Jumping the Shark

What is the effect on media coverage of politics when political actors conform to market aspects of media logic by “jumping the shark”—staging dramatic political events to fit the demands of the media—thus reflecting what Strömbäck characterizes as the fourth phase of mediatization? Our paper answers this question with a large-scale, longitudinal analysis of how The Globe and Mail, Canada's leading national newspaper, covered 13 Canadian party leadership contests held between 1975 and 2012. We analyzed changes in the amount and style of reporting over the course of this 37-year time period, finding that the Globe has provided less coverage of party leadership competitions overall. The diminishing number of stories printed on the subject increasingly feature opinion writing, photos, combative language and the elevation of the individual candidate over the party organization. Our findings support a key element of the mediatization thesis: the shift from political logic to media logic as an organizing principle for political communications.     

The new competitive environment of radio broadcasting in the Nordic countries: A short history of deregulation and analysis

The new competitive environment of radio broadcasting in the Nordic countries consists of three sectors: (1) public service radio channels, (2) commercial radio stations and networks, and (3) community radio. Commercial radio represents the latest phase in a long process of transformation that started with decentralization inside the national broadcasting corporations in the 1960s and continued with introduction of noncommercial forms of local and community radio since the late 1970s. In the 1990s, commercial radio represents a hegemonic cultural form whose values and meanings penetrate to all sectors of radio. As a response to commercialization, the public service broadcasting tradition is undergoing a serious rearticulation. In contrast with the radical liberalism of the 1980s, there seems to be a growing political will to safeguard a balanced dualism of noncommercial and commercial forms of broadcasting.     

BRITISH PARTY ELECTION BROADCASTS IN THE 1950s

The debate about the American influence on political communication practices worldwide has raised a range of issues about how such a process might work. Much of the research in the field, however, has examined possible influences on practices in the last quarter of the twentieth century. By then, it could be argued, common global practices had become established in many Western Democracies. The aim of this paper is to explore a period before these changes had taken place, namely the 1950s and the 1960s, when television was still in its infancy in both Britain and the US, when new and different practices were being tried out and a period in which it might still be possible to look at influences at the dawn of political broadcasting. By focusing on the emergence and development of a specific form of political communication, namely, dedicated, unmediated, paid-for or free party election communication, in the US and in Britain in this early period, it might be possible to examine if, and how, American practices might have influenced British ones. Using unpublished work drawing on a range of archives and personal interviews that focus on interactions across the Atlantic, this paper argues that in this period, the two countries developed a range of different practices that cannot easily lend support to the idea of Americanisation. The paper concludes with a discussion of the need for more research into the domestic negotiations of transatlantic interactions.     

Factors related to attention to the first Kennedy‐Nixon debate

A recent survey by Broadcasting of television programming personnel indicates that professionals in the broadcasting field agree with the general public in holding that the Kennedy‐Nixon debates during the late presidential election campaign were among the most exciting programs ever presented on television. We know that the audiences to these “great debates” were among the largest ever recorded, but sheer numbers do not tell us why audiences paid attention to these debates in the first place, much less the potential and actual effects of these programs.

The following article is one of a number being prepared by the members of the Communications Research Center at Michigan State University, covering a great many facets of political behavior in the 1960 campaign and election. The author of the following article, Dr. Lionel C. Barrow, Jr., is Assistant Professor in the Communications Research Center.     

First and second-level agenda-setting in the 2014 Indian general election: a time-series analysis of party-media relation

The role of the press as a political watchdog is crucial to the functioning of democracy. Especially in the run-up to elections, voters depend on the media's presentation of parties and candidates to make informed, responsible choices at the ballot box. But who, then, influences the news media? Empirical evidence in the United States and Europe suggests that political party campaigns and election coverage in the news media are interconnected and influence each other. This study tests whether such agenda-setting effects between party campaigns and the media also take place in the general elections in the world's largest democracy, India. India's western-type political system has a distinct media system characterized by high competition, diversification, non-consolidation and formal and informal ties between the media, commercial interests and political actors. Content analysis and Granger's causality test of newspaper coverage (N?=?716) and party campaign messages (N?=?458) found that agenda-setting effects do occur in India, but are largely bi-directional. We also found an overwhelming focus of both newspapers’ election coverage and of all major party campaigns on one single candidate, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s Narendra Modi. This, we argue, is a result of the broader trends that have shaped Indian politics in recent years. The significant correlations and non-significant causal effects between party campaign and media coverage also indicate a trade-off situation between political power negotiation and political balance in the press.     

