Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Haselmayer, Martin
• Wagner, Markus
• Meyer, Thomas M.

Titel

Partisan Bias in Message Selection: Media Gatekeeping of Party Press Releases

Ist Teil von

• Political communication, 2017-07, Vol.34 (3), p.367-384

Ort / Verlag

United States: Routledge

Erscheinungsjahr

2017

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Worldwide Political Science Abstracts

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Parties try to shape media coverage in ways that are favorable to them, but what determines whether media outlets pick up and report on party messages? Based on content analyses of 1,496 party press releases and 6,512 media reports from the 2013 Austrian parliamentary election campaign, we show that media coverage of individual party messages is influenced not just by news factors, but also by partisan bias. The media are therefore more likely to report on messages from parties their readers favor. Importantly, this effect is greater rather than weaker when these messages have high news value. These findings have important implications for understanding the media's role in elections and representative democracies in general.