European Parliament Election Study 2009, Media Study

The European Parliament Election in the Media. Topics: Newspapers: page number on which the story begins; section; type of story; number of photographs, visuals belonging to the article; length of newspaper story; total number of pages in political/news section, editorial section and business or economy; begin of the article on top half of the page or lower half of the page, television: length of TV news item; story number (position within the overall news cast); television and newspaper: topic of the story: European integration, globalization, environment, national economic conditions; item contains an evaluation of the change of national economic conditions over the past 12 months; effect of national government or EU governance on national economic conditions; mainly responsible for working on economic conditions (actually and preferred); corresponding questions concerning immigration, change in interest rates, health care, climate change; main location of the story in terms of prominence; current national government is mentioned and evaluated in the story; European Union, its institutions or policies or the European Parliamentary elections or the campaign is mentioned in the story. Actors: detailed information up to 6 different persons, groups or organizations (for instance times the actor is directly quoted or shown on photography or film). EU specific topics: up to five EU-specific topics: topic discussion, topic-relevant information, developing of topic in terms of good or bad; story evaluates the EU, the European Parliament, the potential enlargement of the EU, the potential membership of Croatia, Switzerland and Turkey; story contains factual information about: the total number of member states in the EU, number of representatives, the rotation of the presidency of the Council of the European Union, the minimum age limit for standing as a candidate for the national general elections, the total number of MPs in the national parliament, the number of seats of the European Parliament after the 2009 election; story mentions aspects related to the state of democracy in the EU; evaluation of these aspects; referendums on EU integration: supportive or not; two or more sides of an issue mentioned; conflict or disagreement mentioned; personal attack between actors; EU-country reproaches (blames, criticizes the European Union or the European Commission); benefits or disadvantages from the EU; numbers, figures or statistics that indicate the benefits or disadvantages from the EU; negative reference to a particular distance between the EU and its citizens; positive reference to the responsiveness of the EU towards its citizens; contrasts between the position of elites and the position of the general public; criticism from the perspective of the citizens. European Parliamentary Elections and campaign: story is about the European Parliamentary Elections and/or the campaign; opinion poll results mentioned; country where newspaper or TV broadcast comes from; expected performance of the parties in the European Parliamentary elections; story mentions interviews of persons in the street (vox populi); mentioning of actors as ´winners´ or ´losers´; kind of presentation and style; story mentions a strategic move with a certain motivation; metaphors from the language of games, sport and/or war are used in the story; EP election campaign is boring or exciting; turnout in the European Elections in one´s country; people interested in campaign; story mentions aspects relating to the role of the media and to publicity efforts of political actors or campaigns towards the media. Additionally coded: Coder ID; story identification number; date, month and news outlet. Additional country specific variables are included in the national datasets.