"Agenda Setting Can Decide an Election"

Agenda Setting Interview

„Agenda Setting can decide an election“

Interview with Brettschneider: I would disagree with that one. Abstention is not remotely as pronounced, at least Prof. Frank Brettschneider, not in national elections. In fact, turnout in Ger- University of Augsburg man parliamentary elections has been on the rise. After all, the question which party leads the fed- Media Tenor: In Bulgaria, voters get a chance to eral government really does make a win the lottery for going to the polls. What has difference. The European elections, gone wrong for people to make so little use of for their part, are another matter. their voting rights, only 15 years after the end of Voter turnout dropped to 43 percent. the dictatorship? Never since the fi rst direct election of the European Parliament in 1979 Prof. Frank Brettschneider: A lot can go wrong. has voter participation in Germany People may get the impression that, whether they been as low as on June 13th, 2004. It cast their vote or not, doesn’t make a difference to is attributed to several reasons: Some their lives anyway. Moreover, they may be frus- consider the European Parliament trated because their expectations were not met. to be a comparatively insignifi cant Why should I go and vote, when the promised institution with few responsibilities. Prof. Dr. Frank Brettschneider economic upswing did not materialize? Or as Ber- The election is therefore thought of tolt Brecht said: “First comes food, then comes as a kind of second order election teaches Communication Sciences morals.” First people have to organize their own with few pertinent issues. Moreover, at the University of Augsburg. lives and then they will deal with politics. Obvi- many lament that political decision-making with- ously there is a lack of information that one thing in the EU is too opaque, that the European Com- is dependent on the other. The American political mission works out its proposals at the exclusion scientist Key said as early as in the 60s: “Voters of the public and that European decision-making are no fools… In the large the electorate behaves processes are more strongly infl uenced by admin- about as rationally and responsibly as we should istrative measures on the national level. expect, given the clarity of the alternatives presented to it.” MT: Let’s stop here for a moment. What do you think of this allegation? MT: How do you evaluate the Bulgarian government’s attempt to lure people to the polls by Brettschneider: Well, there are defi nitely defi cits providing the prospect of winning a television or that deserve criticism: the ineffi ciency of much of radio? the decision-making, the fact that Brussels bureau- crats spend their time and efforts on trifl ing issues Brettschneider: It seems to be an entirely new such as standardizing the size of tractor seats etc. perspective on the question whether or not the Yet this does not entirely explain the lack of inter- media can decide elections… No, joking aside: It est. After all, the European Parliament has become is both a sign of helplessness and cynicism. Help- increasingly important, particularly after the Single lessness, because obviously they don’t know what European Act came into effect in 1987, adding a else to do. Cynicism, because it only reinforces number of important responsibilities. Today most the idea that politics is unimportant and just like of the European laws and directives require the a game. The next step would be to elect the next Parliament’s approval. president by way of a talent show, the latest ex- The European Commission cannot be nominated pression of media democracy… In fact, it would without its approval, either. At the end of 2004, for be far more important to demonstrate through po- example, the Parliament asserted itself in a presti- litical actions why the participation in elections gious power struggle around selected commission- is a crucial political right. On the one hand, poli- ers of the Barroso-Commission. But despite this ticians have to communicate this. On the other increase in power, the German television and daily hand, there must be a range of political proposals, newspapers rarely cover the European Parliament so that the people can see a point in going to the – only to ostentatiously lament the low German polls. If voting does not make a difference in the turnout in their editorials afterwards. Yet the ques- politics on offer, it remains worthless. tion remains: Where, if not in the mass media, can the people possibly fi nd information on the work MT: In the West, the turnout is not much better. of the European Parliament? Direct and immediate What are the reasons for that? impressions are not available to the vast majority of

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people. Therefore they rely on the coverage by the Particularly in television news, it received less at- mass media, as well as on the media’s responsibil- tention than the upcoming European Cup. Even ity to inform, create a forum for public debate and before the ﬁ rst kick-off it attracted three times control politics. more television news coverage than the European MT: How do you deﬁ ne rare coverage? elections. And Germany brought up the rear within European countries. In all the other EU mem- ber states, the media reported more frequently on Presence of European elections the elections. ‘99/’04 in 13 German media MT: Has it always been like that?

Brettschneider: No, the German mass media covered the ﬁ rst direct elections of the European Parliament differently. With positive results: The people’s knowledge on the European elections increased. Campaign issues became more famil- iar to the citizens. The European Parliament was considered to be progressively more important and the turnout increased along with media con- sumption. In 2004, the international comparison showed: Wherever newspapers and television had reported on the European parliamentary elections more frequently, voter turnout was higher than in countries where the coverage remained below the awareness threshold.

