Media coverage of interest groups and political actors:
A literature review
Miguel Ansemil Pérez
[email protected]
Paper to be presented to the 2016 Graduate Student
Conference, Tartu, 10-13 July 2016.
[First draft, please do not cite or quote without permission]
Abstract
This paper conducts a literature review on academic articles analyzing the media coverage of
political actors and interest groups. For this purpose, we have focused on two main perspectives: 1)
the theoretical perspectives and goals defined by existing research; and 2) the research design that
scholars tend to use to study media coverage. This includes consideration of the dependent and
independent variables used by existing research as well as methodological concerns relate to the
operationalization of these variables. To do so, we have developed and original dataset, departing
from the analysis of already published research on the topic and the identification of the most
frequently cited bibliographic references. This paper is aimed to have a complete perspective on
how research has been conducted in order to identify the current lack of knowledge that must lead
future research on this type of analyses.
Introduction
Existing literature has stressed the media are the main intermediary between politicians and citizens
(e.g. Tresch, 2009), being a crucial resource for politicians that try to set their own agenda in the
media agenda as well as their claims and positions obtain visibility in the public sphere (e.g. Meijers
and Rauh, 2016). The media are an indicator of the democratic quality of national media systems
and they should act as a public forum where all the range of viewpoints, ideas and issues in a society
are represented (e.g. Yoon and Boydstum, 2014). Nevertheless, constraints of time and space in the
media selection process imply that this is highly competitive and, therefore, not all the political
actors are equally successful when they seek media attention (e.g. Soroka, 2002). Moderns politics
are also mediated politics due the importance and increasing intrusion of the media in the political
process as a consequence of their relevance for politicians to assure their reelection and obtain
prestige at the same time (e.g. Vos, 2013). Obtaining media attention helps to politicians to obtain
public support (Domke et al. 2006) because of its impact on public perceptions (e.g. Iyengar and
Kinder, 1987) and the chance of influencing the political and public debate (e.g. Tresch, 2009).
According to Wolfsfeld and Sheafer (2006) politicians spend several resources, in terms of time, to
obtain media attention and exert political influence, letting them to gain legitimacy in the political
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process (e.g. Tresch, 2009) and show themselves before the society as relevant actors (e.g. Kioko
Ireni, 2012). Furthermore, regarding the European dimension, the European Union (UE) is
characterized by a “democratic deficit”, being one of the main shortcomings of the European
integration process (e.g. De Vreese et al. 2006). The concept of Europeanization of the national
media is related to media attention of EU actors and the creation/configuration of a European
common agenda (De Vreese et al. 2006). The Europeanization is a required condition to assure their
public accountability and mitigate the “democratic” deficit (De Vreese and Boomgaarden, 2012).
From these theoretical developments, we have conducted a literature review on media attention to
political actors and interest groups in order to analyze how this research has been operationalized
by scholars. Our aim is to obtain insight into the lacks of knowledge that must lead future research
into this specific type of media attention. For this purpose, we have developed an original dataset
of 64 academic articles, departing from already published research on the topic and the
identification of the most frequently cited bibliographic references. Concretely, we have been
interested in the analysis of the most prominent theoretical approaches investigated by existing
research as well as knowing which research designs have been more employed by scholars to
analyze the media attention to political actors and interest groups. This literature review includes
consideration of the dependent and independent variables used by existing research as well as
methodological concerns.
It must bear in mind that this paper is just first draft based only on academic articles. Given that
several scholarly publications are only available as books or chapters of books, we pretend to include
them in a forthcoming update of our data to conduct a deeper and more accurate literature review
on media coverage of political actors and interest groups. Furthermore, we will also analyze existing
research on media attention to social movements in order to draw conclusions about how far this
research field has been investigated in the different political dimensions (such as the European
arena) and having comparative data to contrast with traditional research on interest groups.
Data and measurement
Selection of existing research on political actors or interest groups
Our unit of analysis is all the academic articles published in scholarly journals whose dependent
variables, at least one of them, analyze media coverage of political actors such as political parties,
parliamentarians or interest groups. Therefore, we have discarded any other type of publications
such as PhD dissertations or conference papers.
To explore and identify previous research on this topic, we have followed three steps. First, we have
made several keyword searches to find academic articles likely to be analyzed. Second, we have
employed the citation system of Google Scholar to review those studies that make a reference to
our selected publications recursively, enabling us to prevent the limitations inherent to the keyword
search system and increase the kind of literature found. Finally, to decide whether a publication
meets the requirements to be coded, we have examined all their titles and abstracts, selecting all
those directly and explicitly related to our topic under study. Furthermore, we have only taken into
account academic studies written in English or Spanish, guaranteeing a deep understanding of the
research analyzed. We have coded each new publication with a unique identifier, ensuring the
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creation of stable relationships between a specific publication and the rest of our variables under
study.
Moreover, we have coded the name of the academic journals where these publications have been
published and their year of publication, through a unique identifier. This variable is aimed to know
which are the most prominent scholarly journals in this research field.
All the scholars have been coded according to their order of appearance within a particular article,
not only the first author, codifying their name, surname, gender and the university linked to them
and the publications. All of them have just been introduced once into our database and are
identified by a unique identifier. Moreover, we have also identified the country of their universities.
This variable offers us, information about which are the most prominent scholars, countries and
universities carrying out research into media coverage of political actors or interest groups.
Variables under analysis
For each article we have coded the following variables:
Political area: All the political issues that have been analyzed by these publications, following the
methodology proposed by the Comparative Agendas Project, an international network of
researchers from several countries such as Spain or France. This methodology is based on 19 codes
for each policy area and will provide us a complete perspective of which issues have received more
attention in this to propose new analyses based on case studies.
Period of time: This variable is suggested in order to know whether research has been focused
either on short or long intervals of time and which periods of time or events have been analyzed by
scholars. Due to the fact that a particular publication may have several periods under study (such as
the analysis of three different national elections over time), we have coded all of them in our
database and they have been related to their publications through a unique identifier.
Media: This variable is aimed to know whether existing research is based on a comparative
perspective, which kind of media outlets have been the most analyzed and, finally, which formats
of media are prone to be combined in the analyses. We have coded their name, country and their
format: 1) Newspapers; 2) TV; 3) Radio; 4) Online new media; 5) Online traditional media; and 6)
magazines. We have coded all the media outlets selected as a sample in scholarly publications.
Level of Government: A specific publication belongs to a particular level of government from the
political dimension and policies defined in the objective pursued by the analysis. For example, a
research on the political interactions in the national parliament is coded as a “National” whereas
the analysis of the politicians’ positions regarding a European referendum is coded as a “European”.
The following unique codification has been proposed: 1) National; 2) Subnational; 3) Local; and 4)
European.
Variables: Our database also contains data related to the dependent and independent variables
employed by scholars in the research field. We have followed a harmonization process in order to
present a common description for those variables that have a similar definition among them.
Generally, an analysis may have defined several variables of both types, so we have coded all of
them.
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Countries: We have created a unique codification from a list of 193 countries. Our goal is to identify
the most prominent countries analyzed by existing research and whether these analyses have been
based on a comparative perspective among countries. A particular publication may analyze several
countries at the same time, so we have coded all of them.
