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Part 1 Introduction and Methodology -- Chapter 1 Dialogue in the News Media -- Chapter 2 Origin of Dialogue: A Model of Frame Building -- Chapter 3 Research Design and Data -- Part 2. Empirical Outcomes -- Chapter 4 Frame Construction for the Media Input -- Chapter 5 Frame Promotion: Variation of the Strategic Framing Choices in Different Communication Channels and Over Time -- Chapter 6 Frame Edition -- Chapter 7 Flow of Frames -- Chapter 8 Role of Dialogue in Public Opinion Formation -- Part 3. Conclusion -- Chapter 9 Conclusion

In this article, the author focuses on the relationship between political actors and the mass media. The author uses media frames as dependent variables and investigates the factors that influence the presence and frequency of frames applied by journalists (the frames in "news media"). This has come to be known as frame building. The author argues that there are at least three important factors in frame building: power, the salience of the frames in the media input, and the multiplication effect of the minister. Using data from content analyses of campaign material and news media and from interviews with political actors, the author finds support that for frame presence, power is important. For frame frequency, the salience of the frames in the media input and the minister are crucial.

This descriptive study investigates political mobilization and user engagement patterns on Facebook and associated partisan and gender discrepancies. It focuses on Switzerland, where political actors frequently seek to mobilize and shape citizens' opinions before direct-democratic voting on wide-ranging policy issues. Using digital trace data from CrowdTangle, the analysis focuses on the posting frequency and received user interactions of 770 Swiss political actors' Facebook pages. The analysis period covers 20 months, from November 2019 to July 2021, during which five popular votes occurred, and the sampled FB pages published more than 226,000 posts and received more than 18,000,000 user interactions. A descriptive quantitative analysis and a multiple regression analysis revealed an overall skewed pattern: Mobilization and user engagement are driven by small subsets of highly active and interacted-with FB pages. A few FB pages of the right-wing Swiss People's Party and male politicians receive highly disproportionate user engagement – relative to more centrist parties and female politicians – but also relative to their electoral share in the national parliament. The results show that only a few dominant political voices are widely heard on Facebook, even if many speak. These insights are of interest beyond Switzerland, as Facebook and other social media platforms shape political discourse across liberal democracies.

AbstractSo far, populism has mainly been studied by looking at the political supply side. This contribution focuses on the political demand side by explaining citizens' levels of support for populist attitudes. We formulate two competing hypotheses. The first hypothesis expects populist attitudes to be most pervasive on the ideological extremes, while the second one posits that individuals are more likely to hold these attitudes the more to the right of the political spectrum they position themselves. Our empirical analysis of a representative survey of the Swiss Electoral Study (SELECTS) supports the second hypothesis. We argue that this right‐sided orientation among Swiss citizens can be attributed to context characteristics that are currently available in the northern part of Western Europe (i.e. the absence of a long‐lasting economic crisis, the high saliency of identity politics, and a strong populist mobilization by the radical right).

So far, populism has mainly been studied by looking at the political supply side. This contribution focuses on the political demand side by explaining citizens' levels of support for populist attitudes. We formulate two competing hypotheses. The first hypothesis expects populist attitudes to be most pervasive on the ideological extremes, while the second one posits that individuals are more likely to hold these attitudes the more to the right of the political spectrum they position themselves. Our empirical analysis of a representative survey of the Swiss Electoral Study (SELECTS) supports the second hypothesis. We argue that this right‐sided orientation among Swiss citizens can be attributed to context characteristics that are currently available in the northern part of Western Europe (i.e. the absence of a long‐lasting economic crisis, the high saliency of identity politics, and a strong populist mobilization by the radical right).