The expanding sphere of journalism∗

This episode in the history of frequency modulation radio broadcasting is part of a continuing series in the Journal of Broadcasting composed of verbatim extracts from Federal Communications Commission Annual Reports. Previously published installments in this series have included: “The Evolution of Television: 1927–1943” (Summer, 1960); “The Evolution of Television: 1944–1948” (Winter, 1960–61); “The Evolution of FM Radio: 1935–1940” (Spring, 1961); and “The Evolution of FM Radio: 1941–1946” (Fall, 1961).     

晚会的著作权属性分析

对于组成晚会的各个作品,在晚会舞台表演之前,就已经客观存在了,并不是晚会组织者创作的,组织者在晚会的摄制播出过程的选择和判断是非常有限的,难以达到著作权法中独创性要求,很难使晚会在整体上构成影视作品。但组织者在对晚会备选节目进行筛选、编排、串词、衔接以及摄制播出过程中,体现了组织者对晚会内容选择和编排上的独创性,具备了著作权法要求的认定汇编作品所必需的全部要素。将晚会定性为汇编作品,更有利于保护各个节目涉及的著作权人的利益。     

‘ONE STATE,ONE TELEVISION,ONE PUBLIC’

This article seeks to reappraise two popular yet neglected examples of variety programming, which appeared on French television during the 1960s: Discorama and Age tendre et tête de bois. While the former has been situated within a realist televisual aesthetic and regarded as a launch-pad for French singer-songwriters, the latter has been represented as a youth-oriented vehicle for rock ‘n’ roll and yé-yé pop music. Although such interpretations are to a large extent valid, this article will argue that both programmes should also be viewed as symptomatic of Charles de Gaulle's statist broadcasting strategy, which placed great emphasis on creating social cohesion via programmes designed to appeal to the widest possible audience.     

保证新闻多元化——瑞典社会民主党人的新闻自由理念

作为当今世界上连续执政时间最长的社会民主党,瑞典社会民主党提出并践行保证新闻多元化的理念。多年以来,该党既通过立法实施报刊津贴制度大力促进媒体外部多元,又通过发展公共服务广播电视和宽容党内批评意见等方式保障媒体内部多元,努力促进党内外的舆论多元,从而使瑞典的新闻自由长期稳居世界前列。     

Legal notes

At some time in the future it may be that broadcasting will become a profession with an agreed upon preparatory course of study. At the present time, not only is there a lack of uniformity in course offerings and content, but there is no substantial agreement as to whether broadcasting is or even should be a profession. (In this connection, the recent proposals by William Chambliss in the September 18 issue of Broadcasting looking toward professional standards, education and licencing for advertising practitioners become particularly intriguing.)

Most encouraging however is the interest shown by teachers of broadcasting whenever they assemble for discussion of their common problems. In the following report, Professor Sherman P. Lawton, author of The Modern Broadcaster and coordinator of Broadcasting Instruction at the University of Oklahoma describes the questions raised (but not settled) at two recent meetings: a colloquium on the beginning course in broadcasting held as part of the “Annual Radio‐TV Conference and Clinic” in March 1961 at the University of Oklahoma, and a APBE‐sponsored session at the April meeting of the Institute for Education by Radio‐Television in Columbus.     

Television reviewing: A search for criteria

New communication technologies have increased Europe's importation of foreign, especially U.S., broadcasting programs. This essay addresses the question and protection of cultural identity from a European perspective. Four subgoals of diversity are outlined as yardsticks for the appropriateness of protection. Various activities designed to deregulate European broadcasting may potentially increase or reduce diversity. The economic and political pressure to weaken the European trusteeship model of broadcasting is likely to be successful.     

Does Ownership Matter?

Does media ownership affect the editorial page? Scholars such as Tim Groseclose, Jeffrey Milyo, and Tim Groeling have offered recent empirical tests for media bias in political news coverage. This article focuses on the editorial content of newspapers to examine whether a change in publishers affects a newspaper's editorial page's support for government action on public policy questions, the attention given to the major political parties, and the tone of coverage of the parties. Our content analyses compare the Wall Street Journal's editorial page before and after Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation purchased the paper with two newspapers that did not change ownership structures over the same time period (New York Times and Washington Times). We show that Murdoch's Wall Street Journal is far less supportive of government intervention in the economy, much more negative to Democrats, and much more positive to Republicans than the paper's editorial page was under Bancroft family ownership. We also show that the Wall Street Journal's changes were unique as the New York Times and Washington Times generally did not exhibit similar changes to their own editorial pages.     