Type of actor: The following variable codes the type of actors analyzed by existing literature. Our
classification of actors is explained in the Appendix 1. We have also codified their political
dimension: 1) European actors; 2) National actors; 3) Subnational actors; 4) Local actors; and 5) All
of them. We want to know, for example, whether a publication analyzes EU or national actors.
Research features: We have coded information related to the features of the research designs
developed by scholars. First, we distinguish whether a study is: 1) qualitative; 2) quantitative; or 3)
a mix of both models. Second, whether they are: 1) descriptive, in other words, they are based on
qualitative studies or percentages; or 2) inferial, namely when they employ statistical methods.
Finally, we have considered whether these publications are: 1) case studies that are based on either
samples or particular events; or 2) macro studies that carry out a systematic and comprehensive
research during one year at least.
Bibliographic references: We have coded 3.700 exclusive bibliographic references found in the
publications with a unique identifier. We want to analyze which are the most prominent literature
cited by scholars and whether they tend to share a common literature. To do so, we have coded
their title and authors in order to obtain information though a cross-reference analysis.
Findings
Basic information
From the search of existing literature that meet our criteria, eventually our database contains 64
academic articles written by 110 scholars.
[Figure 1 about here]
Data from figure 1 shows that the most prominent scholars in the research field are Claes de Vreese,
Hago G. Boomgaarden and Angelina Wagner, being the only authors that have taken part in more
than 6% of the 64 academic articles coded. The two first scholars have focused and collaborated on
some studies related to the media visibility of EU actors whereas Angelina Wagner has written
several analyses on media attention to political women candidates in Canadian elections.
Moreover, this research field features by a high degree of collaboration among scholars. Indeed,
only the 34% of the publications were developed by a single author. Scholarly articles are a result of
the collaboration between two scholars (40,63%) whereas the 15,63% of the analyses were written
by three authors, the 3,13% by four of them, the 4,69% were analyzed by five authors and, finally,
only one was the fruit of the association among seven scholars.
Finally, there is a similar proportion among scholars in terms of gender. Women scholars represent
the 56,36% of the authors included in our database, whereas the remaining 43,64% are men. This
trend remains in the research field, without major changes in the proportion of scholars, in the case
of both single and collaborative academic articles. Concerning single publications, the 59,09% of
these studies were conducted by women researchers, whereas men scholars’ analyses represent
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the remaining 40,91%. Moreover, women scholars represent the 52,63% of single authors, whereas
men authors are the remaining 47,37%. Within this single research, the gender bias theory is the
most prominent approach analyzed by women researchers (69,23% over single analyses) while men
authors conduct a more diverse investigation, such as analysis of media prominence of MP’s
(33,33%), the gender bias in the media and the media presence of interest groups (both 22,22%).
Regarding collaborative publications, the 42,86% of this kind of studies were conducted by women
researchers, whereas collaborative studies between men and women authors and only among
women scholars represent the 28,57% in both cases. These analyses were conducted by a 54,46%
of women researchers, whereas the remaining 45,52% were developed by male authors.
Furthermore, women scholars represent the 57,45% of authors in collaborative studies, whereas
men were the remaining 42,55%. Regarding the most analyzed approaches, collaborative research
conducted by women scholars is strongly dominated by the gender bias theory (88,89% over
collaborative research conducted by women). Notwithstanding, this approach loses prominence as
the contribution of men scholars in this articles increases. Collaborative research between men and
women scholars is still dominated by the gender bias theory, but it represents the 58,33% of these
articles as there is a major diversity of the analyses. But it is in the case of collaborative research
among men scholars where this approach is no longer the most analyzed approach, being a research
that is characterized by more diversity and where EU studies have a moderately major attention
(33,33% over collaborative analyses among men authors).
Regarding the analysis of universities and countries where this research has been developed and
published, we have considered all the scholars’ institutions that have taken part in the elaboration
of a publication. Instead, whether there are several scholars from the same university in the same
academic article, then we have included the institution only once.
[Table 1 about here]
We have found universities from 20 different countries (see Appendix 2). Because of a publication
may be the result from the collaboration of several universities from different countries, we have
found these institutions 74 times in our data. Concerning the countries, the most active of them are
The US and The Netherlands, with the 20,27% and the 13,51% over these 74 appearances
respectively.
Nevertheless, we have found some differences if we only take into account the number of
publications by university instead of the total by country. The most prominent university in the
research field is the University of Amsterdam, concretely the Amsterdam School of Communication
Research, having taken part in the 14,06% over our data. Unlike the US, which tend to diversify their
research among several universities, the Netherlands is characterized by having a specialized
institution regarding research on the media where most of these analyses are concentrated. The
following most important institutions are the University of Antwerp (Belgium), the University of
Southern Denmark (Denmark) and the university of Alberta (Canada), all of them with the 6,25%.
Otherwise, the most prominent academic journals are the Political Communication and The
International Journal of Press/Politics (see Appendix 3), being the only ones that exceed the 6% of
the academic articles analyzed in our database. The most common investigations published in these
journals are the gender bias theory (e.g. Vos, 2013) in the former journal (60% of its publications)
and both have released academic articles related to media coverage of interest groups (both 40%).
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[Table 2 about here]
Case studies
Most of these investigations are based on samples of news or the analysis of a particular event (such
as an election race) (see Appendix 4). Concretely, the 78,13% over our data are case studies,
supposing the realization of macro studies an exception in this research field (15,63%). Moreover,
scholars are prone to employ quantitative methods (60,63%), although there is also an important
amount of scholarly articles based on descriptive analysis (42,19%), in spite of the fact that the
statistical methodology is the most outstanding trend (57,81%).
Regarding the case studies analyzed, the gender bias theory is the most common topic under study,
representing the 66% over the total of the case studies analyzed. In addition, this research has
usually focused its attention on the analysis of media coverage of political actors from a national
dimension (70,31% over our data), devoting little emphasis to other levels of government. To sum
it up, this data shows it is necessary more research on case studies in other levels of government
less explores (such as subnational actors) as well as studies on electoral context beyond the gender
bias theory.
Countries of the media analyzed by researchers
As a second feature, scholars do not develop their analyses from a comparative perspective in order
to find cross-national differences (see Appendix 5). The 78,13% publications over our data only
analyze a single country, being the most common trend for national, subnational and local research.
The 60,94% are national and non-comparative (against the 9,38% of national and comparative
analysis) research, whereas all subnational (6,25%) and local (4,69%) studies do not even carry out
any cross-national investigation. Cross-national research results in a required factor to expand the
current knowledge about the media attention to political actors and interest groups, due to there
might be outstanding variations in media coverage because of the differences among political and
media systems (the three models of media defined by Hallin and Mancini (2004) or differences in
the parliamentarian process among countries). These analyses would provide more accurate
conclusions in this research field.
Most of the existing research is mainly oriented to explain media coverage in the US (9,42% over
the countries selected as a sample), United Kingdom (8,70%), Denmark (7,25%), Germany (6,52%),
Spain (6,52%), The Netherlands (5,80%) and Canada (5,07%). Research on the media in these
countries is mainly related to the gender bias theory and media prominence of interest groups (e.g.
