The News Norms and Values of Presidential Debate Agendas: An Analysis of Format and Moderator Influence on Question Content

Abstract

Mediated debates provide audiences with invaluable campaign information, and the public does in fact learn from debate exposure. Debates have undergone format changes over the years, but their ability to attract a mass audience remains constant. The way news media cover U.S. presidential elections has also evolved; increasing commercial pressures drive heightened emphasis on infotainment, soft news, and electoral strategy-often at the expense of hard news and policy content. Yet little is known about the content of agendas that news professionals set in presidential debates. Through a quantitative content analysis, this study examines 20 years of general election debate questions to determine whether the commercial news values common in today's campaign coverage also influence debate agendas. The findings presented herein suggest not only the presence of these news values in debate agendas but that format and moderator also wield a degree of influence over the content of debate questions.

Social Construction of Mass Media in the Indonesian Presidential Election; A Framing Analysis of the 2019 Indonesian Presidential Debate

“…Therefore, this study will specifically scrutinize the framing of the 2019 Indonesian Presidential Debate news in the online media tempo.co and republika.co.id. The selection of the 2019 Indonesian Presidential debates departs from a number of study results showing that reporting on US presidential election debates have a significant impact, both on society in particular, and on the political dynamics of the country itself in a broader context (McKinney & Warner, 2013;Turcotte, 2015). Meanwhile, similar studies are rarely conducted in Indonesia, because they focus more on other types of political news, and they all study news in print-based mass media (Hamad, 2004;Chairani & Kania, 2014;Sapahuma, 2015;Siregar, 2019).…”

Debates electorales en los VOD de las RTV Públicas de Europa

“…Se han analizado todas las vertientes. Fijando la mirada del investigador en el formato (Kraus,1962;Kraus 1988;Carlin, Howard, Stanfield y Reynolds, 1991;McKinney y Carlin, 2004;Schroeder, 2008;Schroeder 2012;Turcotte, 2015), la comparativa del formato y su uso en países diferentes (Schroeder, 2012;Micovic, 2014), el formato como elemento modernizador de campañas (Campus, 2010;Caprara, 2007;Berrocal, 2003: 55-79;Langer, 2007: 371-387), los contenidos discursivos con estudios de la puesta en escena, la realización, la retórica (Matera y Salwen, 1996;Anaya, 2014), la pragmática (Bañon, 1997;Fernández , 2000;Blas, 2001;Fuentes, 2009;Blas, 2011;Micovic, 2014) o el papel de los periodistas (Martel, 1983;Stepp, 1987;Lanoue y Schrott, 1991;Coleman, 2000;Kraus, 2000;Schroeder, 2016;Núñez-Mussa, 2018).…”

The Evolution of the Format of the Presidential Debates on Chilean Television: 1989-2017. A Speciation Case

“…El Modelo Americano es muy similar a los programas de Talk Show, caracterizados por la presencia de una audiencia de estudio y en su formato original, un panel de periodistas responsables de hacer preguntas. A mediados de los años noventa, el panel de periodistas ha sido sustituido por un único moderador y se ha permitido una mayor interacción entre los candidatos, con el fin de cambiar el carácter de "conferencia de prensa conjunta" producida por el panel de periodistas (Lanoue, Schrott, 1991;Turcotte, 2015). Por lo tanto, este modelo asumió algunas características del llamado Modelo Francés, donde el papel de los periodistas se limita a ser simples moderadores, por lo que es muy menor.…”