Negativity in political news: A review of concepts, operationalizations and key findings

Abstract

The concept of negativity in political news has not reached the status of a homogenous, overarching theoretical concept. This article proposes conceptual understandings, categorizations and practical operationalizations of negativity in the news that reflect the consensus of existing work paying special attention to recent European research. This work aims to systematize existing concepts and categories in order to increase comparability and cumulativity of empirical evidence. To structure and standardize dimensions of negativity in the news we differentiate firstly between negativity and confrontation, secondly between frame-related negativity and individual actor-related negativity, and thirdly between non-directional and directional dimensions of negativity. This article provides a common set of indicators and matrice-based classifications of negativity (and its antithesis) in the news to measure and categorize its intensity and multi-dimensionality.

Negativität in der Politikberichterstattung. Deutschland, Österreich und die Schweiz im Vergleich

“…B. Eilders 1997; Ruhrmann et al 2003;im Überblick: O'Neill & Harcup 2009). Aus dem Literaturkorpus dieser drei Forschungszweige und ausgewähl-ten Erkenntnissen der international vergleichenden Politikwissenschaft und Kommunikationsforschung werden im Folgenden Hypothesen und Forschungsfragen abgeleitet (für eine allgemeinere Literaturübersicht siehe: Lengauer et al 2012). Diese sind nach Länder-, Medien-und Beitragsebene geordnet.…”

“…Die Operationalisierung der Negativität lehnte sich an den Vorschlag von Lengauer et al (2012) an und basierte auf den vier Dimensionen Tonalität, Konflikt, Untauglichkeit und Unvorteilhaftigkeit. 1 Tonalität erfasste auf einer Skala von -1 (= positiv) über 0 (= ambivalent/neutral) zu 1 (= negativ) den Gesamteindruck des Beitrags.…”

Communication as integral element of biomedical implant innovation

“…For lay audiences who lack knowledge and direct access to (medical) research, the picture that news media draw is thus the reality they can observe and understand -but which is often only partially matching the views of scientific experts. Most importantly, journalists tend to emphasize risks and dangers related to topics of coverage in order to fulfill their early warning function for society and/or to comply with their task of uncovering problems and scandals [13]. Thus, researchers and innovators find themselves confronted with skeptical and critical perspectives when they actually want to explain the beneficial aspects of their work.…”

“…[19,20]). Likewise, the negativity bias in journalism [13] suggests that news media will selectively report on (single) cases of medical implant failures -those failures that Biofabrication methods and materials are envisioned to prevent in the future -and neglect their beneficial aspects for patients' health and quality of life.…”

Framing of Electoral Processes: The Stages of the Campaign as a Moderator of the Presence of Political Frames in the News

“…Conflict framework is a generalist news frame; in other words, it can be used in any news story to emphasize the disagreement between the different actors involved in politics (Neuman, Just, & Crigler, 1992;Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000;Strömbäck & Luengo 2008). Keeping this in mind, it leads us to linking conflict with negativity, while other authors have postulated that the conflict frame should be conceived more as an option for political debate, a place where opinions are confronted by fighting for consensus, commitment, or cooperation (Lengauer, Esser, & Berganza, 2012;Sevenans & Vliegenthart, 2016).…”