Abstract
ABSTRACT One consistent finding within journalism research is the media’s heavy reliance on the so-called game frame when covering the political process. One main component of this frame is the frequent use of horse race polls, a tool that by its zero-sum nature provides journalists with immense opportunities to portray political actors as either winners or losers. While there is an extensive literature on how horse race reporting can influence opinion formation and political behavior among citizens, little is known about how such coverage affects journalists’ coverage of political parties. To remedy this, this paper investigates how the tone toward political parties in media’s poll coverage affects the subsequent tone toward political parties in general (non-poll related) news coverage. This is done by using time-series regression on a large dataset of daily Swedish top news stories (n = 7553), covering a period of 4 years (2014–2018). The main finding is that positively framed poll stories appear to affect the tone in subsequent coverage, while there does not appear to be a corresponding effect of negatively framed poll stories.
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.