The article presents a framework for the analysis of reciprocal effects of mass media-in this case, their impact on subjects of media reports, especially on decision makers in areas of politics and business. It outlines a feedback model with three sets of variables referring to (1) media coverage and media as institutions, (2) awareness and processing of information, and (3) observable effects on subjects and others.The article presents several theories that explain effects on decision makers and illustrate the relevance of this approach with empirical data from a broad range of quantitative studies. In the final section, theoretical and methodological problems of such an approach are discussed. Keywords: theories of media effects; indirect effects of media coverage; effects on media subjects; effects on interaction of cognition, emotion, and behaviorWhen the impact of the mass media on decision makers in politics, business, culture, and other areas became a topic, practically all researchers applied a four-level cascade model of successive media effects. This might be best illustrated by the presumed influence of the media on politics. In this case, the first level includes public actors, among them politicians, businesspeople, speakers of interest groups, and so on. The second level is composed of the media, which report and comment on the public actors' activities. The third level contains the readers, listeners, and wider audiences. On the basis of the news coverage, the latter develop ideas on the urgency and saliency of issues and form opinions regarding possible solutions. Moreover, their decisions as voters or consumers are shaped by these opinions; thus, through the interpretation of events, decisions are effectively made about the composition of existing political institutions. The fourth and last level includes politicians or businesspeople who, through these political institutions, realize their ideas and intentions through laws and decrees (Molotch et al. 1996); see figure 1.The model outlined is not altogether wrong. It does, however, neglect the direct influence of the media on politicians (or alternatively, also on entrepreneurs, artists, and athletes). This entails considerable consequences for research. Because the main focus of studies on the political relevance of the media is their influence on the population (agenda setting, voting behavior), researchers often fail to adequately consider the media's influence on decision makers. In essence, therefore, studies on the responsiveness of politicians to media are studies on their responsiveness to the opinions of the majority as shaped by the media.The media, however, are not really granted a direct role in the political process.The lack of quantitative studies that might prove the existence and explain the occurrence of reciprocal effects can be traced back to practical and theoretical reasons. A first practical reason is the difficulty in locating ordinary people who have been media subjects. Compared to the number of bystanders, the number of ...
The purpose of this study is to test the two-component theory of news selection. Its components are (a) news factors included in articles and (b) news values of news factors. It is assumed that news factors have different news values for various media outlets. The theory was tested comparing the empirical (measured) with the theoretical (calculated) newsworthiness of news stories. First, news values of five news factors for national quality papers, regional papers, and tabloids were identified. Then, based on theory, the theoretical newsworthiness of news stories was calculated. The independent variables were the news factors included in these articles and the news values of these news factors. In addition, in a laboratory setting, the empirical newsworthiness of the news stories was measured. Finally, measured newsworthiness was compared to the predicted one. Results confirmed the two-component theory and demonstrated that the chances of news stories to get published can be predicted by news factors and their news values.
This article reports causes and consequences of the mediatization of politics about activities of the German parliament (Der Bundestag) and coverage of German politics in three national newspapers during 1951-1995. During this period, the number of decision-making activities remained fairly constant, the number of information activities significantly increased, and coverage of German politics changed: Although the number of reports triggered by events and issues remained fairly constant, the number of stories triggered by statements (about events or issues) significantly increased and those triggered by statements made by politicians increasingly overshadowed articles triggered by nonpoliticians. Declarations of actions and demands for action, in particular, seemed to trigger articles, which indicates a growing importance of symbolic politics and has implications for citizens' relations to decision makers.After World War II, a new political system and a new structure of the mass media were established in Germany. Since then, both have changed remarkably. This presents a unique opportunity to analyze interdependences between politics and mass media. Since 1949, the circulation of daily newspapers has tripled, and the circulation of the politically relevant weeklies has more than quadrupled. The number of radios owned also has increased by more than fourfold. The number of TV sets increased from zero to between 35 and 40 million (Kepplinger, 1998, pp. 34-39). Since the early 1960s, the party press, which had been an important element of the German print media landscape for around 150 years, almost vanished completely. The Social Democrats (SPD), which once owned the largest German publishing house, no longer owned a single daily newspaper. The newspapers of the churches, which were close to the Christian and Christian-Social Democrats (CDU and CSU), no longer play any role (Schmolke, 2000;Schütz, 2000). During the same period of time, the importance of the mass media-especially TV-as a source of political information has increased. For example, in 1960 nearly the same percentage of voters got "much information about politics" from friends (18%) and from TV (22%). In 1987, three times as many were informed mainly by TV than by friends (74% vs.
The present study investigates static and dynamic approaches to agendasetting research by means of cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. The data bases used are weekly surveys on problem awareness of the public regarding 16 issues and a content analysis of the main German television news shows in 1986. Although static analysis of the data reveals nearly no relationship between media coverage and problem awareness, dynamic analysis demonstrates that media coverage caused problem awareness of four prominent issues in 1986 (energy supply, defense, environmental protection, and European politics). Problem awareness, on the other hand, caused media coverage on three issues (pensions, public debt, and public security). Time lags ranked between 1 and 3 weeks. The direction of influence seems to be dependent on the kind of issue and the investigated time interval. In addition, there are significant differences in the type of effects. Although the public generally reacted to media coverage with corresponding increases and declines of problem awareness, the media sometimes reacted to problem awareness by counterbalancing the trend of public opinion.
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