Fighting for attention: Media coverage of negative campaign messages

Autor(en)
Martin Haselmayer, Thomas Meyer, Markus Wagner
Abstrakt

The article studies whether and how negative campaigning is a successful strategy for attaining media attention. It combines extensive content analyses of party and news texts with public opinion surveys to study the success of individual press releases in making the news. The empirical analysis draws on 1496 party press releases and 6512 news reports in all national media outlets during the final 6 weeks of Austria's 2013 general election campaign. We find that negative campaigning is a successful strategy to attract the attention of journalists and editors. It is particularly relevant for rank-and-file politicians, who lack the intrinsic news value of high public or party office, and for messages that focus on a rival's best issues. These findings have broader implications for understanding party strategies and 'negativity bias' in the news.

Organisation(en)
Institut für Staatswissenschaft
Journal
Party Politics
Band
25
Seiten
412-423
Anzahl der Seiten
12
ISSN
1354-0688
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/1354068817724174
Publikationsdatum
08-2017
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
506014 Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft
Schlagwörter
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
Sociology and Political Science
Link zum Portal
https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/fighting-for-attention-media-coverage-of-negative-campaign-messages(7ab7ae21-c60e-4392-9d10-4e167e1b050f).html