Political news journalism: Mediatization across three news reporting contexts

Abstract

Election coverage has a tendency to frame politics as a strategic game, to increase the role of journalists as interpreters of issues and events and to include a conflict frame, and thus indicating increased mediatization. However, political news research outside of the election indicates that news media are less independent from political actors. Drawing on literature on mediatization, media interventionism, political news journalism, news framing and source use, the purpose of this article is to empirically investigate whether election coverage is representative of other political journalism in terms of degree of mediatization. The study is based on a systematic comparison of three content analyses using the same coding schedule and procedure from coverage of the Financial Crisis 2008, the Election Campaign 2010 and routine political news coverage 2012 in Sweden. The main conclusion from this study is that mediatization of media coverage is substantially influenced by the specific context of the news.

Towards A Typology of Conflict Frames

“…Our study shows that proximity to the election does explain variations of differing types of conflict coverage. This difference between these different time periods is in line with findings from Falasca (2014), which suggest that levels of mediatization vary between periods of election and routine coverage. During election times there are several other factors that might affect contextual characteristics of contentious political news coverage that should be taken into account in future studies.…”

“…Non-interventionist reporting resonates with a descriptive style, which offers a detached and factual description of events. In contrast, an interpretative style is focused on meaning of events that goes beyond facts and statements of sources (Falasca 2014), as well as journalistic explanations and analysis (Salgado and Ström-bäck 2011). Journalistic visibility entails the adaptation of a more interpretative style of reporting (Hanitzsch 2007) and "journalists reporting about political news in their own words, scenarios and assessments" (Esser 2008, 403).…”

“…In this study, a comparison will be made between tabloid newspapers and more quality newspapers. Previous research suggests that an interpretative style is more prevalent in quality titles (Falasca 2014). Quality outlets may want to give readers more than just the news and adapt an active approach, evaluating politicians and provide readers with interpretations and backgrounds.…”

As medidas de austeridade debaixo da Troika: Uma análise à cobertura noticiosa dos Orçamentos de Estado de JN e Público

“…Certas investigações mais recentes sobre a cobertura noticiosa às medidas de austeridade indicam que os meios de comunicação social terão assimilado o discurso das elites governativas. Numa análise à cobertura noticiosa à crise, Falasca (2014) destaca a capacidade do governo sueco em definir a questão: "os esforços de comunicação do governo asseguraram o acesso às notícias e a capacidade de definir a crise de modo a explicar o que tinha acontecido, por que tinha acontecido e como geriram a situação". Como refere Petry (2013), "é a construção discursiva das crises -como explicamos um erro -que constitui o modo em que lhe damos uma solução".…”

A Theoretical Discourse on the Mediatisation and Framing of Jos Ethno-Religious Conflicts

“…It also accounts for the current debate in which researchers have moved from analysing the mediating potentials of the media that make them channels of communication to explaining the complexities which characterize their new influential status of "a standalone institution with its own logic" (Nie, Kee, & Ahmad, 2014, p. 363). But fundamentally, there is a seeming common ground on the adoption of this concept in the purview of communication research; namely, that the media institutions and technologies exert some degree of influence on society which may be responsible for the changes that take place in the society (Christensen & Jansson, 2014;Deacon & Stanyer, 2014Falasca, 2014;Hepp, 2013;Hepp, Hjarvard, & Lundby, 2015;Hepp & Krotz, 2014;Knoblauch, 2013;Krotz, 2014;Landerer, 2013;Livingstone & Lunt, 2014;Lundby, 2014). Going further to demonstrate this consensus, Falasca (2014, p. 583), for instance, refers to mediatisation as "a process in society where media have become increasingly influential", that is, "the process of increasing dependency of society upon media and its logic" (Nie, et al, 2014, p. 363).…”