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Although political institutions and their actors are at the heart of the democratic process, we know little about the effect of institutional configurations on legislative discourses. The article conducts a comparative frame analysis of climate change debates in the legislative bodies of four countries—Switzerland, Germany, the UK and the US—that differ in the degree to which they correspond to majoritarian or consensus democracies. The study finds systematic differences with regard to salience of the issue, frame and actor diversity and the degree of polarisation. The implications are discussed and the article addresses limitations and areas for future research.

AbstractIn this article we argue that it is pressing to study the “hybrid media system” at the intersection of online and offline communication and its potential for agenda building. The topic is relevant because it is argued that the internet offers new opportunities of public influence for challengers without access to political decision making. Except for single case studies, little is known about the conditions under which these actors succeed. Informed by the research on agenda building we tackle with the mechanisms of online-offline media agenda building and the conditions under which challengers succeed to produce issue spill-over into conventional mass media. We develop a theoretical framework for investigating the linkage between online communication and traditional mass media and discuss how our model translates into empirical research. We conclude that the nature of online networks is critical for spill-over, but also the issue itself and the structure of the political system.

In this chapter we develop an agenda for future research on the personalization of politics. To do so, we clarify the propositions of the personalization hypothesis, critically discuss the normative standard on which most studies base their evaluation of personalization, and systematically summarize empirical research findings. We show that the condemnation of personalization is based on a trivial logic and on a maximalist definition of democracy. The review of empirical studies leads us to question the assumption that personalization has steadily increased in all areas of politics. Finally, our normative considerations help us develop new research questions on how personalized politics affects democracy. Moreover, this review also makes clear that another weakness of today’s empirical research on the personalization of politics lies in methodological problems and a lack of analysis of the impacts of systemic and contextual variables. Consequently, we suggest methodological pathways and possible explanatory factors for the study of personalization.

Möchte man (mediale) Debatten nicht als Fundgrube isolierter Themen, Akteure und Positionen analysieren, sondern Zusammenhänge untersuchen, dann bedarf es der systematischen Kombination von relationaler Inhalts- und empirischer Netzwerkanalyse. Ziel dieses Beitrages ist es zu zeigen, wie sich Daten mit Hilfe einer solch relationalen Inhaltsanalyse, der Claimsanalyse, erheben lassen und wie diese Daten mit Hilfe netzwerkanalytischer Instrumente ausgewertet werden können. Anhand der Debatte über die EU-Erweiterung in zwei deutschen Qualitätszeitungen wird dargestellt, wie man so nicht nur Strukturen von Debatten — wie Kommunikationsadern, Konfliktlinien und Diskurskoalitionen —, sondern auch die Rolle einzelner Akteure bezüglich ihrer Thematisierung, ihres Framings und ihres Prestiges aufzeigen kann. If (media) debates are treated as more than a treasure trove of isolated topics, actors and positions, a systematic connection of relational content and empirical network analysis is needed. Such a combination reveals the interrelations and the argumentative structure in debates. The article therefore investigates how data can be collected by means of relational content analysis, more specifically claims analysis, and how these data can be analysed by employing instruments of network analysis. Taking the debate on EU enlargement in two German quality newspapers as an example, it is shown how this combination of methods reveals the structure of debates (lines of communication, conflict lines and discourse coalitions) as well as the position of single actors (their framing, prestige and agenda setting).

AbstractThe goal of this article is to analyse whether, and when, the media depict Europe as a common community and whether, and when, they remain nationally confined. Media portray Europe as a community if they (1) make European and member state actors and topics visible, (2) show the mutual connectedness between these actors and (3) give voice to support and criticism while avoiding that nation states wall themselves off . To measure whether mass media depict Europe as a common community and thus potentially foster citizens’ integration a content analysis of interactions is systematically combined with empirical network analysis. A comparison of the debates on EU enlargement and a common constitution in the German and French quality press reveals that whether Europe is portrayed as a community varies between and within countries. Such variations seem to reflect the relation between national elites’ attitudes and public opinion towards a specific issue.