analyses on the subject are particularly rare. This study for the first time scrutinizes on how the representation of firms by the leading German political weeklies Der Spiegel und Focus correlates with the amount of advertising by those firms. For this purpose all ads and the full news coverage on selected firms during the year of 2011 were analyzed. Central findings show that firms will receive more coverage, friendlier coverage and a larger share of product coverage, the higher their volume of advertising both in Der Spiegel and in Focus.     

The Role of Media Coverage in Explaining Stock Market Fluctuations: Insights for Strategic Financial Communication

This study investigates the reciprocal relationships between the fluctuation of the closing prices of three companies listed on the Amsterdam exchange index, namely ING, Philips and Shell and online media coverage related to these firms for a period of two years (2014–2015). Automated content analysis methods were employed to analyze sentiment and emotionality and to identify corporate topics related to the companies. A positive relation of the amount of coverage and emotionality with the fluctuation of stock prices was detected for Shell and Philips. In addition, corporate topics were found to positively Granger cause stock price fluctuation, particularly for Philips. The study advances past research in showing that the prediction of stock price fluctuation based on media coverage can be improved by including sentiment, emotionality, and corporate topics. The findings inform strategic communication, and particularly investor relations, in suggesting that media attention, sentiment, and certain corporate topics are crucial when managing media relations and with regard to securing a fair evaluation of listed companies. Furthermore, the innovative research methods are useful for researchers and practitioners alike in showcasing how media coverage related to firms and their stock fluctuations can be identified and analyzed in a reproducible, hands-on and efficient manner.