Binderkrantz, 2012). Investigations on gender bias in the media is the topic par excellence in the
analysis of the US (84,62% over analysis of US media coverage) and Canadian media outlets (100%
of Canadian analyses), but there is also some research on Spain (22,22% over analyses on Spanish
media) and UK (25% over analysis of this country). Studies about Danish media coverage also
investigate how the incumbency theory (e.g. Hopmann, et al. 2011) and journalistic cultures such as
the pragmatic and sacerdotal cultures (e.g. Van Dalen, 2012) may increase the media visibility of
government actors (30% of the analysis of Danish media outlets). Lastly, analysis on UK and Danish
media coverage also focus on the media visibility of interest groups (the 16,66% and 20%
respectively).
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From a disaggregate level, this is a very similar situation from national arena, but for there are more
analyses focused on Denmark (present in the 11,76% of national analyses) than UK (9,8%) and The
Netherlands has a lower representation within this dimension (3,92%). Regarding subnational
research, Spain (50% overall subnational analyses) is the most prominent country under study,
followed by Canada and the US (both the 25%). The topics under study among the different political
dimensions coincide with the aggregate level.
Media outlets analyzed
The third and last feature of this research consists in its tendency to carry out the analysis of media
coverage from a comparative perspective in terms of media outlets (84,38% over our data) (see
Appendix 5). Notwithstanding, most research bases their conclusions in the comparison among
media outlets with the same format (60,94%) (such as newspapers), being limited those analyses
that observe the differences among several formats of media (23,44%) (for example, academic
articles oriented to explain media coverage of newspapers and TV news). In addition, scholars are
more likely to analyze only the newspapers (59,38%). The second most prominent approach in these
analyses is to obtain their sample of news from the combination of TV programs and print coverage
(12,5%). However, TV news by itself (3,13%) is less analyzed than Radio news (6,25%), thereby TV
coverage seems to be just considered within comparative analyses.
From the disaggregated level, national research does not have any outstanding difference in
comparison with the results of the previous aggregate analysis. However, the combination of
different formats of media outlets, beyond the press and TV news, is only employed by researchers
that carry out national research on the topic. Local (4,69% over our data) and subnational (6,25%)
analyses have newspapers as the most important units of analysis (75% subnational research and
100% over local investigation). Moreover, they only conduct analyses from a comparative
perspective, unlike national research that combines comparative analyses (77,78% over national
research) and non-comparative studies (22,22%). The last difference between national research and
the rest of political dimensions is that the former is the only case where there are analyses that
obtain their conclusions only through the TV coverage (6,67%). Subnational research tends to
combine only TV news and newspapers coverage (25% over subnational analysis), so national
studies have more diversity among them. Regarding local research, the authors only based their
analyses on the press media (100% over studies on local dimension).
We have noted there is a lack of media studies related to online media formats in relation media
coverage of political actors and interest groups in both single format (there are no publications in
our data that employ online traditional media, whereas the 1,56% employ online new media) and
comparative analyses (the 1,56% investigate the media coverage from newspapers and online
traditional media while other 1,56% analyze newspapers, TV and online traditional media). To sum
it up, it is necessary to obtain more insight into the implication of online media attention for the
prominence of political actors and interest groups in the news, being a plausible field to conduct
new research as a result of their increase relevance in current society as well as the possible
differences with the media coverage from the traditional media in terms of, for example, variations
in media capacity. However, we must take into account most analyses on traditional media as well.
Unlike newspapers, which can devote more space for political issues in their contents, Radio and TV
7
news have more constraints in terms of time and space (e.g. Vos, 2013), thereby there might be
important differences in media attention to political actors and interest groups.
Issues
We have coded all the issues analyzed by scholars in their academic articles. Concretely, we have
classified issues that have been analyzed within the topic under study. For example, whether a
publication analyzes the prominence of interest groups and one of their aims is to investigate their
presence within the economic and educational issues, we have coded these two topics. Eventually,
our database contains data related to 298 political areas. To do so, we have followed the
methodology proposed by the Comparative Agendas Project. This methodology is based on 19 major
topic codes for each policy area.
[Figure 2 about here]
The most common political areas analyzed are related to foreign (12,42% over the issues analyzed)
and macroeconomic policies (12,08%). In the first case, an important amount of the subtopics is
related to the EU and its institutional events (such as European Councils summits) (24,32% over the
total of foreign issues). Instead, macroeconomic affairs are generally focused on a general
perspective (63,89% over macroeconomic issues), namely a general issue or macroeconomics as a
whole, whereas economic taxes (13,89%) and budget and public spending (11,11%) are analyzed in
a lesser extent.
From a disaggregate level, these political issues are almost completely focused in analyses on the
national dimension (80,20% over the total of issues). Furthermore, there is a high degree of
correspondence between the aggregate analysis and this disaggregate level as national research
also focuses their studies on macroeconomic (10,88% over the issues analyzed in national studies)
and foreign affairs (12,33%). In this specific case, in a similar way than the aggregate level,
macroeconomic policies are investigated through a general perspective as well (61,54% over
national economic issues) whereas the foreign field is more diverse, being typically analyzed in a
general way (17,54% over national foreign issues), through the impact of EU events in the news
(10,34%) or diplomatic issues (6,9%). Subnational research has only analyzed the 3,36% of the issues
analyzed and it is more likely to pay attention to government and public administration policies
(33,33% over subnational issues), especially concerning the policies of elections, intergovernmental
relations and parliamentary activity (all the 33,33% over subnational governmental issues). Finally,
local issues represent the 4,03%. By and large, local research tends to analyze macroeconomic,
transport and education/culture affairs (all of them represent the 16,67% over local issues).
Concretely, it has been analyzed subtopics on the general economy (50% over local economic issues)
and taxes (50%), infrastructure (the 100% of issues related to local transport affairs) and, finally,
general education policy (50% over local education issues) and cultural patrimony (50%).
Theoretical perspectives and objectives
[Table 3 about here]
First, more than half of this existing research has carried out analyses on the relationship between
media attention to political actors and the gender bias theory (54,69% over our data), in other
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words, researchers want to know how the media cover women politicians and whether there are
differences in media coverage between them and their male counterparts (e.g. Vos, 2013).
Scholars usually tend to analyze the dependent variable “media visibility of political parties or
politicians” which is aimed to analyze the differences in media prominence and presence, in terms
of amount of news, between women and men politicians.
Yet, analyses on gender bias are not only based on the amount of news that covers women
politicians, but there are other important dependent variables employed by scholars to complete
their analyses. Other most prominent variables, among others, are the personal coverage that
receives women politicians as well as news about their political background and political viability.
Firstly, the personal coverage is operationalized to investigate whether media coverage tend to
cover more intensively some women’s traits such as their appearance, size, hairstyle, wardrobe or
their “traditional” roles (“marital” or “maternal” status) rather than their political status (e.g. Devitt
2002). Finally, it has also been analyzed the differences between men and women politicians in
media attention to their leadership skills, ideology and electoral viability as candidates (political
background and political electability) (e.g. Everitt and Gidengil, 2003).
Concerning the independent variables of this topic, existing research is more likely to observe the
impact of the candidates’ gender in the media coverage (differences according whether they are
men or women) (e.g. Lavery, 2013). Other independent variables less employed by research on
gender bias theory are elements from the news value theory such as the political standing (e.g.