The evolution of television: 1944–1948

In the Summer of 1960 issue of the Journal of Broadcasting (Volume IV, Number 3) appeared the first in a series of excerpts from the official records of the Federal Commications Commission relating to broadcasting. It outlined the evolution of television from 1927 through 1943. Below, this history is carried through fiscal 1948, the year that television broadcasting took its first giant jump in number of stations, number of receivers, and number of problems. At the end of this period, television was poised at the edge of the “freeze” Following 1948, Annual Reports of the Commission become more readily available (as contrasted to the bare handful of copies of the 1944 Report in dog‐eared existence), as do broadcasters and others who lived through and are familiar with subsequent events.

The Journal is hopeful that these verbatim excerpts from official Annual Reports of the FCC will be of use to researchers, and of interest and value to the Journal's entire readership. As the introduction to the first installment said, “From them we may, with some confidence in factual accuracy, examine the fascinating panorama of the growth of a great American industry . . . .”     

A Historical Comparison of the Social Origins of Broadcasting Policy, 1896–1920

Using the United States and Great Britain as a comparative case study, this article employs a historical framework to consider the broad array of social, cultural, political, and economic contexts that led to divergent outcomes in the early development of broadcasting policy. This comparative historical analysis reveals the causal chains formed before the 1920s despite a period of post-war contingency. As a policy option, government control was removed in the United States but stayed in place in Britain after the war. This comparative approach can help to explain policy outcomes and inform modern policy debates.     

Campaign Agenda Formation: The News Media in the Korean Congressional Election of 2000

The present study, as an international application of an agenda-setting model, investigates how campaign agendas of issues are constructed in an election. The Korean Congressional election of 2000 provided rich empirical data for this study; the political party agenda, the civic agenda, and the news agenda were measured in terms of issue salience at two different data points in time during the official campaign period. The results of the cross-lagged rank-order correlations between different agendas indicated the following. First, the party agenda as a whole had little impact on the formation of the news agenda. The party–news relationship, however, showed a different pattern at an individual newspaper level. Specifically, a more conservative newspaper was more susceptible to those parties’ agenda-setting than was its progressive rival. Second, a nationwide civic movement for political reforms slightly influenced the formation of the news agenda, especially that of the reformist newspaper agenda. Both newspapers, on the other hand, substantially influenced the civic campaign's issue emphases. Finally, there existed no significant interactions between the party and the civic agendas.     

Perceived party polarization,news attentiveness,and political participation: a mediated moderation model

Perception of party polarization has a positive impact on political participation. While past research suggests that such impact depends upon people’s information use, empirical evidence is lacking. We used a mediated moderation model to test the multiplicative effect between polarization perception and media use on political participation. The data for analysis came from a survey of 625 representative Hong Kong residents in 2015. Findings show that the impact of perceived party polarization on political participation is contingent upon one’s news attentiveness, and that internal political efficacy serves as a mediator that partially explains the interaction effect. Narrowed gaps in political knowledge, efficacy, and participation were observed between light and heavy news users as perceived party polarization rises. The implications of the findings with respect to political participation, role of news media use, and the formation of efficacy beliefs in the context of party polarization are discussed.     

“The Press Motivated Me”: Life Histories with the Media in Brazil

Brazil, with commercial broadcasting and a political press, moved from dictatorship to democracy during the transition after Franco in Spain, with its noncommercial system. This coincidence creates a natural experiment in how political and media systems relate to citizens' subjective experiences. Comparing limited life histories from Brazil to previous American and Spanish narratives suggests two relationships: between market-oriented broadcasting and a postmodern consumer stance, and between a politically committed press and an engaged citizen stance.     

Airtime for Newcomers

This article explores the British and West German public service radio’s abilities to reflect on and to address the specific needs and expectations of migrant groups in their programmes between the 1960s and 1980s. Mechanisms of social inclusion and exclusion alike can be investigated here. Empirically, it is based on comparisons of radio broadcasts on and for different immigrant communities, produced by BBC Radio Leicester on/for the post-war Asian migrants in England and by West German public service broadcasting on/for ‘Gastarbeiter’ (foreign workers) as well as for ‘Spätaussiedler’ (German repatriates from East Europe). Radio is studied as an agent of identity management and citizenship education. Not only did radio talk about migrants and migration to introduce these topics and the newcomers to the local population. It also offered airtime to selected migrant communities to cater for their needs and interests as well as to facilitate their difficulties of adjusting to an unfamiliar environment.     

Editing Conservatism: How National Review Magazine Framed and Mobilized a Political Movement

This article examines how National Review magazine helped to spark the 1960s American conservative movement through its particular framing of conservatism and how the magazine has worked to sustain that influence even until today. Using research on frame alignment in social movements, the first issue of National Review is analyzed and placed in context with contemporaneous events and publications. The creation and editing of the magazine is found to parallel the creative and deliberate framing of the early conservative movement. The implications of National Review's success for today's political movements and for creators of political media messages are also discussed.