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During the last 20 years, political marketing has become a widespread phenomenon around the world. However, most of the research concerning political marketing has been carried out in countries such as the United States and Britain. Thus, in order to understand the antecedents of political marketing, as well as its effectiveness as an electoral strategy, there is a need for comparative research including countries that differ significantly from the U.S. and Britain. One such country is Sweden. Thus, the purpose of this article is to compare and analyze Sweden and Britain with regard to two analytical research questions: (1) What differences are there between Britain and Sweden that might be relevant in understanding why parties choose to be sales- or market-oriented? (2) What are the implications with regards to differences between countries and between parties within countries that might help to explain why some parties in some countries are more likely than others to be market-oriented?

The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent to which trust in media is affected by personal media use and the framing of politics as a strategic game. The study is based on a four-wave panel survey matched with media content data, which allows us to investigate not only correlations but also individual-level effects on media trust. In accordance with previous research, our analyses show that the use of specific media types leads to more trust in those specific media. The results also show that media framing of politics as a strategic game has a negative effect on trust in the media. The more citizens are exposed to game-framed news, the less they tend to trust the media, with the exception of tabloid newspapers. Overall, these results lend support to the assumption of contagious effects of game-framed news. In a concluding section, we sum up our results and discuss the implications of our findings.

This study compares the news coverage of election campaigns in three Swedish newspapers at the time of the 2002 national election and three U.S. newspapers at the time of the 2004 presidential election. The results from the content analysis show that the metaframe of politics as a strategic game was more common in the U.S. newspapers, while the metaframe of politics as issues was more common in the Swedish newspapers. U.S. articles were also more likely to use the horse-race and political strategy frames. While U.S. coverage was predominantly descriptive in focus, an interpretive journalistic style was more often dominant in the Swedish articles. The results also show that the U.S. news stories were triggered by the words and actions of the campaigns more often than the Swedish news stories.

Mismanagement, mistrust and missed opportunities: a study of the 2004 tsunami and Swedish political communication : Editorial

The relationship between journalists and their political sources is often described as symbiotic. Furthermore, political sources are often regarded as more powerful than journalists in this relationship. However, most of the research referred to in the international literature is done in the US or Britain. Therefore, the question regarding the relationship between journalists and their political sources, in terms of power, needs to be asked in other countries. This article examines the relationship between journalists and their political sources in Sweden during the National Election in 2002, and in so doing makes a distinction between the power over the process of news making and the media agenda, and the power over the content and the framing of news stories. The results show the importance of making such a distinction. They also show that, in Sweden, it is the journalists and not their political sources that lead the tango most of the time.

The purpose of this study is to examine and compare how leading Swedish news media in television and the press covered and described the terrorist attacks in the USA on September 11 in 2001, the US attacks on Afghanistan later in 2001 and the war in Iraq in 2003. The article examines factors influencing news decisions and media ability to maintain fair news reporting. The study looks specifically at the sources that are used, the occurrence of speculations and whether the coverage was anti-American or anti-Muslim. The central questions are: what were the most frequently used sources?, how frequent were different types of speculation?, and how frequent were anti-American and anti-Muslim rhetorical figures respectively?

This study investigates the framing of the 2003 Iraq War in the elite newspapers in Sweden and the US, Dagens Nyheter and The New York Times. The content analysis revealed significant differences between the two papers: the military conflict frame was more common for the US war coverage while the responsibility and anti-war protest frames were more common for the Swedish war coverage. Both newspapers offered human interest stories and media self-references. The US newspaper, however, relied more heavily on official government and military sources. In addition, the tone of war coverage differed across the two nations, with Swedish reporting being more negative overall. Implications of the differences in war coverage as well as possible reasons rooted in the national media and political systems are discussed.

The literature discussing the impact of media and journalism upon democracy, typically criticizes both media and journalism for their content and their negative effects on some aspects of democracy. In turn, this raises the question of identifying news standards by which the quality of news journalism might be evaluated. But neither the proposed news standards nor the criticism levelled against them specify with sufficient clarity the model of democracy to be used as a normative departure. This article argues that the question of proper news standards cannot be addressed in isolation from the question of different normative models of democracy. In order to discover news standards by which the quality of news journalism can or should be evaluated, it analyzes four normative models of democracy and their demands upon citizens: procedural democracy, competetive democracy, participatory democracy and deliberative democracy. Building upon that analysis, the article asks: What normative implications for media and news journalism follow from the distinctive perspectives of procedural, competitive, participatory and deliberative democracy?

