European Parliament Election Study, Longitudinal Media Study 1999, 2004, 2009

Media coverage of elections to the European Parliament. Topics: Newspapers: page number on which the article begins; type of newspaper article (e.g. report, interview, documentary, cartoon, etc.); beginning of the article on the top or bottom half of the page; television: length of the TV contribution; main topic of the report; actual and desired main person responsible in the main topic of the report (political actor within and outside the national government, non-political actor, EU or EU-related actor); place of action of the report; mainly affected geographical area; main actor (persons, groups, organisations); explicit assessment of the main actor; sex of the main actor; frequency of direct citation of the main actor; assessment of the EU; two or more aspects of a problem mentioned; conflicts or disagreements mentioned; personal attack between actors. Elections to the European Parliament and election campaign: report covers the elections to the European Parliament or the election campaign; opinion poll results mentioned; mention of actors as ´Gewinner´ or ´Verlierer´; mention of presentation type and style of the actor; report mentions a strategic step with a certain motivation; use of metaphors from the language of sport or the language of wars; election campaign to the European elections is described as boring or exciting; report mentions voter turnout in the European elections in the country; report mentions people´s interest in the election campaign or in the elections; report mentions aspects related to the role of the media in the election campaign (only in 2004); report mentions interviews with people on the street (vox populi). Additionally coded was: coder ID; name of the medium; publication date; country.