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"The major early studies by Paul Lazarsfeld and his colleagues in the 1940s were based upon a number of assumptions that are not very appropriate today. Subsequent research has largely consisted of variations on those early studies, rather than a full reconceptualization of the problem posed by the burgeoning role of mass media in politics. Using a panel design, Lazarsfeld and his colleagues found relatively few people switching from one candidate to another, and switching was particularly rare among those who followed politics closely in the media. This lack of evidence, coupled with the prevalent image of social science as searching for 'theories of middle range', yielded a conclusion that mass media have only 'limited effects' in politics. Election research shifted in the 1950s and 1960s to national surveys conducted at the University of Michigan. Synchronous correlational designs replaced panels as the dominant model, and the role of mass media was severly downgraded to a few items asking whether the person had read or heard about the election campaign on TV or radio, or in a newspaper or magazine. The 1970s brought a flowering of new conceptual topics, although the basic marketing model continued to structure most studies. Cognitive dependent variables, based on the assumption that the media are responsible for enlightenment of the electorate, began to overshadow attitudinal measures and the simple act of voting. But the basis model for election studies has never been abandoned. The research field today remains very much the product of its historical roots." (author's abstract)

"Brief sketch of research on mass media portrayal of recent election campaigns in the United States. Most of this research involves media coverage of the 1980 presidential election campaign. The focus is on the substance of information conveyed by mass media stories and on the research methods used to assess the substance of coverage. The general discussion is followed by an analysis of the substance of coverage of the 1980 presidential election by the New York Times. In the paper, 1980 findings are compared to findings from prior elections, particularly the 1976 election. All findings about mass media coverage of presidential campaigns are based on the author"s previous research and involve use of the same type of detailed coding methods. The validity of such content analysis findings, based on well-established research techniques and routines used by most other researchers, is then questioned. Do the usual content-analysis techniques yield adequate information about media content? Do they give a wholly accurate, partially accurate, or totally inaccurate picture? To answer these questions, the paper reports findings from a content analysis of New York Times stories of the 1980 election done through the technique of 'assertion' coding. The results of traditional content analysis and assertion content analysis are then compared. The findings clearly demonstrate the shortcomings of current content analysis methods. They also suggest the direction in which current research findings need to be modified to present a more accurate picture of mass media protrayal of election campaigns." (author's abstract)

"The author presents a model of factors influencing the content of mass media-transmitted political communication. The basic idea behind the model is that the content of political communication is generally influenced by the political and the economic system, as well as by the actual situation in which the interaction between the mass media and political actors takes place. A set of hypotheses about journalistic behaviour is derived from the model. Content analysis data from three Danish general elections, as well as from the first direct elections for the European Parliament are confronted with these hypotheses. The empirical results show a recognizable pattern of interaction between politicians and journalists. For instance, journalists are more interested in what can be labelled as 'the here and now'. Also, conflicts as a news criterion are found more often in journalistic behaviour, than in the speeches of party representatives. But at the same time we can see a clear tendency among party representatives to take over some of these criteria of news value for their own presentation. The author argues that the mass media constitute a serious threat against a free and participatory democracy if they are specifically used for conflict presentation or for personalisation." (author's abstract)