Media Systems, News Content and Public Perception of Political Reality - A Cross-National Content Analysis, 2009

Public opinion constitutes one of the cornerstones of democracy. Citizens are assumed to hold preferences for particular polices, know where parties and candidates for office are located on the relevant policy dimensions, and cast their votes accordingly. In other words: Democracy functions best when its citizens are politically informed. In order to express attitudes and act according to their self-interest, citizens need relevant and up to date information about current affairs. In many respects, political relevant information is more widely available now than at any time in history. However, several scholars have questioned the quality and the form of information provided by the news media. A central hypothesis in this project is that media systems matter for the information available to the public. How commercial and public broadcasting is organised within a country, or the relative importance of newspapers to television, are all factors that can influence the information provided by the news media, and thus the potential effect on the public. The overall purpose of this project is to study the information given by the news media to the public, and how this information influences public's knowledge and perception of political reality. This data set consist of a content analysis of news output in six countries: Norway, Sweden, Belgium, The Netherlands, UK and the US. The content analysis studies between and within country variations in news content, including important factors such as hard versus soft news, thematic versus episodic news frames, domestic versus international focus, use of actors and sources as well as main arguments presented on a few selected topics.

舆论是民主的基石之一。公众被假定会对特定政策持有偏好，知晓各政党与公职候选人在相关政策维度上的立场，并据此投下选票。换言之，当公民具备政治素养时，民主方能实现最优运转。为表达自身态度并基于自身利益行事，公众需要获取与时事相关的最新信息。在诸多方面，当下政治相关信息的可获得性远超历史上任何时期。然而，诸多学者对新闻媒体所提供信息的质量与形式提出了质疑。本项目的核心假说为：媒体体系对公众可获取的信息具有重要影响。一国国内商业与公共广播的组织模式，或是报纸相较于电视的相对重要性，均会影响新闻媒体所提供的信息，进而对公众产生潜在效应。本项目的总体目标为：研究新闻媒体向公众传递的信息，以及此类信息如何影响公众对政治现实的认知与理解。本数据集包含对六个国家——挪威、瑞典、比利时、荷兰、英国（United Kingdom, UK）、美国（United States, US）——的新闻产出内容分析。本次内容分析旨在研究各国之间以及一国内部的新闻内容差异，涵盖诸多关键维度：硬新闻与软新闻的区分、主题式与事件式新闻框架的差异、国内与国际报道的侧重、消息源与行动者的使用情况，以及若干选定议题下的核心论点。