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Formålet med dette projekt er at undersøge, hvordan nye oplysninger om økonomi i medierne påvirker borgernes økonomiske evaluering, opfattelse og viden.

Experts are prevalent and persuasive in modern media coverage of politics. The perceived competence of experts makes them popular sources in the media, and their statements can in some cases move citizens’ policy opinions substantially. However, men are generally used far more as experts than women are. Because of this predominance of male experts and general biases against women, we theorize that media audiences may find women to be less competent and consequently less persuasive as experts on policy issues. We investigate this through two experiments embedded in a survey with more than 2000 respondents in Denmark. Despite advances in gender equality, women are still in the minority among experts used in the Danish news media. However, despite this current gender imbalance, we find no gender biases against women as policy experts among the Danish news media audience. There are no significant differences in the perceptions of the competence of male and female experts, and the persuasiveness of the experts are also unrelated to the gender of the expert. These results hold across different policy issues, and across practically all demographics within the media audiences. These results are relevant both to the study of gender representation in the mass media, and to the study of gender biases more generally. Furthermore, the results are important for discussions on news media selection of experts.

Hvilken betydning har medierne for politiske beslutningsprocesser? På baggrund af studier af, under hvilke betingelser medieopmærksomhed fører til politisk opmærksomhed, og teorier om politiske beslutningsprocesser generelt argumenterer denne artikel for, at mediernes indflydelse på politiske beslutningsprocesser er politisk betinget. Hvis medierne skaber opmærksomhed omkring et emne, der i forvejen interesserer politikerne, kan medieopmærksomhed, hvis den også er vedvarende, igangsætte politiske beslutningsprocesser, der fører til væsentlige politiske beslutninger. Artiklen illustrerer dette ved hjælp af to danske eksempler og diskuterer, hvordan artiklens påstand kan undersøges mere generelt.

I denne artikel undersøger vi, 1) hvordan tilliden til danske journalister og nyhedsmedier har udviklet sig over tid, 2) om der er forskel i tilliden til forskellige typer af nyhedsmedier, og 3) hvordan folks politiske partipræference påvirker deres tillid til journalister og nyhedsmedier. Vores analyser baserer sig på omfattende data fra Europa-Kommissionen, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Radius Kommunikation samt DR Medieforskning og viser, 1) at tilliden til journalister og nyhedsmedier er stabil over tid, 2) at folk stoler mere på public service-nyheder og kvalitetsaviser og mindre på tabloide nyhedsmedier, og 3) at partipræference kan forklare nogle variationer i tilliden.

Evaluation research is a fairly new activity in Denmark. Though it has been known for some time, albeit under different names, evaluation research is very much a phenomenon of the late 1970s and, especially, the 1980s. Explanations must probably be identified both on the demand and supply sides in relation to evaluation. With regard to the demand for evaluation, Denmark has alternative feedback mechanisms to inform policymakers and administrators about the implementation of public policies. The low level of conflict is reinforced by the high degree of homogeneity in Denmark, both at the national level and among local governments. Legislation also seems to have much more authority and legitimacy in Denmark than in the United States. Broadly speaking, applied social-science research—or “sectorial” research, as it is named in Denmark due to its relevance for different sectors in Danish society—is carried out at institutions of higher education, within the public administration itself, or at so-called institutes of sectorial research.

The digital media environment changes the way citizens receive political information, also during an election campaign. Particularly first-time voters increasingly use social media platforms as news sources. Yet, it is less clear how accessing political information in such a unique social setting affects these cohorts’ decision-making processes during an election campaign, compared to experienced voters. We compare effects of these two groups’ political information exposure on their vote choice certainty during the 2015 Danish national election. We furthermore test how the relation between exposure and certainty can be mediated by active campaign participation. An 11-wave national panel study was conducted, using a smartphone-based assessment of citizens’ ( n = 1108) media exposure and vote choice certainty across the campaign period. Results suggest that first-time voters’ social media exposure is responsible for their increase in certainty as the campaign progresses, while this effect is absent for experienced voters.

