This article traces mediatization in the coverage of election campaigns in Danish and German television news over the past 20 years (1990–2009). The analysis is based on news content analyses focusing on the major candidates in the two countries. Considering that Denmark and Germany are similar but nevertheless different countries, the data show remarkable similarities in the coverage of elections and how it changes over time. Observing the amount of horse-race coverage, personalization, visualization and negativity, most findings fitted the mediatization hypothesis at a first glance. At a second glance, multivariate analyses controlling for important other variables confirmed the notion of mediatization for only three of the five content indicators studied. In addition, the mediatization process apparently stalled in the 1990s.

The article reports considerable changes in the content and style of German election coverage between 1990 and 2002. The findings are based on a content analysis of the main evening news of the four major television channels, spanning four Bundestag elections. During the observation period, television has immensely expanded its coverage of the top candidates. While the presence of the candidates in the news increased, they were not able to get their issues across to the audience. The news discourse was narrowed down to election and campaigning as issues. Matters of campaigning style, the 'game schema', as well as election polls became increasingly salient. The number of sound bites grew, although the average sound bite length decreased slightly. The presentation of the candidates became more vivid and more colorful, and, thus, more attractive for the audience. On the other hand, there are no signs of increasing negativism. The observable trends in the scope and kind of presentation of candidates can be interpreted as increasing personalization and dramatization of media coverage. The changes partially fit into the pattern of convergence (i. e., a mutual assimilation of public and commercial channels). These developments are partly rooted in the change of the German television market. Other results can be explained by historical incidents such as the German unification in 1990, and by the candidate constellation during each election. In spite of some similarities with developments in the US, the authors argue that it would be misleading to label the observable changes of German election coverage as 'Americanization'.

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A B S T R A C TThe mediatization of politics in general, and of election campaigns in particular, seems to be an obvious consequence of media changes during recent decades and of an increasing interdependence between political processes and mass communication. As in many other European countries, three trends mark such development in Germany: (1) an enormous expansion of supply of new types of media and content genres, (2) the growing importance of television in political communication and (3) the transformation of election campaigning. Based on election studies and content analysis data, this article examines these changes with regard to their impact on voter behaviour. The article looks for evidence of voter mobilization, television dependency and personalization trends, and discusses potential consequences of a changing campaign style. The findings support and, at the same time, modify some implications of the mediatization hypothesis. They concur with recent scepticism about the notion of Americanization. The article discusses the results with reference to changes in campaigning strategies, e.g. tendencies towards the secularization of election research having repercussions on research concepts and results.

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