How did the Swedish media coverage of the terror attacks against the United States and the U.S. attacks in Afghanistan differ when it came to the use of sources, speculations, and anti-American and anti-Muslim reporting? That is the central question in this study. The results show that the Swedish media coverage of the terror attacks and the war in Afghanistan differed in many respects. There are many reasons for this, but one main explanation maybe found in the different categories of the two crises with regard to media preparations and media routines. Another important explanation might be the increasing commercialization and reliance on a particular kind of media logic within Swedish media.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview, analysis, and synthesis of theory and research on the mediatization of politics. The mediatization of politics is defined as a long-term process through which the importance of the media and their spill-over effects on political processes, institutions, organizations, and actors has increased. Four dimensions can be distinguished in this process, related to the importance of media as source of information about politics and society, the autonomy of media institutions from other social and political institutions, and the extent to which media content and political institutions, organizations, and actors respectively are guided by media logic or political logic. Both media logic and political logic are conceptualized as three-dimensional concepts. While media logic is conceptualized as shaped by professionalism, commercialism, and media technology, political logic is conceptualized as shaped by polity, policy, and politics. The chapter also analyzes the concepts of media influence and media effects within the context of the mediatization of politics. The chapter concludes by identifying five challenges for further theory and research on the mediatization of politics.

The relationship between opinion polls and political leadership is both complex and multifaceted. The same holds true for the relationship between published opinion polls, news management and political leadership. While having acknowledged support by public opinion is a great asset for any political party or politician, signs of weak or declining support are a great liability. The key term here is acknowledged support: it matters less if a political party or politician has actual support if nobody knows about it. In many respects, published opinion polls thus matter more than opinion polls in general.

During the last few decades, the world has witnessed a dual democratic transformation. On the one hand and beginning with the fall of communism, the number of electoral democracies worldwide almost doubled between 1989 and 2011 (Freedom House, 2012). The victory of democracy and capitalism may not have marked the “end of history” (Fukuyama, 1992), but today there is no alternative political system that enjoys the same worldwide support and legitimacy as democracy (Inglehart & Welzel, 2005; Inglehart, 2003). On the other hand, many established democracies have witnessed a transformation towards increasing complexity, less deferential and increasingly critical and dissatisfied citizens (Norris, 2011), lower electoral turnout and trust in politicians and political institutions (Franklin, 2004; Norris, 1999), and increasingly autonomous, market-driven and critical media (Hallin & Mancini, 2004; Hamilton, 2004; Patterson, 1993). National political institutions and actors thus find themselves under increasing pressure from both citizens and the media, while the need to find solutions to major challenges such as global warming, rising inequalities, weak growth and increasing deficits appears both more urgent and more difficult to tackle.

In most democracies and for most people, television constitutes the most important source of political and current affairs information. How televi- sion news covers election campaigns may thus have significant influence on how voters perceive and evaluate the candidates, parties, and issues at stake. At the same time, critics claim that media commercialization in terms of increased market-orientation has changed the style and character of elec- tion news, from descriptive to increasingly interpretive journalism, and from framing politics as issues to increasingly framing politics as a strategic game and as scandals. Notwithstanding such claims, there is a lack of longi- tudinal studies investigating television election news coverage and, overall, empirical evidence for possible effects of media commercialization on elec- tion news is rather scarce. Against this background, the objective of this chapter is to study changes in television news journalism in Sweden across the four election campaigns 1998–2010 and to discuss whether any changes can be related to media commercialization.

When we want to learn about the world around us, there are basically three perceptual sources of information: personal experiences, interpersonal communication and the media (Asp, 1986). We can learn things firsthand, by communicating with other people, or by taking part of different media.

As stated in the Introduction, the twofold purpose of this book is first to bring together state-of-the-art chapters on the mediatization of politics, thereby assessing what we know and providing a framework for further research; and second to move research on the mediatization of politics forward towards a more fully developed theory. For this reason, we invited leading scholars in this field to comment in their chapters on basic and more advanced questions and to develop various topics and perspectives. The scope in content and the depth of analysis of their contributions underscore the many different ways in which mediatization research can augment the literature of political communication and how stimulating the impulses are that it evokes.