Fernández, 2016) or their major party affiliation (e.g. Kioko Ireri, 2012).
Lastly, scholars are more likely to investigate the gender differences in the media across electoral
contests or leadership races (68,57% over analysis on the gender bias) rather than focusing on
routine periods (34,29%). These latter analyses have been driven to investigate gender differences
in media coverage among the governmental elites (33,33% over analysis on gender bias during
routine periods), individual politicians (25%) in general terms and, finally, in the parliamentarian
arena (41,67%). In conclusion, more macro analyses must be developed in order to find the
differences among the patterns of media attention to women politicians from a comparative
perspective between election and non-election periods. The analysis of both events is important to
confirm whether the women politicians are always targeted with a different media attention in the
daily news, in other words, it is an inherent trend in the media, or, instead, the election contest has
a particular effect on media attention.
A second prominent approach in this research field consists in how the media cover the
parliamentarian arena (10,94% over our data). To give an answer to this question, this research has
investigated the role of the media in the representation of the parliamentary activity in their
contents: 1) the media as a mirror of the political reality; 2) the parliamentarians’ newsworthiness;
and 3) the political parallelism inherent in the media (71,43% over these kind of analyses) (e.g.
Tresch, 2009). Concerning the mirror theory, the media are just passive, impartial and neutral actors
that only reflect on the news the parliamentary activity developed by MP’s, reflecting the current
power structure and being dependent on the external policy environment (e.g. Tresch, 2009). The
news value theory also considers that the media are passive actors (Tresch, 2009). From this
approach, the different actors have several features (such as their political standing and the drama
and conflict inherent in the news) that may act as predictors of which actors would obtain a higher
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degree of media prominence (e.g. Tresch, 2009, Meijers and Rauh, 2016). This theory departs from
the assumption that journalists tend to pay more attention to those actors that are more
newsworthiness for them (e.g. Soroka, 2002). Conversely, the third theory considers the media are
active actors influenced by their own preferences and political orientation (e.g. Tresch, 2009). This
research analyzes whether the media is influenced by a partisan bias (e.g. Tresch, 2009). Other
investigations, instead, has focused on other aspects of the media attention. Midtbø (2011), for
example, have conducted an analysis to find out which is the tone (positive, neutral or negative)
that the media employ in the news related to the different MP’s (14,29%). Finally, Casero et al.
(2009) has carried out a research on the media attention to a subnational parliament, instead of its
members, to prove that, in spite of its political importance in the current democracy, this institution
is frequently uncovered (14,29%).
This research is usually operationalized through the dependent variable “media visibility of MP’s”.
The parliamentarians’ newsworthiness (such as their political standing, seniority, party affiliation or
the presence of conflict) (e.g. Midtbø, 2011) and some indicators of parliamentary activity (such as
press releases, speeches or oral questions) (e.g. Gattermann and Vasilopoulou, 2015) are the most
common independent variables in this field to prove their effects over media attention to these
actors.
A third type of analyses conducts research on the degree of Europeanization in national news (9,38%
over our data). This concept refers to EU actors’ media presence in comparison with domestic actors
(e.g. Boomgaarden et al., 2013). Most research is aimed to explain these differences of media
presence between both actors during EU Parliament elections (e.g. Boomgaarden et al., 2013) (50%
over analyses on Europeanization). However, there are also studies on the effects in the media
coverage of exogenous factors, in other words, how the EU and national events influence the
national media coverage (16,67%) (Boomgaarden et al., 2010). Other two analyses have been
conducted, on the one hand, to explain the media attention to a particular EU institution and, on
the other hand, to explain how the operating logics inherent in national parliaments influence the
amount of media coverage (both 16,67%) (de Wilde, 2014).
The “democratic deficit” is one of the major shortcomings of the European integration process (e.g.
Boomgaarden et al., 2013) and might explain the prominence of the analyses on media attention
during the EU Parliament elections as a result of their importance to increase the citizens’
knowledge and information about this dimension (e.g. de Vreese and Boomgaarden, 2006).
However, future research should carry out more macro studies to observe changes in the degree of
Europeanization in the news over time, even during routine periods and not only specific events, to
draw conclusions on its true impact over the “democratic deficit”. Furthermore, European
institutions have taken a main role to solve the economic downturn of 2008 that might be result in
a change respect how the media covers EU actors and in a major degree of Europeanization in the
news such as Boomgaarden et al. (2013) has already noted.
Fourth, concerning the incumbency bonus theory or, in other words, the dominance of
governmental elites in media coverage (7,81% over our data), research has been oriented to prove
the implications of this theory regarding the media attention to opposition and these actors in the
news. This theory differs from the approach focused on media presence of MP’s in the fact that the
incumbency bonus has as a main to investigate the media presence of the government, whereas the
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other type of approach is aimed to analyze the visibility of MP’s without focusing on the government
explicitly. According to Bennett’s indexing theory (1990) the media prioritize the array of voices
expressed in the governmental debate, so the news is dominated by an elite approach. Moreover,
research so far has evidenced government actors are more prominent in media coverage than the
opposition (e.g. Green-Perdersen, 2015). These actors are more newsworthy to the media, given by
both their political standing position as well as the impact of their decisions in the society (e.g.
Tresch, 2009). Research has also stressed the importance of the journalist norms based on the media
function as a watch dog of the government’s action and the ideal norm of balance in the news (e.g.
Green-Pedersen, 2015). According the watch dog norm, the media might increase media attention
to the government during routine periods as they have the responsibility to solve societal problems
and event are blamed for them (e.g. Green-Pedersen et al., 2015). Instead, in election periods, the
media would be prone to apply the balance norm, giving more media visibility to oppositional actors
(e.g. Hopmann et al. 2011).
The degree of the incumbency bonus in the parliamentarian arena is the most attractive analysis by
research so far (60% of these specific analyses), though there is also a significant attention to this
theory during electoral contests (40%).
By and large, this research is operationalized with the dependent variable related to the media
prominence of these actors in the media and is frequently analyzed according the differences in the
journalistic cultures as independent variables. The journalistic cultures are referred to the influence
of media systems based on a sacerdotal perspective, where the political issues are normally covered
because of they are always newsworthy, or a pragmatic approach, where these affairs do not have
this special status and the media attention is more focused on the analysis of the candidates’
chances to win the electoral contest, electoral polls and conflict among elites (Van Dalen, 2012).
Another type of journalistic culture is related to cross-national differences according the current
relationship between journalists and governmental actors. Indeed, the media with closer
relationships with government would show a lower degree of diversity in their contents in
comparison with the media of countries with a major degree of independence regarding their
sources of information (e.g. Yoon and Boydstun, 2014).
Fifth, research on media presence of interest groups is conducted to analyze which are the most
prominent associations to be covered by the media (7,81% over our data). Thrall (2006) have proved
that the media is prone to cover well-resourced organizations rather than less-resourced
associations (20% over these specific analyses). However, other scholars have conducted further
analyses and not only take into account the organizational resources, but also the variation in media
attention to these actors among issues, variations according to the ideological position of the media
(40%) (e.g. Binderkrantz, 2012) and, recently, the impact of their political positions in the news (20%)
(De Bruycker and Beyers, 2015). Moreover, Binderkrantz et al. (2016) have conducted a crossnational analysis on the topic.