In this article, we examine 1) how trust in Danish journalists and news media has developed over time, 2) whether trust in different types of news media differs, and 3) how people’s party preference affect their trust in journalists and news media. Our analyses are based on comprehensive data from the European Commission, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Radius Kommunikation, and DR Media Research, and show 1) that trust in journalists and news media is stable over time, 2) that people have higher trust in public service news and quality newspapers and lower trust in tabloid news media, and 3) that party preference explains some variations in trust.

Journalists use ordinary people as exemplars in their news stories to make their reports more interesting and understandable for the audience. This journalistic practice has often been discussed as a potential democratic problem because of its effects on perceptions of and attitudes toward political issues. Taking exemplification theory as our starting point and drawing on research from decision-making and social psychology literature, we add to this discussion by examining how exemplars in news reports affect intentions to participate in political activities. Using an experimental design, we randomly exposed respondents to a news report with or without exemplars or no news report at all. We found that for respondents who were similar to the exemplars, exposure to a news report with exemplars triggered an empathic concern and increased political participation intentions. For dissimilar respondents, exposure to a news report with exemplars decreased empathic concern, which in turn decreased political participation intentions. By highlighting these differential effects of exemplars in the news media on political participation, the study shows how a common journalistic practice potentially engages some citizens in democracy and disengages others.

In a time when digitally networked and unconventional activities challenge our understanding of political participation, van Deth (Acta Polit49(3):349–367, 2014) has developed a map to consolidate previous attempts at conceptualizing political participation. He suggests a framework operating withfour distinct types of political participation that apply across time and context and therefore potentially may lead to higher comparability of results in participationresearch. However, his map faced criticism for not accounting for digital and other recent participatory activities, and so far, it remains a theoretical endeavor thatneeds to prove its utility when applied to the diverse set of participatory activities. Our study empirically tests how recently emerging participatory activities, such ascrowdfunding or urban gardening, can conceptually be combined with more traditional forms of participation. We use 27 participatory activities from a national survey conducted in Denmark (N = 9125) to test van Deth’s framework. A confirmatory factor analysis demonstrates the existence of four distinct types ofpolitical participation, based on the sphere, the target, and the intention of activities. Our model furthermore indicates that the distinction between online andoffline activities has decreased in relevance and that new and unconventional participation activities can be subsumed under van Deth’s four types of politicalparticipation.

Journalistic practice emphasizes both positive and negative aspects of news stories. Nevertheless, the effects of ambiguous news, which includes both positive and negative information, are under-investigated. This study examines how exposure to ambiguous economic news affects uncertainty and ‘consumer confidence’. Consumer confidence refers to citizens’ evaluations of their personal economic situation and of the national economy and is an antecedent of economic behaviour. Using a two-wave national panel survey and a media content analysis, the study demonstrates that ambiguous news exposure and individual level changes in consumer confidence are linked. Our analysis suggests that the relation between exposure to ambiguous news and changes in consumer confidence is mediated by economic uncertainty. This article bridges insights from research on consumer confidence, economic psychology and media effects and unravels one of the mechanisms at play in this cross-field.

The news media’s ability to mobilise citizens to participate politically by emphasising elite conflict in politics is not well understood. This article argues that citizens may gain knowledge when exposed to conflict news framing. It further theorises that whether they translate their knowledge into political participation is conditioned by their orientation towards conflict. Individuals who avoid conflict participate less frequently than individuals who do not. The proposed moderated mediation process was tested using a content analysis of news media coverage and a three-wave panel survey (n = 2,061). Results show that the effect of exposure to conflict news framing on (changes in) political participation is positively mediated by knowledge. This mediation effect is moderated by conflict avoidance, where the effect is more positive among conflict non-avoiders than conflict avoiders. This study shows that understanding the news media’s mobilising effect on political participation requires attention to both news content and individual motivational factors.

