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Abstract
This paper focuses on the accuracy of COVID-19-related knowledge during the 2020 pandemic. We look at the effects of traditional vs. digital news use and distinguish between positive (number of recoveries) and negative (number of casualties) knowledge. Importantly, the moderating role of crisis context is examined when tracing media effects on knowledge. Relying on a four-wave panel survey fielded in the Netherlands, we find that people's knowledge became more accurate over the course of the crisis. News exposure did not lead to more accuracy, in fact, a negative relation was found. The impact of digital news use weakened as the crisis continued.

This article studies the tripartite relationship between the economy, economic news, and public economic perceptions. Our analysis is twofold: We investigate the impact of the real economy on economic news in Dutch newspapers (2002-2015, N = 127,120); second, we analyze the impact of economic news on public economic perceptions. Our empirical approach builds on and contributes to the literature by making nuanced distinctions between (a) economic levels and changes (positive/negative), (b) volume and tone of coverage (positive/negative), and, most importantly, (c) people's retrospective and prospective economic judgments. Our analyses show that the public is presented a version of economic reality that is skewed to the negative, which strongly affects people's economic expectations but not evaluations. Extending media-dependency theory, these results demonstrate the necessity to both conceptually and empirically distinguish between people's retrospective and prospective judgments.

Women and ethnic minorities are underrepresented in national parliaments around the world. Interestingly, in the Netherlands ethnic minority women are better represented than ethnic minority men and ethnic majority women. The Netherlands did not adopt gender quotas, but some parties implemented target numbers. Drawing on document analysis and interviews, this article explores whether parties that encourage women's representation are also likely to increase the number of ethnic minority representatives. It finds that party-specific factors such as a left or social democratic ideology, the institutionalization of gender and/or ethnicity within the party and the party's vision on group representation are intertwined. Parties that actively encourage women's representation are more inclined to openly acknowledge the importance of ethnic diversity. This especially favours ethnic minority women, who benefit from the strong embedding of gender. In the end gender determines the success of the ethnic card in political representation. Adapted from the source document.

Abstract
This article studies the asymmetric effects of credit and blame attributions in economic news on government evaluations. We rely on a dataset combining a manual content analysis of Dutch economic news (print, television, online; N = 5,630) with a three-wave panel survey (N = 3,240) that was fielded in 2015. Results show that people who are exposed to news in which the government is blamed for the economy tend to adopt this frame by assigning responsibility to the government for the economic crisis. In addition, exposure to blame attributions leads to more negative government evaluations. This effect is partly mediated through the attribution of crisis responsibility. Credit attributions in the news do not have any effect on public opinion.

Previous studies using aggregate-level designs demonstrated that the tone of economic news affects consumer confidence. However, the individual-level mechanisms underlying this effect remain to be investigated: It is not clear which consumer confidence attributes are most susceptible to media effects. Theoretically, we integrate the economic voting literature and extend media system dependency by differentiating between the media effects on sociotropic versus egocentric evaluations and the effects on prospective versus retrospective economic evaluations. Methodologically, data from a manual content analysis are linked to data from a three-wave panel survey, containing repeated measurements of consumer confidence. The findings demonstrate that the effects of tone on consumer confidence are largely a consequence of media effects on its sociotropic and prospective attributes: As citizens were exposed to relatively more positive economic news, only the national economic evaluations and expectations for the future improved. The egocentric and retrospective evaluations were not influenced by the tone in news that people had been exposed to.

AbstractThis article provides an overview of key findings in the field of economic news research. The focus is on the relationship between the real economy and economic news, and the subsequent effects of economic news on people's economic perceptions. Additionally, we discuss research that looks into the construction of economic and financial news. Recommendations for future research relate to the application of mixed methods approaches and individual level studies, and a specific focus on new (social) media.

Gender equality is not fully realised when it is restricted to ethnic majority men and women. This article examines how gender quotas as a form of equality policy affect ethnic minority groups, in particular, the gender balance among ethnic minority candidates for political office. Our analysis focuses on the selection of ethnic minority candidates in Belgium, where legally binding quotas exist, and in the Netherlands, where they do not. Drawing on 23 interviews with central actors in four main parties in each country, we find that the process of ethnic minority candidate selection is highly gendered: in both countries, ethnic minority women are represented in larger numbers than ethnic minority men. But gender quotas play a lesser role in this than the more general concern for diversity on electoral lists, the institutionalisation of gender/ethnicity within political parties and the strategic choices of party leaders.