Election Campaigns, Balance, and the Mass Media Holli A. Semetko

May 18,18, 2008 [ELECTION CAMPAIGNS ‐‐ SEMETKO] Harvard‐‐World Bank Workshop 29‐‐31stst May 2008 Election campaigns, balance, and the mass media Holli A. Semetko E E MORY UUNIVERSITY EMAIL:: HOLLI.SEMETKO@EMORY .EDU T T ELEL:: 404 8727 7504 F F AX :: 404 727 2772 Paper 4.2 inin The Role of the News Media inin the Governance Reform Agenda Co‐‐sponsored by the CommGAP Program atat the World Bank and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy atat HKS. 11 May 18,18, 2008 [ELECTION CAMPAIGNS ‐‐ SEMETKO] Election campaigns, balance, and the mass media The mass media are the most common source forfor information about election campaigns inin democracies and societies inin transition around the world. InIn terms of of the sheer volume of of information available toto citizens viavia the media onon issues, political parties and leaders, political communication often represents aa high point inin aa national news stream during national election campaigns. Concerns about political bias inin the mass media are atat the heart of of debates about the roles and responsibilities of of the media atat election time. Behind these concerns isis the assumption that there may bebe effects, intended oror unintended, onon public opinion and political behavior and, ultimately, electoral outcomes. InIn every election campaign, citizens must not only decide upon the party oror candidate they wish toto support, they must also decide whether they will vote atat all.all. InIn countries that dodo not mandate compulsory voting, most political observers would agree that turnout inin anan election isis aa measure of of success and the higher the turnout the better. InIn most cases, parties and candidates use allall means toto stimulate turnout and motivate supporters toto gogo toto the polls. InIn some cases, however, parties and political camps aim toto repress turnout toto accomplish their goals. ItIt isis the larger context of of political party strategies and tactics, and the structure of of the mass media environment, that we also need toto consider when we turn toto addressing questions about balance during election campaigns. Political && Media Systems: Political culture && journalistic culture Political culture asas aa concept has been the subject of of much debate since the early 1960s, with the publication of of Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba’s The Civic Culture,, which represented the first cross‐‐ national comparative empirical approach toto cultural influence onon political behavior.11 The work was criticized forfor the implicit preference given toto Anglo‐‐Saxon culture of of participatory Democracy and forfor itsits static assessment of of the concept. Ronald Inglehart’s work however demonstrates that “political culture exists asas anan autonomous and measureable set of of variables with significant political consequences.”22 Like political culture, journalistic culture isis “neither static nor homogeneous;” itit isis both proactive and responsive toto developments inin the political and broadcasting systems.33 For the analysis of of journalistic culture, nations provide one level of of context.44 And just asas there are political subcultures there are also journalistic subcultures. Journalistic culture provides aa framework forfor discussing the reporting of of campaigns and politics atat election time. The concepts of of political culture and journalistic culture provide aa backdrop forfor the work of of Daniel Hallin and Paolo Mancini who have shown that media systems develop within the context of of political and social systems, based onon anan 1818 nation study of of countries inin North America and Western Europe.55 They introduce aa schema forfor comparing media systems based onon three ideal type models of of media and politics: polarlized/pluralist model, aa democratic corporatist model, and aa liberal model. Major variables forfor comparing media and political systems include: (a)(a) the development of of media markets, with anan emphasis onon the strong oror weak development of of aa mass‐‐circulation press; (b)(b) the extent toto which the media system reflects major political divisions inin society, otherwise described asas political parallelism; (c)(c) the development of of journalistic professionalism; (d)(d) and the degree and nature of of state intervention inin the media system. Research onon comparative political communication isis less developed than other areas of of comparative politics because, asas Pippa Norris has pointed out, the subfield has lacked well‐‐established conceptual typologies.66 Much of of the most recent and theoretically compelling work toto establish typologies oror schemas forfor understanding the media and politics relationship, such asas Hallin and Mancini’s work, have been focused onon Western democracies. There isis genuine interest inin applying these variables and concepts toto cases of of consolidating democracies and societies inin transition, asas indicated byby reviewer of of 22 May 18, 2008 [ELECTION CAMPAIGNS ‐ SEMETKO] Hallin and Mancini’s Comparing Media Systems: “…it would be interesting to know whether Mexico’s media system more closely approximates the polarized pluralist model of its colonial ancestor (Spain), the Liberal model of its neighbor to the North (the United States), or a completely different model that is not even considered in the study.”7 In some cases, such as Turkey, scholars are already attempting to apply these four variables though these efforts have yet not resulted in valid and reliable measures that can be the basis for content analysis.8 Although this paper is not designed to apply these variables in the four country case studies presented, it is important to note here at the outset the value of considering system‐level characteristics such as these in understanding the development of the present‐day media‐ politics relationship in countries outside of Hallin and Mancini’s study. Media and Elections In established democracies, broadcast journalists whose medium is often mandated to provide impartial reporting of politics at election time are confronted with the problem of balance when reporting election campaigns.9 Balance is problematic to define yet remains an assumption behind allegations of political bias in the news at election time. If the principle of balance in reporting on contending parties and candidates is strictly adhered to, then it conflicts with the journalistic principle of objectivity which drives story selection. News values provide objective criteria by which editors determine what stories end up in the news. If television news is responsible for presenting a range of political voices at election time, then normal news values will need to be suspended to some extent in order to accomplish these objectives. Research on television news has shown that the principle of balance, while applied during election campaigns in a number of established democracies, has been operationalized quite differently. Some of the earliest research on media and elections in the U.S. stemmed from a concern about media bias having an impact on electoral outcomes, as it had in Nazi Germany. Paul Lazarsfeld and his colleagues compared radio and press reporting on the presidential candidates in the 1940 U.S. election, and found that Roosevelt had a visibility advantage in the news by a margin of 3:2 in quantitative terms, but the tone of the news actually favored Wilkie by a margin of 2:1, illustrating the independence of measures of degree and of direction of attention, as noted above.10 This early research illustrates two important dimensions to assessing balance in the news, visibility and valence or tone. An example of what can emerge from conducting systematic content analysis at each election campaign with respect to visibility and valence of parties and issues in the news is in Figure 1 which is taken from my research in the U.K. with Margaret Scammell on television news on the main evening flagship news programs on BBC and ITV over a number of general elections.11 These programs traditionally reach the largest number of viewers, and undecided viewers, of any outlet during a general election campaign. Figure 1 displays three graphs on how the visibility and tone of the news developed from one election to the next, taking BBC and ITV together, for the three main political parties, in 1992, 1997 and 2001. From this we see that coverage on the main evening news of the three main political parties has moved from more unfavorable to more favorable over time. And party access to the public via the news, as measured by the total amount of time given to party spokespersons via soundbites in the main evening news, has declined considerably over time as indicated by the size of the bubbles. This is just one slice of a study that enables us to say more about the window for political news during British general election campaigns, how it has developed over time, balance in election news among the main political parties, and what is displacing political news on main evening television news programs. The charts in Figure 1 show these developments in relation to the opportunities accorded to political parties to get their message across in their own words in the news. Looking at these main evening flagship news programs as a whole, this research on British general elections shows that over time there is a declining percentage of stories devoted to political news. The 3 May 18, 2008 [ELECTION CAMPAIGNS ‐ SEMETKO] decline in political news is accompanied

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