Frequently this research focuses on the “media prominence of interest groups” as a dependent
variable, being operationalized through independent variables the volume of organizational
resources, membership size or the position of these associations in the news.
Sixth, concerning research on media attention to political parties (and not from previous
approaches), 4,69% of the analyses focus on this approach. Baumgartner and Chaqués Bonafont
11
(2015) has conducted an analysis on media attention to these actors from the impact of the Pluralist
polarized media system in Spain, the politicians’ ownership of certain issues and the political
position of the media (33% over these kind of analysis). At the same time, this media attention has
been analyzed during electoral contests as well (33,33%).
The dependent variable most employed by this research is the “media prominence of political
parties” in the news, being operationalized together with independent variables such as the political
support to the government.
Finally, the personalization theory (3,13% over our data) departs from two perspectives: 1) the
individualization of the media coverage (e.g. Boumans et al., 2013), namely the tendency of the
media to cover more intensively the head of the government or the party leader rather than the
government or the political party as a whole; and 2) the privatization of news (e.g. Schulze, 2016),
in other words, the focus on the private life and characteristics of the head of government. Most of
these analyses are focused on cross-national variations according to differences among political
systems.
[Table 4 about here]
Type of actors analyzed
The most prominent actors analyzed by scholars are political parties (50% over our data) and, to a
lesser extent, the MP’s (25%). Instead, analysis on Media attention to governmental elites (7,81%),
media visibility of interest groups (7,81%) and the political institutions (such as the European
Commission) (4,69%), remain as a research almost unexplored. Moreover, only a few analyses have
focused on media coverage of any political actor regardless this specific category (4,69% of
publications).
Most of these analyses are more likely to focus their attention on the media coverage of individual
politicians, such as electoral candidates, rather than political parties as a whole. As we have already
asserted previously, scholars have paid an especial attention to the media coverage of election races
and leadership competitions in a national context (35,94% over our data) and the gender bias theory
particularly (81,25% over research on political parties) (e.g. Miller et al. 2010).
By and large, it results evident that is necessary to conduct more research less focused in these
national events, but also in the political parties as a whole rather than a specific candidate. It might
be differences in media coverage between routine and election periods due to the journalistic
norms of the balance and the function of the media as a watch dog of the government’s action (e.g.
Green-Pedersen et al., 2015). Moreover, future research must keep the differences among political
systems in mind when scholars select their units of analyses. Some countries focus more on the
candidates over the political parties, such as the case of US candidates (e.g. Miller et al. 2010),
whereas other political systems are more focused on the political parties as a whole (e.g. Kittilson
and Fridkin, 2008), which might have important implications on the media coverage or note whether
there has been an increasing level of personalization in the media over time.
Secondly, scholars have also paid attention to the MP’s in the parliamentarian arena (25% over our
data). These authors seek to investigate the political interactions between government and
opposition and in general terms without pay a particular attention these actors alike (both 37,5%
12
over analysis on MP’s). Furthermore, most publications are prone to analyze only national MP’s
(93,75%).
Once again, the gender bias is the more prominent approach regarding these actors (37,5% over
analysis on MP’s) (e.g. Sensales et al., 2016). More moderately, this arena is also analyzed in order
to determine the amount of media presence of MP’s (Midtbø, 2011) (31,25%) and the degree of
incumbency bonus (18,75%) (e.g. Green-Pedersen et al., 2015).
Thirdly, governmental and opposition elites are investigated in a few sets of publications (7,81%
over our data). Indeed, the 80% of research on these actors center their attention in the relationship
between the government and the media. Instead, the opposition is marginally analyzed outside the
parliamentary arena and only within an election context (20%). In this research, the gender bias
theory is again the most analyzed approach (60%) (e.g. Fernandez, 2013), followed by the degree of
personalization (e.g. Boumans et al., 2013) and incumbency bonus (e.g. Hopmann et al., 2011) in
the media (both 20%).
The fourth feature of the research field consists in the analysis of media attention to interest groups
(7,81% over our data). Several analyses focus their attention on national associations (60% over
research on interest groups as aim) (e.g. Binderkrantz, 2012). In a similar proportion, some research
focuses on media attention to interest groups regardless their political dimension (40%) (e.g. De
Bruycker and Beyers, 2015).
The fifth most important actors are the political institutions as actors themselves (such as the EU
Parliament) (4,69% over our data). From a subnational perspective, we find here the research
developed by Casero et al., 2009 about a subnational parliament of Spain, as we have stressed
previously.
Finally, the last category has as objective the codification of analyses that investigates media
attention to any actor regardless their category or political dimension (4,69% over our data).
Macro studies and political actors analyzed
As we have pointed out previously, macro studies are a particular exception in this research as there
are only 15,63% academic articles over our data.
When these studies are conducted, they are more likely to analyze the media attention to MP’s
(20% over macro studies), focusing on the incumbency bonus (20% over these analyses on MP’s)
(e.g. Green-Pedersen et al., 2015) and media presence of national MP’s (10%) (e.g. Midtbø, 2011).
Instead, another topic has been analyzed more moderately. These studies have consisted in the
analyses of the media personalization of the head of the government (10% over the macro studies)
(Boumans et al., 2013), the media visibility of political parties in the news (20%) and, finally, the
media presence of interest groups (20%). Furthermore, this research is different from case studies
regarding the gender bias theory, as it is not a prominent issue in these analyses (10% over the
macro studies on political parties). In spite of its importance in the research field, it seems that
authors are only interested in the differences in media attention to women and men politicians to
analyze certain events.
[Figure 3 about here]
13
We can note an increasing trend of both types of analysis, although more moderately in case of
macro studies, but scholars still conduct much more research based on case studies. From this data,
we can conclude that there is an important gap regarding exhaustive and comprehensive analyses
in the research field. Scholars have to conduct more macro studies, not only in terms of the
difference between election and non-election periods, but also the possible variations in the media
as a result of important events over time such as the pre-crisis and post-crisis periods, the
emergence of new populist parties and the evolution and the impact over the degree of
personalization in the media as a result of the great importance of the leaders of these parties.
Finally, the average of years analyzed in these macro studies is ten years. The minimum period
analyzed was only a year, but the most common trend has been carried out analyses of three and
twenty years (3,13% over our data).
Research on media attention to political actors and interest groups in the EU dimension
In spite of the fact that EU research is the second most analyzed approach by scholars (18,75% over
our data) it still remains rarely explored in comparison with national studies. This kind of studies
also employs quantitative methods (91,67% over EU research) with an especial attention to the
media attention to EU actors during EU elections (45,45%). Furthermore, research on this political
dimension is more oriented to a statistical methodology (66,67%) than the other political levels.
Scholars are more prone to drive cross-national analyses (66,67% over EU research), selecting a
sample of two or three countries (both 16,67%). Nevertheless, there also some studies that analyze
the media outlets from all EU member states (16,67%). The most common countries selected as a
sample are UK (8,75% overall countries in analyses of EU research), France (7,5%), The Netherlands
(7,5%) and Germany (6,25%). Therefore, other countries would be more interesting to analyze in
future analyses to expand the current knowledge in the research field. For example, future research
might base their analyses on the Mediterranean countries that have been less investigated by
scholars. Furthermore, these countries have been especially affected by the financial crisis of 2008
and, therefore, it might have been translated into an increase in the media attention to EU actors
(e.g. Boomgaarden et al., 2013). Finally, it will contribute to draw more accurate conclusion about
variations among the different political and media systems as well.