The relationship between journalists and their sources has been described as an interdependent relationship where each part needs the other. For political actors, this relationship is particularly important during election campaigns, when their need to reach voters through the media is even more urgent than usual. This is particularly true with respect to European Parliamentary election campaigns, as these are often less salient and as people's need for orientation is greater than in national elections. However, there is only limited cross-national research on the media's use of news sources and whether there are associations between the use of news sources and media framing. This holds true for research on election campaigns in general and on European Parliamentary election campaigns in particular. Against this background, this study investigates cross-national differences and similarities in the media's use of news sources in their coverage of the 2009 European Parliamentary election campaigns and the extent to which the use of news sources is associated with the media's framing of politics and the EU. The study draws upon a quantitative content analysis of the media coverage in twelve countries. Findings suggest that there are both important similarities and differences across countries with respect to the use of news sources and that there are cases when the use of news sources is related to the framing of politics and the EU. Ciencias de la Comunicación II

One key concept in research on how the media influence political processes is mediatization, which denotes a long-term process through which the media have become increasingly independent from politics and through which political actors and institutions have become increasingly dependent on the media. While it is often claimed that politics has become increasingly mediatized, the process of mediatization has not yet been properly addressed in the literature. Against this background, and based on the literature on mediatization and strategic party behavior, the purpose of this article is to theoretically explore the processes through which political parties become mediatized, and to suggest a model of media adaptation by political parties.

The Financial Crisis as a Global News Event : Cross-National Media Coverage and Public Knowledge of Economic Affairs

How the media cover national election campaigns is both an important and popular object of study. While most research is still focused on singular countries, comparative research has become more common. A comprehensive framework for both investigating and explaining the media coverage of national election campaigns is however largely missing from the literature. This chapter reviews the most important independent and dependent variables as well as the most prominent frameworks used in comparative research on national election news coverage, and seeks to advance research in this area by outlining a theory-based, multilevel framework for investigating and comparing national election news coverage across political and media systems.

List of Tables and Figures Note on the Contributors The Media and their Use of Opinion Polls: Reflecting and Shaping Public Opinion J.Stroemback PART I: THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES Public Opinion and Opinion Polling: A Complex Relationship S.Splichal Regulation of Opinion Polls: A Comparative Perspective T.Petersen Methodological Trends and Controversies in the Media's Use of Opinion Polls M.Traugott PART II: THE MEDIA'S PUBLICATION OF OPINION POLLS Opinion Polls and the Media in Germany: A Productive but Critical Relationship C.Holtz-Bacha Opinion Polls and the Media in the United States K.Francovic Opinion Polls and the Media in Brazil F.Biroli, L.F.Miguel & F.Ferreira Mota Opinion Polls and the Media in Australia S.Mills & R.Tiffen Opinion Polls and the Media in South Africa R.Mattes The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Public Opinion Polling in Taiwan L.Willnat, Ven-hwei Lo & A.Aw PART III: EFFECTS AND CONSEQUENCES OF PUBLISHED OPINION POLLS Attitudinal and Behavioural Consequences of Published Opinion Polls P.Moy & E.M.Rinke Published Opinion Polls, Strategic Party Behaviour, and News Management J.Stroemback Opinion Polls, the Media and the Political System C.Holtz-Bacha Index

A key concept in research on the media coverage of politics is the game or strategy frame. Contrasted with coverage of politics as issues, the framing of politics as a strategic game is marked by features such as winning and losing as the central concern and a focus on how candidates or parties are doing in opinion polls. The pervasiveness of such framing is, however, disputed since (1) the way in which the frames are conceptualized and operationalized differs significantly; and (2) while some use terms such as ‘game frame’ and ‘strategy frame’ as synonymous, others argue that there is a conceptual difference between them. Against this background, this article reviews research on the media’s framing of politics as a strategic game, what concepts have been used, and how they have been operationalized; and suggests a synthesis and ways of improving conceptual clarity and comparability in research on the media’s use of strategy and/or game frames.

The histories of mass media, public opinion and opinion polling have always been closely intertwined. Before the invention of scientific opinion polling, both political leaders and lay people used media coverage as a proxy for public opinion, while in addition and after the invention of opinion polling, the media’s use of opinion polls has become an important part of their coverage of politics in general and of election campaigns in particular.

