Turning the Spotlight Inward: How Five Leading News Organizations Covered the Media in the 1992 Presidential Election

Abstract

This study examined how two leading newspapers and three television networks covered the media in the 1992 presidential campaign. The main topic of media coverage was general media stories, although considerable attention was also given to candidates' use of media. Tone of coverage was different for different media themes with coverage of media performance being the most negative. How the press covered the media changed as the campaign progressed; coverage became more positive after the primaries. Newspapers tended to cover different media themes than the networks, and newspaper coverage was also more positive.

Teoría de la autorreferencia mediática. Un balance crítico de los primeros estudios

“…La autorreferencia o meta-cobertura (meta-coverage) 4 constituye un nuevo frame metacomunicacional, que enfatiza, como su propio nombre indica, en el acontecer de los medios y en la comunicación en un sentido más amplio. Este encuadre ha sido examinado en especial dentro del campo de la comunicación política y electoral 5 , en el que se señala que desde la década de los 90 del pasado siglo los medios tienden a percibirse y desempeñarse cada vez más como sujetos activos de primer orden y, en este volver el foco hacia adentro -turning the spotlight inward- (JOHNSON et al, 1996) se alejan progresivamente de su función tradicional de meros intérpretes del acontecer para insertar "su propia construcción de los eventos y temas entre los candidatos y los votantes" (LICHTER et al, 1999: 363-364): "Los periodistas, que en tiempos pasados eran comunicadores pasivos de la información sobre las figuras políticas, han emergido de forma creciente desde el fondo a hablar de ellos mismos -sus observaciones políticas, sus experiencias en la cobertura de los políticos, sus pensamientos sobre cómo se deben elaborar las noticias" (KERBEL, 1999: 83) 6 . Los estudios pioneros de Frank ESSER y Paul D´ANGELO (2003D´ANGELO ( , 2006 advierten que el frame metacomunicacional está estrechamente relacionado con la emergencia de un tercer actor en el proceso de la comunicación política: los asesores de campaña -political public relations y spin doctors-.…”

The Power of the Press: The Effects of Press Frames in Political Campaign News on Media Perceptions

“…In their view, some self-referential news merely documents journalism's role as a platform for candidates' messages. If, for instance, a story covers a policy issue as being communicated on a news program, then the story apparently does not portray the news media and the candidate in terms of strategy and news management (see Johnson & Boudreau, 1996). Akin to Kerbel's analysis, they hold that some self-referential news frames the press in strategic terms.…”

“…These studies use various terms to refer to this kind of news, including self-referential process news (Kerbel, 1998), media process news (Kerbel et al, 2000), metacoverage (Esser, Reinemann, & Fan, 2001), coverage of coverage (Gitlin, 1991;Stebenne, 1993), stories about the media (Johnson & Boudreau, 1996), and media stories (Stempel & Windhauser, 1991). Different unitization has led to a range of findings on the amount of self-referential news.…”

Covering Democracy's Forum: Canadian Press Treatment of Public and Private Broadcasting

“…2 For example, Johnson and Boudreau (1996) examined coverage of the 1992 U.S. presidential election in the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and on ABC, CBS, and NBC and found that in only approximately 8% of the coverage was the media a significant theme. Of this total, only 14% of the news items considered the performance or impact of the media in the electoral process.…”