Suchergebnisse

Which politicians make it into the news and why? Individual politicians appear more in the news, which is important for their political success. Research concerning news coverage of individual politicians, however, has been conducted with different research designs and little comparative work, which has resulted in contradictory findings. This study examines previous research and has three goals: (1) classify the many possible determinants of news coverage into a typology, (2) give an overview of the effect of the determinants in the typology based on a systematic review of prominent studies, and (3) speculate about explanations for inconsistent findings by examining interaction effects and variations in research designs.

AbstractThis study analyses television news coverage of female politicians in Flanders (Belgium). Women politicians receive less coverage than their male colleagues do. We investigate whether this gender bias can be explained by political differences between men and women or whether a real media bias exists. We examine ten possible explanations, which can be divided into two groups: characteristics of female politicians, such as their function, and of news features, such as the theme of the item. Overall, the lower level functions of female politicians largely determine their limited television news coverage. Nevertheless, female politicians still get less speaking time, even when controlling for all ten variables. Thus, in addition to political gender differences, a real gender bias exists in Flemish television news: Female politicians receive less news coverage compared to male politicians with a similar political status.

This paper addresses the micro level variation in media responsiveness by political elites. It hypothesizes that individual political goals, in addition to party position, affect the extent to which MPs' parliamentary initiatives are inspired by media cues. Regression analysis on data from a survey with Belgian national parliamentarians confirms this assumption. Opposition MPs react more to the media than coalition MPs. Within parties, MPs who are focused on party political goals display higher levels of media responsiveness than MPs who are not. The findings are explained by the differential usefulness of news coverage for various political actors.