Unlike national research, the 100% of these analyses on EU dimension are driven through a
comparative research among different media outlets, but, at the same time, all are based on the
analysis of newspapers. Indeed, TV news is only analyzed in comparison with the press coverage
(16,67% over EU research) as well as they are the only media outlets employed in comparative
analyses together with newspapers. Likely national research, the EU dimension is characterized by
a lack of analyses on the media attention to EU actors in online media outlets. Future research
should suggest questions related how the new online media (such as blogs, websites, social
networks) and the online traditional media contribute to alleviate the “democratic deficit” and how
they impact and contribute to expand the European public and political debate.
Regarding the type of actor selected as a unit of analyses by scholars, the most prominent of them
are the parliamentarian actors (33,33% of European studies). Unlike other studies based on this
topic, there is a particular publication that analyzes the media visibility of the EU Parliament
members during a routine period (Gattermann and Vasilopoulou, 2015). Other academic articles
14
have focused on the relationship between national parliaments and EU issues (e.g. de Wilde, 2014).
As we have stressed, this activity is developed in a national parliament and, therefore, we have
coded these articles as “European” (because they focus on issues with an EU nature) and “national
actors”.
The second most prominent actors analyzed in these investigations are the political parties (25%
over EU research). These analyses are always focused on an EU Parliament elections context (100%
over EU analysis on political parties), probably due to the fact that they are national parties and
when the media covers these actors in non-election periods is within the EU parliamentarian arena.
Furthermore, there is a single publication that is completely focused on an EU actor in nature, such
as the Spitzenkandidaten (Schulze, 2016). Other authors are more prone to analyze the media
attention to national mainstream parties in relation with the Euroscepticism (Meijers and Rauh,
2016) and the gender bias (Ibroscheva and Raicheva-Stover, 2009) (both 8,33%).
A third category of academic articles of the EU dimension is more likely to analyze any kind of EU
and domestic actors in the news. For this purpose, we have named a category “Actors from all
political dimensions”, which includes these particular studies. The 16,67% over EU analyses are
included within this category and, more concretely, these studies are aimed to measure national
media coverage of any political actor during EU Parliament elections (e.g. Boomgaarden et al. 2013).
Fourth, research on media coverage of EU institutions consists on the 16,67% of the EU publications
in our database. These analyses are aimed to analyze media attention to EU institutions as a whole,
such as the EU presidency (e.g. Velders, et al. 2013), in the national media.
Finally, research on media attention to interest groups in the EU arena (8,33%) remains as the most
unexplored area by scholars. Concretely, within this category, Beyers and Bruyckers (2015) have
proved that the controversial positions of interest groups increase their media coverage in the news
related to EU directives.
Regarding the political issues analyzed in this specific research, we have coded 37 political areas.
Likely national research, these studies are also prone to analyze the media prominence of EU actors
and interest groups in the foreign policy (21,62% over the European articles). The 75% of these
issues are related to EU events specifically. This research also analyzes macroeconomic affairs
(18,92% over EU analyses) and it is analyzed as a general affair (85,71% over economic issues of EU
research). Previously, existing literature has also asserted the importance of these particular issues
in the media attention to the EU dimension (e.g. Norris, 2000).
To conclude, macro studies also represent an exception in these analyses. On the one hand,
Gattermann and Vasilopoulou (2015), for example, have analyzed the media coverage of the
members of the EU Parliament during a period of twenty-five months, basing their hypotheses in
the theories of the media as a mirror of the parliamentary activity and the news value theory. On
the other hand, Boomgaarden et al. (2010) have carried out research on media coverage of EU
actors during a period of seventeen years, analyzing the impact of the national and European events
in media attention.
From all this data, we can assert that there is an important lack of research related to the EU
dimension. Future research should conduct more macro studies in order to draw conclusions on
how the media has dealt with EU news from a major range of political issues and events over time
15
(such as the introduction of the Euro or the European Constitution). For example, the financial crisis
and the increment of the competences of EU institutions over time should have contributed to a
major prominence of the EU dimension in national media (e.g. Boomgaarden et al., 2013).
Furthermore, these analyses should have taken into account which specific EU institutions appear
in the news to obtain more accurate and comparative data related to differences of media
prominence among them as well as how the media frames these actors. Moreover, research has to
conduct further analyses on media attention to interest groups to prove whether the conflict is
really an explanatory factor of their prominence or not, beyond analyses based only on news related
to EU directives. Finally, in case of case studies, scholars have to focus more on other political areas,
where the EU has a relevant role, to measure the degree of Europeanization in the media and
compare it with previous research on the most prominent political areas.
Conclusions
In this paper, we have conducted a literature review of existing research on media attention to
political actors and interest groups to know how scholars have operationalized their studies and
which are the most common theoretical approached analyzed by scholars. For this purpose, we have
analyzed 64 academic articles whose dependent variables, at least one of them, are directly and
explicitly related to media attention to political actors and interest groups.
The research field features a high degree of collaboration among researchers to conduct new
analysis and, moreover, there is an equivalent proportion between women and men researchers.
Furthermore, women scholars are more likely to carry out research on the gender bias theory, an
approach that loses importance in favor of a greater degree of diversity in those publications with
male participation. Regarding the origin of these publications, most of them have been conducted
by universities from the US, but the University of Amsterdam School of Communication Research is
the institution where there is a higher concentration of analyses published so far. Finally, the
Political Communication and The International Journal of Press/Politics are the most active scholarly
journals publishing academic articles related to this topic.
Despite several theoretical perspectives have been analyzed to explain media coverage of political
actors and interest groups, most than half of our data have focused on the gender bias theory to
draw conclusion on how the media covers contents related to women and men politician and what
differences happen on this media attention to both actors. Existing literature has also paid attention
to other significant approaches such as the incumbency bonus theory, the personalization theory or
the mirror and the news value theories. These theories have been aimed to explain the media
prominence of the parliamentarian arena or the degree of Europeanization in the news, but, after
all, they have received little attention in general terms. In addition, there is a dominance of the
dependent and independent variables related to the gender bias theory as a result of the hegemony
of this approach in the research field. Thus, the most common variables in this literature are the
amount of news that media devotes to each politician, namely media prominence of political
parties, the amount of contents that make reference to the women’s traits such as their appearance
or their “maternal” role, in other words, the amount of women’s personal coverage, and, finally, the
number of references to their leadership skills, ideology and political viability in the news, namely
their political background and electability. Regarding the independent variables, most research
analyzes how the actors’ gender affects the media coverage of women and men politicians.
16
The analysis of the characteristic of the research designs employed by scholars in the research field
has shown several features.