April May June April May June MT: What other reasons are given for the low Share of news stories on European election to overall coverage turnout and what do you think about them? Source: Media Tenor Basis: a total of stories 04/01 – 06/30/1999; 2004 in 5 print- and 7 TV- Media Brettschneider: Many also blame the political parties for it, saying that they only nominated un- Brettschneider: Firstly, Europe is a quantité né- known front runners for the European Parliament gligeable in the media, it has not arrived in the who would not be able to attract the citizens’ at- editorial rooms, yet. In ordinary times, total news tention. “Charismatic fi gures”, it is claimed, are coverage on Europe reaches about fi ve percent. rare in European politics. For a long time, parties The people therefore get very little information on tended to send politicians to Strasbourg and Brus- European politics through the mass media. What sels who had become obsolete in national politics. little there is, often deals with clichés or routines, So they continue to be accused of following the such as handshaking at summit meetings. rule “If you have nowhere to place him, Europe Secondly, the media cover the European Parlia- can take him!”, making it unattractive for the me- ment both rarely and negatively. Of the total cov- dia to report on those candidates. There is some erage on the European Union, barely fi ve to ten truth to this. However, that practice has changed percent deal with the democratically elected as- signifi cantly over the past few years, as was sembly. The Council and Commission are much manifested, among others, in the candidatures of more often the focus of reporting. And when the Daniel Cohn-Bendit for the Greens and Silvana European Parliament actually appears in the me- Koch-Mehrin for the FDP (Liberal Democratic dia, more often than not it is portrayed negatively. Party). But the parties are charged with yet an- Against this backdrop it is not surprising that peo- other misconduct, namely that federal and Länder ple view the European Parliament as unimportant (state) politicians misuse the European elections and incapable – and subsequently abstain from to achieve domestic policy goals, for example by voting. This was particularly true for the cover- making “those guys in Brussels” responsible for age in the run-up to the most recent European par- unpopular decisions in their own country. Obvi- liamentary elections. Throughout the preceding ously this does not raise interest and trust in the two weeks, only two percent of news coverage European Parliament. Again, there is some truth to addressed the elections, the parties’ positions etc. this accusation. But it does not tackle the real issue,

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because in the end it is the mass media that offer a fo- If personality was as important as the media make rum to politicians. In the run-up to the 2004 Europe- us believe, Heide Simonis would still be Minister an parliamentary elections, the German candidates President of Schleswig-Holstein, Jürgen Rüttgers for the Parliament were more or less presented as would not be Minister President in North-Rhine/ “incapable extras”. “Extras”, because they were Westphalia and Roland Koch would never have hardly reported on. Whenever the question of Eu- been able to achieve the absolute majority for ropean integration was raised, the media passed the CDU (Christian Democrats) in Hesse. Once the microphone more often to national politicians again, Key’s statement applies that voters are no than to European parliamentarians – although the fools. Most of them take their electoral decisions latter were to be elected. The dominant perspec- – aside from long-term party affi liations – on the tive on the EU was therefore national instead of basis of factual issues, going by the topics that are European. “Incapable”, because in addition to put forward by the media. It is therefore of utmost being rare, the coverage on the candidates was importance for a well-founded electoral decision also more negative than that on the statements of what topics the mass media chose to cover and national politicians. With the FDP being the only how often they do so. Voters are dependent on exception: Its front runner Silvana Koch-Mehrin factual issue reporting. was the only one to receive predominantly positive coverage, signifi cantly more positive than MT: Is it possible that political coverage, which that on national or Landes politicians of the FDP. is reduced to little content and lots of personal- As for the rest, the media image of European par- ity, not only triggers low turnouts but also makes liamentarians was negative. polling results rather predictable – because every- thing breaks down to the question “who’s ahead MT: Are there similar problems with the cover- and who’s behind?” age on the national parliamentary elections? Brettschneider: Yes and no. It is true that, with Brettschneider: No, but we are dealing with dif- the help of media content analysis, we can pretty ferent problems. After all, there is generally no much predict the people’s voting intentions or lack of coverage on the German parliamentary sympathy for candidates, as they are measured by elections, and national politicians often get on air the polls. However, this is not due to horse race and into the papers. The problems are elsewhere: journalism, but to the fact that the voters’ long- Firstly, the personalization and popularization of term party affi liations are eroding. The corollary coverage. The media focus less on factual poli- of this is that short-term infl uences on the voters’ tics and more on the candidates. When they report behavior become progressively more important, on candidates, they increasingly supply human particularly the candidates’ topical orientation and interest stories (Angela Merkel’s haircut, Ger- perceived competence. Yet, those are exactly the hard Schröder’s purportedly colored temple hair, kind of issues that media coverage has the most Brioni suits, etc.) than analyses on the candidates’ impact on. In addition, media coverage determines political standpoints. Secondly, political cover- the importance of a given topic (Agenda Setting). age is more and more reduced to pundit talk. The The more often and more prominently a topic is politicians themselves appear less frequently with placed in media, the more important it becomes their original sound track. Instead, their behavior from the voters’ point of view. When the people is commented and interpreted by others. The mass judge a party and cast their vote, they normally media increasingly present voters with interpreta- don’t do this by carefully analyzing the entire in- tions, while denying them a comprehensive pic- formation that is available on that party. Instead, ture of the parties’ original positions. Moreover, they use the information that happens to be “top politicians begin to produce pseudo-events (i.e. of the head”, which is normally equivalent to the Guido Westerwelle’s so called fun campaign in topics dominating current media coverage (Prim- 2002). And thirdly horse race journalism: The fo- ing). During the 2002 election campaign in Ger- cus is on the competitive character of the election. many, the red/green government took advantage News coverage more frequently covers polling of a shift in the media agenda – away from the la- results than the candidates’ positions on factual bor market and towards the issue of Iraq. Agenda issues. All of this does not meet the voters’ needs. Setting therefore has the potential of deciding the They do not make their electoral decision on the outcome of elections, without even altering the basis of Angela Merkel’s haircut, but with respect voters’ basic political opinions. Agenda Setting to the positions on issues, as they perceive them. alters the weight of these opinions in the overall

