Paper submitted for the International Communication Organization, Dresden, 2006 Media coverage of government policies and public satisfaction with information provision and policy results Jan Kleinnijenhuis and Anita M.J. van Hoof Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Department of Communication Science De Boelelaan 1081 1081 HV Amsterdam e-mail:
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[email protected] Acknowlegment The authors would like to thank the Rijksvoorlichtingsdienst, which commissioned the data collection on which this paper rests. The authors are indebted much to dr. Dirk Oegema (dept. of Communication Science Vrije Universiteit) and dr. Jan A. de Ridder (University of Amsterdam, dept. of Communication Science) who participated in the research project on which this paper rests, as well as to Wouter H. van Atteveldt MSc and dr. P.C. Ruigrok whose contributions to the research project were invaluable also, and, last but not least to the coders in the research project. Topics: Public information, media effects Abstract Public information has not gained much attention in the literature on political communication, although its importance is beyond discussion. The research question of this paper asks how the news on government policies influences satisfaction with government policy. Apart from well known hypotheses such as agenda setting and priming, hypotheses are tested that deal with the question whether the government tries to increase policy satisfaction by communicating ambitions (it’s a mess, but we will do something against it) or by communicating successes (everything under control, due to us). The data to test the hypotheses come from a fourfold survey study to tap aspects of satisfaction with the Dutch government’s policy with regard to 55 policy issues in addition to a longitudinal content analysis of 24 newspapers to unravel the media coverage of these issues.