Firstly, scholars have conducted their research on media attention to political actors and interest
groups, mainly from the analysis of case studies generally related to national electoral contests as
well as focusing on the gender bias theory. Thus, there is a significant lack of research regarding the
analysis of other events or specific issues as, for example, the political interactions of the
government and the opposition in the local arena during election races or even analyses on several
elections competitions from different political levels to draw accurate comparative data. However,
it is more notable the evident gap in the realization of macro studies, that it would let to obtain
more accurate conclusions on variations in the media coverage across the analysis of multiple events
(such as the differences in media attention to political actors between election and non-election
periods or the financial downturn). Furthermore, most research on macro studies has been
conducted to analyze the impact of the media over national actors while little attention has been
paid to actors in the subnational level, in spite of the relative importance of these actors and
institutions in countries based on a federal structure.
Secondly, one of the main consequences of the previous approach is that the politicians are the
most analyzed actors in the research field. However, existing literature has not focused on the
political parties as a unit of analysis, but scholars focus on individual politicians. These analyses are
followed by research on the parliamentarian arena that it is also dominated by the gender bias
studies, instead of focusing on other approach such as the relationship between the incumbency
bonus in the news and the strength of the parliament (consensus Vs majoritarian democracies). In
other words, there is a still wide range of knowledge to be explored in relation, not only through
research on other type of political actors such interest groups or EU actors, but also the political
parties themselves. This might especially be important in the case of those political systems where
the political party has more importance than the candidate itself.
Thirdly, research on media attention to political actors and interest groups is not based on a crossnational perspective, as scholars focus their attention on a single country. It is one of the major
shortcomings in the research field, since these analyses do not take into account the main
differences among political (such as the strength of the parliament or differences in the
parliamentarian procedures, and media systems (the three models defined by Hallin and Mancini
(2004): 1) Polarized Pluralist or Mediterranean model; 2) the North/Central Europe or Democratic
Corporatist Model; and 3) the North Atlantic or Liberal Model) or journalistic cultures (such as the
sacerdotal and pragmatic journalistic cultures) that may have an important effect in the media
attention to these actors. Furthermore, in spite of the fact that scholars tend to conduct analyses
comparing several media outlets, they are more likely to obtain data across the media content of
different newspapers. Therefore, most research has not analyzed either, on the one hand, the
differences in media agenda capacity among several formats of media or, on the other hand, how
online media (such as blogs or websites) covers political actors and interest groups.
Finally, existing literature is prone to analyze the media attention to political actors and interest
groups in economic and foreign policy news, which allows us to define new case studies focused on
other important areas such as the labor market.
17
In addition, we have analyzed research on the European dimension as well. This specific research is
very similar to national studies, but for scholars are more likely to conduct their analysis across a
cross-national perspective. Unlike national research, the gender bias theory receives little attention
as scholars are more prone to analyze the impact of the EU Parliament elections in media attention
to EU actors in the national media. More macro studies have to be conducted to analyze the degree
of Europeanization in the national media over time to obtain more accurate conclusions about its
impact on the “democratic deficit” inherent in the EU. Furthermore, research has largely focused
on the media attention to macroeconomic issues and EU events, but the increasing competences of
the EU as well as certain events (such as the especial impact of the immigration crisis in the European
integration process) might conduct new research on case studies and macro studies across other
political areas.
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Figures
Figure 1: The most prominent authors on media attention to interest groups and political actors
7,00%
6,00%
5,00%
4,00%
3,00%
2,00%
1,00%
0,00%
Figure 2: The most common issues analyzed by research
Foreign Policy
Macroeconomy
Government and public administration
Education and culture
Social policy
Rights
Health
Justice
Defense
Environment
Others
0,00%
5,00%
10,00%
15,00%
20,00%
25,00%
21
Figure 3: Publication of academic articles over time
12,00%
10,00%
8,00%
6,00%
4,00%
2,00%
0,00%
2003
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
Case study
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
Macro study
Tables
Table 1: Countries whose universities have published research on the topic
Country
US
Netherlands
United Kingdom
Denmark
Canada
Spain
Germany
Belgium
Italy
China
Switzerland
Romania
Norway
New Zeeland
Korea, South
Israel
Indonesia
Ghana
Egypt
Austria
Articles Percentage
15
20,27%
10
13,51%
7
9,46%
7
9,46%
6
8,11%
5
6,76%
5
6,76%
5
6,76%
2
2,70%
2
2,70%
1
1,35%
1
1,35%
1
1,35%
1
1,35%
1
1,35%
1
1,35%
1
1,35%
1
1,35%
1
1,35%
1
1,35%
22
Table 2: Research designs, non-comparative and comparative analyses
Level of Government
European Union
National
Subnational
Local
Media outlets analyzed
Newspapers
TV
Radio
Online traditional media
Online new media
Magazines
Newspaper and TV
Newspaper and online traditional media
Newspaper, TV and Online news media
Newspaper, TV and Magazines
Newspaper, TV and Radio
TV and Radio
Newspaper and Magazines
Literature Reviews
Countries analyzed
USA
United Kingdom
Denmark
Germany
Spain
Netherlands
Canada
France
Italy
Belgium
Ireland
Others
Total Articles
18,75%
70,31%
6,25%
4,69%
Total Articles
59,38%
3,13%
6,25%
0,00%
1,56%
1,56%
12,50%
1,56%
1,56%
1,56%
1,56%
1,56%
1,56%
6,25%
Total countries
9,42%
8,70%
7,25%
6,52%
6,52%
5,80%
5,07%
4,35%
3,62%
2,90%
2,90%
36,96%
23
Table 3: Theories and objectives analyzed by scholars
Objectives defined by the research field
Gender bias theory:
Gender differences in electoral contests
Gender differences during routine periods
Media visibility of parliaments and MP's
Mirror, news value and media market theories
Visibility and tone of the coverage
Visibility of the Parliament as an institution
Incumbency bonus: Dominance of the government in the news
Inside the parliamentarian arena
Incumbency bonus and electoral contests
Media diversity of interest groups
Organizational resources perspective
Diversity (Type, resources, issues etc.)
% Articles
54,69%
68,57%
34,29%
10,94%
71,43%
14,29%
14,29%
7,81%
60,00%
40,00%
7,81%
20,00%
40,00%
Diversity and conflict positions in the media
20,00%
Literature review
Media personalization
Degree of Europeanization in the national media
Exogenous factors (national and EU events)
EU institutions in national coverage
European Parliament elections
Media visibility and frame base on operating logics of national parliaments
Media prominence of political parties
Type of media system, ownership issues and journalistic standards
Media visibility during election contests
Literature review of media attention to politicians
Others
20,00%
3,13%
9,38%
16,67%
16,67%
50,00%
16,67%
4,69%
33,33%
33,33%
33,33%
1,56%
24
Table 4: Political actors and macro studies analyzed
Type of actors analyzed by research in the academic articles
Political parties
50% MP’s
Political
Governmental elites
7,81% institutions (such
as a Parliament)
Interest groups
7,81% All kind of actors
Analysis of the type of actors regarding the Macro studies
Governmental elites
10,00% Interest groups
EU institutions
10,00%
Political parties
20,00%
MP’s
40,00%
Political dimension of the actors analyzed
Governmental elites
MP’s
National actors
6,25% EU actors
Subnational actors
1,56% National actors
Interest groups
Political parties
Any kind of interest groups
3,13% EU actors
National actors
4,68% Local actors
National actors
Subnational actors
National and
subnational actors
together
Political Institutions
Actors from all political dimensions
EU actors
3,13% All
Subnational actors
1,56%
25,00%
4,69%
4,69%
20,00%
1,56%
23,44%
4,69%
4,69%
35,94%
3,13%
1,56%
4,69%
25
Appendixes
Appendix 1 Type of actor analyzed
Type of actor
Name
1. Political
parties
Description
We have coded in this category all those publications that explicitly aim to
analyze the media attention to political parties or individual politicians
outside the parliamentarian arena
Dummy:
Type of
politician
2. MP’s
We have created a dummy variable in order to identify whether a publication
is analyzing: 1) political party as an actor itself; 2) a candidate in election
periods; or 3) individual politicians
In this category we have coded those publications that analyze the
interactions among political actors inside the parliamentarian arena.
