Media election survey 1979 - News analysis

This study of the political contents in press, radio and television was carried out within the research projects 'Mass media and the electorate' and 'Swedish election campaign' in connection with the 1979 general election. It is a detailed campaign study of news reporting in the press, radio and television during the last four weeks before election day. Analyses of the editorial material of the press are also included in the study. Media examined in the study have been chosen mainly with an effect-oriented principle of sampling, i.e. the chosen media are those that many voters expose themselves to. This principle has been supplemented with two group-representative principles, i.e. various types of media shall be represented, and all political parties should be represented by their main organ. The analysis of the contents in the media encompasses in principle all the national political material. The campaign study also includes measurements of local government and county council political material in the daily press, but this is not coded for content. Political news material is such material where a party- political actor occurs as the acting actor (subject) and/or mentioned actor (object). This is the main rule used in the selection of articles and features. In some cases the political content has been classified by its topic, e.g. if an article deals with questions of obvious political relevance it has been coded as political even if there is no political actor involved.

Purpose:

To describe, identify and analyse media's reporting of the election campaign 1979.