Public service broadcasters (PSBs) are a central part of national news media landscapes, and are often regarded as specialists in the provision of hard news. But does exposure to public versus commercial news influence citizens’ knowledge of current affairs? This question is investigated in this article using cross-national surveys capturing knowledge of current affairs and media consumption. Propensity score analyses test for effects of PSBs on knowledge, and examine whether PSBs vary in this regard. Results indicate that compared to commercial news, PSBs have a positive influence on knowledge of hard news, though not all PSBs are equally effective in this way. Cross-national differences are related to factors such asde jureindependence, proportion of public financing and audience share.

This article identifies news headlines as media-generated shortcuts for heuristic information about politics. Functionally speaking, headlines are simplifying mechanisms that summarize and attract attention to what lies ahead (or below). Although previous research has demonstrated potentially powerful framing effects of headlines, comparatively little is known about the relationship actual news headlines have with the stories they introduce. This study aims to contribute to this area of research by comparing with their stories the content of newspaper headlines about the 2004 Canadian federal election campaign.The data set has been developed from a content analysis of news, opinion, and editorial articles about the election, drawn from five major Canadian daily newspapers during the campaign. Headlines and full-text stories both have been separately coded for emphasis (campaign oriented vs. issue oriented), party coverage, leader coverage, issues, and tone.The analysis shows a considerable difference between articles and their headlines in terms of emphasis and issue salience. It also demonstrates how the tone of election coverage appeared to change when viewed exclusively through the prism of the headlines versus the lens of full stories. Hence, voters who scanned headlines were supplied with a different set of heuristic cues than those paying closer attention.

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Abstract. Headlines play a key role in influencing how and about what citizens are informed. In news media, their task is threefold: to represent stories, signal informational hierarchy and draw publicity for (or sell) what follows. This article examines the representative dimension of headline news content for the 2006 Canadian federal election campaign, testing whether public media headlines more faithfully reflected story-level coverage than commercial media. Comparing both public and commercial media coverage of this watershed election presents a unique opportunity to assess whether the overarching macro-incentive of commercial media—profit-making—may have influenced micro-level relationships between headlines and stories. Results of 55-day multiplatform analysis (N = 11,002) involving CBC election media and 12 commercial newsrooms reveal few differences with respect the representativeness of headlines from public and commercial media, save for the presence of journalists' opinion in headline content.Résumé. Les titres influencent comment les citoyens sont informés, et à propos de quoi ils en pensent. Les titres ont trois objectifs dans les nouvelles : ils résument les nouvelles, signalent quelles nouvelles sont les plus importantes, et vendre l'histoire complète qui suit. L'article examine le niveau de représentativité des titres dans les nouvelles sur la campagne de l'élection fédérale canadienne de 2006. Plus précisément, il teste si les titres venant des médias publics sont plus représentatifs que les nouvelles dans le média commercial. En comparant la couverture médiatique dans cette élection structurante, nous explorons si la motivation des médias commerciaux, notamment le profit, peut influencer le lien entre les titres et les articles. Les résultats de l'analyse multiplateforme de la campagne qui durait 55 jours (N = 11 002) incluent la couverture sur la CBC et 12 médias commerciaux. Ils indiquent qu'il n'y a pas beaucoup de différence dans la représentativité des titres entre les sources publiques et commerciales, sauf la présence de l'opinion dans le contenu des titres.