Abstract
On November 27, 2010, the people of Iceland elected 25 individuals to the country’s constitutional assembly. As there were 522 candidates for the 25 seats in the assembly, the media were faced with a new dilemma, i.e. how to ensure impartiality and objectivity in their coverage of the candidates and the subject matter. The present study compares the media coverage of the constitutional assembly election to two other national elections; the general election in the spring of 2009 and the municipal election in the spring of 2010. All news stories in the 13 major print, broadcast and online news outlets in Iceland were coded two weeks prior to each election. The results indicate that the national media almost ignored the constitutional assembly election in comparison to the other elections. There were 632 news stories on the general election, 590 stories on the municipal election but only 165 stories on the constitutional assembly election. The lack of coverage of the candidates for the constitutional assembly seems to reveal that the traditional media, i.e. the print and broadcast media, and the online media did not know how to best serve and inform the public in the democratic process.
Highlights
National Broadcasting Service (RÚV), were harshly criticized by the candidates and others for not fulfilling, what many argued was its legal duty, to allow the candidates on the air, and to cover the election more extensively (Hersveinn 2010; Tryggvason 2010)
5.1 The total news coverage of the three elections It was hypothesized that the media had spent less time on the constitutional assembly election than on the general election or the municipal election
As seen in figure 2, there is a huge difference in the news coverage between the constitutional assembly election, on one hand, and the general election and the municipal election, on the other hand
Summary
National Broadcasting Service (RÚV), were harshly criticized by the candidates and others for not fulfilling, what many argued was its legal duty, to allow the candidates on the air, and to cover the election more extensively (Hersveinn 2010; Tryggvason 2010). It is possible to say that the news media only reflected the public’s attitude towards the election. Considering the importance of the issue and the fact that 80% of people rely on the mass media for news and public affairs, according to one foreign study (Yang & Stone 2003), one might have expected the media to play a larger role. An interim minority government, formed by the Social Democratic Alliance and the Left-Green Movement and supported by the Progressive Party, took over and continued its alliance (in a majority position) after the general election in April 2009. The issue of a new constitution had been raised (Torfason n.d.) the left-wing government felt early on that it was a priority to review the constitution. The constitution dates from 1944 and was to a large extent based on the Danish constitution (Tómasson, Thorarensen, Kristinsson & Stefánsson 2005)
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