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assessment of parties and candidates. age on one topic, one industry sector or one party, without considering the context. 4. In general, it only MT: Why were those kinds of media effect analyses looked at a limited set of media, either on national not used for predicting polling results in the past? daily newspapers or television news coverage only. 5. The analyses were limited to a single country. All Brettschneider: There are two reasons for this. of this has only changed since 1994, when Media Firstly, the theoretical framework for the media’s Tenor started to provide a unique database for the infl uence on voting patterns was not as advanced research on media effects. as it is today. Scientists were quarreling about the question whether the media have an effect or not, MT: Where do you see problems in the methodol- focusing on the opinion changing effect of persua- ogy? sive coverage. Agenda Setting and Priming theories then redirected the focus on the idea that opinions do Brettschneider: The method of content analysis is not necessarily have to be changed for media cover- well established within the social sciences. In or- age to have an effect on voting patterns. Secondly, der for the data to allow for scientifi c conclusions, there was no reliable database. Only a systematic content analyses have to be systematic, quantify comparison of opinion survey results with media media content and adhere to scientifi c criteria. They must be valid, that is measure what they are supposed to measure, and reliable, that is the in- Reform topics in strument of measurement must produce the same political coverage 7/2004 – 6/2005 result when used repeatedly on the same material. The quality of the data therefore depends strong- 100% ly on the quality of the category scheme and the quality of data collection. Securing this quality is a continuous process, which includes permanent 80% training and control of the coding personnel.

employment market budget MT: What should be added in the future? 60% taxes health all Brettschneider: I see two main challenges for the reform topics: pensions future: Firstly, we should expand existing media 40% 12% effect theories with the help of content analysis data. It would be interesting, for example, to determine the awareness threshold that makes it 20% more likely for media content to have an effect on voters or consumers. How often will a company have to appear in which media for its share prices 0 to change? How often and over what time period 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 will a politician have to appear in which media for 2004 2005 popular opinion to change? It is an important chal- Share of all statements (rest of 100%: other topics) lenge to determine these media specifi c aware- Quelle: Media Tenor Basis: Insgesamt 64.172 Beiträge in 33 Medien mit ness thresholds. Secondly, we should extend the 01.07.2004 – 25.06.2005 1.396.347 Aussagen über politische Akteure analysis of media content progressively more to coverage could reveal the type of infl uence we are visual media content. Currently the analysis fo- talking about today. Representative polls on voters’ cuses mainly on written or spoken statements on opinions have been well established for a long while. parties, politicians, companies, etc. But how are But systematic content analyses that meet the chal- they presented in the image? And what happens lenges of the above-mentioned analyses have only when there is a gap between the tendency of visu- been around for a few years now. For many years, al portrayal and the tendency of verbal portrayal, content analyses of media coverage suffered from when they even contradict one another? What do one or more of the following defects: 1. The con- the readers and viewers go by? A lot of basic re- tent analysis data was not collected continuously search has to be done on that. In a society that is but only sporadically. 2. Complete analysis was the increasingly infl uenced by visual impressions, the exception and sampling of media coverage was the effort of systematically assessing visual coverage rule. 3. Often the analysis was limited to the cover- is defi nitely worthwhile.

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