In today’s convergent media environment, media exposure becomes increasingly channel-independent and social media-bound, and media content is more frequently accessed on mobile devices. This calls for new approaches to measuring media exposure. This study applies an innovative approach to survey (n = 2378) exposure to political information in the form of a mobile diary measurement, accessible via a specifically developed app. Respondents exhibited broad acceptance and uptake of the mobile measurement, resulting in an almost representative sample and equally satisfactory application of different platform modes. The study furthermore confirms limitations of mere usage time measurements of social media platforms in effects research and explores a range of actual content types that citizens encounter in social networks. It recommends more frequent use of mobile exposure measurements and argues for a content-related assessment of social media use in effects research.

Do the media matter for public policy making? Based on the literature on the conditionality of the effect of mass media attention on political attention and theories of public policy making, this article argues that it depends on prior political attention. If the media focus on a case related to an issue to which politicians already pay attention, and the media attention is sustained, this can initiate a political decision-making process that leads to public policy change. The article illustrates this logic using two Danish examples and discusses how this argument can be investigated more broadly.

One of the normative functions of economic news is surveillance, making monitorial citizens aware of significant economic developments. In this light, it is important to look at the way economic news covers periods of recession and economic boom. Previous studies have focused on how the media cover monthly developments of the economy rather than how coverage varies over the course of the economic cycle. Based on parallels between self-reinforcing news waves or media hypes, on the one hand, and coverage of recession and economic boom, on the other, we argue that the media amplify periods of prolonged economic growth or contraction by making the economy more visible and reporting with an overly positive or negative tone. A time-series analysis of the relation between economic developments and the automatically coded tone and visibility of economic news in Danish newspapers (1996–2012) shows that the media functioned as a magnifying glass. During recession, the economy became more negative and visible than economic developments would predict. During economic boom, economic news became more positive, but not more visible. The media adjusted the tone downwards before the economy entered recession. These results are assessed in light of the surveillance function.

It has recently been claimed that the economy does not exert strong influence on evaluations of incumbent governments in a globalized environment owing to the complex nature of the world’s economy. We question this claim and examine whether and how exposure to economic news affects economic evaluations of governments and how these in turn affect overall government evaluations. The study, which is based on a two-wave national panel study in Denmark (N = 1,280) and a content analysis of the most prominent news outlets (N = 20,127), shows that we are not ready for a paradigm shift: The economy is still important in terms of predicting overall government evaluations, and exposure to economic news drives this relationship. In addition, priming is stronger for individuals who do not discuss the economy.

Social media platforms are special places of information exposure because they are structured around a user’s social network and not around content, like other news media. Studies could show that news exposure on social media can affect citizens’ political participation due to the personalized, targeted, & inadvertent exposure. However, previous research did not strongly focus on how the characteristics of a citizens’ social media network might alter this relationship. We tests how political information exposure via three different media channels affects political participation among Danish citizens and examine possible moderation effects of users network size, network diversity and the newly introduced parameter of perceived network activity. To this end, a two-wave online survey (n=858) among the Danish population was conducted, applying a smartphone-based media diary study. We find strong direct effects of social media exposure on participation but results indeed indicate that such effects are dependent on citizens’ network consistency.

The increasing relevance of mobile surveys makes it important to gather empirical evidence on designs of such surveys. This research note presents the results of a test study conducted to identify the best set-up for a smartphone-based survey. We base our analysis on a random sample of Danish citizens (n=196) who participated in mobile surveys during three subsequent days of investigation. First we investigated whether survey invitations sent via an app-based push message or via text message result in different response rates. Second, we tested for differences between the two platforms regarding response time-lag. Third, we tested whether send-out time (evening vs. morning) affects the number of respondents taking part in the survey. Our findings show that choice of platform as well as send-out time influence response behavior. Based on the good performance of the survey across platforms, we suggest that in certain contexts mobile-only surveys are a viable option compared to more traditional surveys.