Party-Political and Ideological Partisanship in Danish Alternative Media: How Distinguishing between Types of Partisanship Can Advance Our Understanding of the Political Roles of Alternative Media

Abstract

ABSTRACT The spread of (hyper)partisan alternative media has sparked renewed scholarly interest in their political role, but the relation between these outlets and political parties has only recently received scholarly attention. This study explores this relationship using a novel design that directly compares the news agendas and source balances of two Danish alternative media to those of two national dailies, and to the political agendas of two political parties the alternative media have ties to. In total, 576 news articles and 1012 social media posts were analyzed. The study identifies four ways in which the alternative media favor the political parties but finds that the favoritism is markedly more pronounced in one of them. The case study contributes with the general theoretical insight that within the group of partisan alternative media it might be fruitful to distinguish between party-political and ideological partisanship and that alternative media can be more or less party-politically or ideologically partisan. The study concludes with a recommendation that future studies empirically investigate whether such distinctions are also relevant in other media systems as this is important for understanding the political roles different alternative media can play in the media and political systems they enter.