1 A Framework for Comparing Election News Coverage Around the World Jesper Stroemback and Lynda Lee Kaid PART I: ELECTION NEWS COVERAGE IN COUNTRIES WITH MAJORITARIAN ELECTIONS 2 Media Coverage of U.S. Elections: Persistence of Tradition Mira Sotirovic and Jack McLeod 3 Trends in Television Network News Coverage of U.S. Elections Stephen J. Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter 4 Media Matter: Election Coverage in Canada Elisabeth Gidengil 5 Election News Coverage in the U.K. Margaret Scammell and Holli A. Semetko 6 Free Journalism under Control: Election Coverage in France Eric Darras 7 Australia: Gladitorial Parties and Volatile Media in a Stable Polity Rodney Tiffen 8 Elections in India: One Billion People and Democracy Lars Willnat and Annette Aw PART II: ELECTION NEWS COVERAGE IN COUNTRIES WITH PROPORTIONAL ELECTIONS 9 The Netherlands: Media Logic and Floating Voters? Claes H. de Vreese 10 Swedish Election News Coverage: Towards Increasing Mediatization Jesper Stroemback 11 Election Coverage in Spain: From Franco's Death to the Atocha Massacre Esteban Lopez-Escobar, Teresa Sadaba and Ricardo Zugasti 12 Election News Coverage in Greece: Between Two Logics Nicolas Demertzis and George Pleios 13 Campaigns in the Holy Land: The Content and Effects of Election News Coverage in Israel Tamir Shaefer, Gabriel Weimann and Yariv Tsfati 14 Election News Coverage in Poland Boguslawa Dobek-Ostrowska and Bartlomiej Lodzki 15 Media Coverage of Election News in the Republic of Serbia Misha Nedeljkovich 16 Democratization and Election News Coverage in Brazil Mauro P. Porto 17 Media and Elections in South Africa: Finding a Foothold on the Democratic Path Amanda Gouws and Arnold S. de Beer PART III: ELECTION NEWS COVERAGE IN COUNTRIES WITH COMBINED SYSTEMS 18 Characteristics and Dynamics of Election News Coverage in Germany Frank Esser and Katharina Hemmer 19 News Coverage of Elections in the Long Transition of Italian Democracy Franca Roncarolo 20 News Coverage of National Elections in Hungary after 1990 Jolan Roka 21 Election News Coverage in Bulgaria Lilia Raycheva and Daniela V. Dimitrova 22 Election Coverage in the Russian Federation Sarah Oates 23 Election Coverage in Mexico: Regulation Meets Crony Capitalism Chappell Lawson 24 The Media Coverage of Election Campaigns and Its Effects in Japan Shinichi Saito and Toshio Takeshita PART IV: ELECTION NEWS COVERAGE IN A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE 25 News Coverage of EU Parliamentary Elections Michaela Maier and Jurgen Maier 26 Election News Coverage Around the World: A Comparative Perspective Lynda Lee Kaid and Jesper Stroemback

Mission Impossible? : Some Notes on Journalistic Shortcomings in the Coverage of War and Terrorism

To understand public opinion about immigration in Europe, one has to understand the media’s role in it. We present a literature review on research on media discourse on immigration and their effects. Despite differences in the way immigration and migrant groups are represented in European media, we can observe common patterns. Migrants are generally under-represented and shown as delinquents or criminals. Although, media framing differs based on specific migrant groups the discourse is focusing on, immigration coverage is often negative and conflict-centred. Frequent exposure to such media messages leads to negative attitudes towards migration, may activate stereotypical cognitions of migrant groups, and even influence vote choice. In addition to discussing these issues in depth, the present review also focuses on comparative findings.

International audience; The French debate on populism is somehow paradoxical. On the one hand, the French political landscape has been characterized by the presence of a strong far-right populist and xenophobic party—the Front National (FN)—since the mid-1980s. Some well-known authors have contributed to the international mainstream analysis of the phenomenon (Mény & Surel, 2000; Taguieff, 1984, 1997, 2002, 2004, 2007). On the other hand, French academia is reluctant to use populism to explain and analyze the FN. Some of the major findings presented here from a review of the literature since 1995 include the relatively infrequent use of the word, its quasi-systematic association with right-wing parties, and the critical tone adopted by French authors when referring to populism as a concept.