In this article, the authors discuss the three most important strategic framing choices by political actors ("substantive emphasis choice," "oppositional emphasis choice," and "contest emphasis choice") of direct-democratic campaigns. The authors investigate these strategic framing choices in the media input and look at how the political actors change their choices in another communication channel (political advertisement) and over time. The results provide the following insights: First, political actors tend to emphasize one to two main frames in their media input. They generally also use their main frames in the political advertisements and stay on their main frames over time. Second, although political actors tend to emphasize their own frames, they do not exclusively revert to this behavior. The authors find that the political actors pay more attention to their opponents' frames in the media input than in the ads. With regard to variation over time, the authors can state that campaign dialogue does not disappear over the course of the campaign. Third, framing is primarily accomplished in substantive terms. In the advertisements and toward the end of the campaign, the authors do not find more contest frames.

Die Teilnahme der Bürgerinnen und Bürger an politischen Prozessen im Schweizer Kanton Aargau ist relativ gering. Der Beitrag betrachtet in diesem Zusammenhang die Meinungsbildung der Stimmbürgerinnen und Stimmbürger und die Rolle der politischen Kommunikation im Kanton Aargau. Volksabstimmungen erfordern von den Bürgerinnen und Bürgern einen Teilnahmeentscheid sowie die Bildung einer Meinung zu Sachvorlagen. Bis jetzt weitgehend unerforscht, aber Gegenstand von aktuellen politischen Untersuchungen im Rahmen des NCCR Democracy, ist der Einfluss von politischer Kommunikation auf den Teilnahmeentscheid und die Meinungsbildung bei den Stimmbürgerinnen und Stimmbürgern. Anknüpfend an diese generelle Themen wird in dem Beitrag untersucht, wie die Meinungsbildung bei den Aargauer Stimmbürgerinnen und Stimmbürger abläuft. Wie ist die Qualität dieser Meinungsbildungsprozesse zu beurteilen? Welche Rolle spielen dabei die politischen Akteure - Behörden, Parteien, Interessenverbände, zivilgesellschaftliche Vereine - und deren politische Kommunikation? In dem Beitrag werden zunächst die wichtigsten Erkenntnisse der jüngsten politikwissenschaftlichen Literatur zum Meinungsbildungsprozess in Abstimmungen dargestellt. Darauf folgt ein Teil mit empirischen Erkenntnissen zum politischen Verhalten der Aargauer Stimmbevölkerung. Der Beitrag schließt mit einigen Überlegungen zu alternativen Verfahren der Beteiligung von Bürgerinnen und Bürger in direktdemokratischen politischen Systemen mit Handlungsempfehlungen. (ICB2)

"Bisher wurde den Kampagne-Strategien von politischen Akteuren in Wahl-, Abstimmungs- und unkonventionellen Kampagnen erstaunlich wenig Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt. In diesem konzeptuellen Beitrag gehen wir von einem einfachen heuristischen Rahmen mit drei Akteurtypen aus - politische Akteure, Medien und Publikum - und konzeptualisieren ihre Interaktionen aus der Perspektive der politischen Akteure. Die Autoren unterteilen ihre zahlreichen strategischen Entscheidungen in zwei Teilmengen - eine, die sich mit Mobilisierung (Timing, Targeting, Auswahl der Kommunikationskanäle) beschäftigt, und eine, die sich mit der Formulierung der Botschaft an das Publikum (selektive Betonung der Salienz gewisser Aspekte der Kandidaten bzw. der relevanten Themen sowie Überzeugung mittels rhetorischer Strategien) befasst. Sie formulieren Hypothesen über die möglichen Determinanten der verschiedenen Entscheidungen sowie ihrer erwartbaren Effekte auf der Ebene der Öffentlichkeit und des Publikums der individuellen Bürgerinnen und Bürger." (Autorenreferat)

In 2008 the world experienced the Great Recession, a financial and economic crisis of enormous proportions and the greatest economic downturn since the 1930s. In its wake, unemployment became a key preoccupation of West European publics and politicians. This comparative study considers the policy debates surrounding unemployment in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Denmark and Switzerland since 2008. With an over-arching focus on drawing out cross-national commonalities and differences, the authors ask whether patterns of political communication vary across countries. Their analysis draws on interviews with labour market policy-makers in the six selected countries, and paints a revealing picture. Appealing to researchers in comparative politics, political communication and welfare state research, this book will also interest practitioners involved in labour market policy.