Dummies:
Government
Opposition
3. Interest
groups
4. Political
institutions
5.
Governmental
and opposition
elites
Government
Opposition
6. All actors
1 whether the article analyzes the political interactions of the government in
the parliamentarian arena.
1 when the publication analyzes the parliamentarian opposition.
The aim of this category is to code those publications that analyzes the
media prominence of interest groups.
We have created this category in order to code the analyses on political
institutions such as the national parliament, the European Parliament or the
European Commission
Government and opposition are coded into this category when the
publication analyzes their political actions outside the parliamentarian arena
1 Whenever the publication analyzed the media attention to the
governmental elites
1 when the scholar analyzes the features of media coverage of opposition
actors
Because of some publications analyze media coverage of any actor
regardless their particular type, we have coded these cases in this category.
26
Appendix 2 Countries and universities linked to the publication of academic articles
Country
US
Universities
American University, Iowa State University, University of
Missouri, Dartmouth College, University of Kansas,
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Macalester College,
University of New Mexico, George Washington
University, Indiana University, Bowling Green State
University, Southern Illinois University, University of
California, University of Michigan, Emory University,
Arizona State University, Purdue University, University of
North Carolina, Washburn University
Netherlands University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam Centre for
Contemporary European Studies, Erasmus University
Rotterdam
United
University of Liverpool, University of Warwick, Kingston
Kingdom
University, University of Surrey, Bournemouth
University, University of the West of England, Plymouth
University, University of Strathclyde, University of York,
University of East Anglia, University of Huddersfield
Denmark
University of Southern Denmark, Aarhus University
Canada
University of Alberta, University of New Brunswick,
McGill University, Queen's University, University of
Winnipeg
Spain
Universitat de Barcelona, Universidad Autónoma de
Barcelona, Universitat Jaume I de Castellón
Germany
Freie Universität Berlin, WZB Berlin Social Science
Center, Hertie School of Governance, Dresden University
of Technology
Belgium
University of Antwerp, Ghent University
Italy
Sapienza University of Rome, University of Pavia,
National Institute for Health, Migration and Poverty
China
Nanjing Normal University, Tamkang University
Switzerland University of Geneva
Romania
National School of Political and Administrative Studies
Norway
University of Bergen
New
Massey University
Zeeland
Korea South Hongik University, Yeungnam University
Israel
University of Haifa
Indonesia
Universitas Airlangga
Ghana
University of Ghana
Egypt
Damietta University
Austria
University of Vienna
Articles Percentage
15
20,27%
10
13,51%
7
9,46%
7
6
9,46%
8,11%
5
6,76%
5
6,76%
5
2
6,76%
2
1
1
1
1
2,70%
1,35%
1,35%
1,35%
1
1
1
1
1
1
1,35%
1,35%
1,35%
1,35%
1,35%
1,35%
2,70%
1,35%
27
Appendix 3 The ten most prominent scholarly journals in terms of academic articles published
9,00%
8,00%
7,00%
6,00%
5,00%
4,00%
3,00%
2,00%
1,00%
0,00%
Appendix 4 Research features
Research features
Research design
Case study
Macro study
Literature reviews
Type of analysis
Inferial
Descriptive
Research approach
78,13% Qualitative
14,06%
15,63% Quantitative
65,63%
6,25% Mix of quantitative and qualitative 20,31%
57,81% Descriptive
42,19%
42,19%
28
Appendix 5 Comparative analyses
Comparative Analysis
Among countries
Single country
Comparative
Countries and Media outlets analyzed
Number of countries
Literature review (0)
Single country
Two countries
Three countries
Four countries
Five countries
Seven countries
twenty-seven countries
Different formats of media outlet
Single media outlet
Comparative same format
Comparative different formats
Among media (same and different format)
78,13% Single media outlet
15,63%
21,88% Comparative
84,38%
6,25%
71,88%
7,81%
6,25%
1,56%
1,56%
1,56%
3,13%
Media outlet analyzed in the articles
Literature review (0)
6,25%
Newspapers
66,23%
TV
20,78%
Radio
5,19%
Online traditional media
1,30%
Online new media
2,60%
Magazines
3,90%
Number media outlet combinations
15,63% Two formats
73,33%
60,94% Three formats
20%
23,44% Unspecified
6,67%
Appendix 6 the most prominent variables operationalized by scholars in their research
The five most prominent dependent and independent variables
Dependent variables
D. variables Independent variables
media visibility of political
16,67% gender
parties
personal coverage
12,67% Incumbent actor
Politic background and electivity
8,67% issues
Media visibility of MP’s
8,00% major party affiliation
tone
6,67% seniority
Others
47,33% Others
I. variables
25,53%
7,09%
7,09%
5,67%
4,96%
49,65%
29
Appendix 7 The most cited bibliographic references
The ten most cited bibliographic references
Author
Citations
Kahn, K.F., & Goldenberg, E.N. (1991). Women candidates in the news: An
examination of gender differences in U.S. senate campaign coverage. Public Opinion
Quarterly, 55, 180-199.
20
Smith, K. B. (1997). When all’s fair: Signs of parity in media coverage of female
candidates. Political Communication, 14, 71–81.
19
Kahn, K. F. (1994). The distorted mirror: Press coverage of women candidates for
statewide office. Journal of Politics, 56, 154–173.
18
Kahn K (1996) The Political Consequences of Being a Woman: How Stereotypes
Influence the Conduct and Consequences of Political Campaigns. New York: Columbia
University Press.
17
Hallin, D. C., & Mancini, P. (2004). Comparing media systems: Three models of media
and politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
16
Tresch, Anke. (2009). Politicians in the Media: Determinants of Legislators’ Presence
and Prominence in Swiss Newspapers. The International Journal of Press/Politics 14,
1: 67-90.
15
Heldman, C., Carroll, S. J. & Olson, S. (2005). She brought only a skirt: print media
coverage of Elizabeth Dole’s bid for the republican presidential nomination. Political
Communication, 22 (3): 315–35.
15
Bystrom DG, Robertson TA and Banwart MC (2001) Framing the fight: An analysis of
media coverage of female and male candidates in primary races for governor and US
senate in 2000. American Behavioral Scientist 44: 1999–2013.
15
Gidengil, E. and Everitt, J. (2003) Talking tough: Gender and reported speech in
campaign news coverage. Political Communication 20(3): 209–232.
14
Jalalzai, F. (2006). Women candidates and the media: 1992-2000 elections. Politics &
Policy, 34(3), 606–633.
14
30