News Impact Artikelen (2018)
News Impact Digital Age Artikelen
Leerdoelen → Research question of the article, its central concepts, its central hypotheses, the data
and methods used, and the principal research results. To get aware of the underlying data, the units of
measurement, the units of analysis, and the (dependent, independent, mediating, moderating) variables
should be identified. Students should be able to tell the research results from the tables and figures in
the research section – two or three tables and figures from the exam literature will be included in the
exam
HC.1 – Wu et al. (2002) The conditioned impact of recession news: a time-series analysis of
economic communication in the USA
Abstract:
This study examined the complex relationships among recession news, the state of the economy, and
people’s perceptions toward the economy from January through March using trivariate vector
autoregression (VAR) analysis. Most of the time-series variables were found to have structural
changes during this time frame. The researchers were able to determine January as the cut-off point to
divide the entire period into two: downturn period and recovery period. The paper concludes that:
1. the situational factor (different states of economy) played a crucial role in determining how
the public evaluates the economy;
2. the extent to which recession news’ impact on people’s assessment of the economy depended
on different economic circumstances;
3. news coverage responded differently across these two distinct periods but, in the long run,
followed the economic reality;
4. the public’s sentiments toward the economy can predict economic performance.
Key Question: If mass media have the power to influence audiences do they also have the power to
influence the events that are the basis of the news?
In this article, we consider the influence of reporting on events themselves as well as on the audience,
using a decade of aggregate data from the USA that includes a simple computer-assisted content
analysis, a repeated measure of public perceptions of economic conditions, and indicators of the state
of the economy itself. A time-series analysis technique is used to sort out time order and other aspects
of the dynamics of a complex public issue that involves reality, reporting, and public response.
Assessing mass media influence is a tough job:
1. sorting out time order;
2. linking media content to changes in individuals’ attitudes or behavior;
3. extrapolating from typical short-term studies of individuals to long-term influence on larger
social systems.
Method:
Use of data sets that are compiled from existing information archives over a relatively long period of
time. The advantages ➔ one can surmount the difficulties noted here in ways that are not possible
with traditional methods.
Disadvantages ➔ the restriction to problems that can be addressed from existing sources of
information unless one is prepared to collect data for weeks and months, if not years, before beginning
analysis.
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The economy as a case study
Research reason: In the early 90’s the media were blamed for harming an already weakened
economy—the term ‘media malady’ was invoked often to describe the scenario. However, others
defended their stories as simply reflecting hard facts and not intentionally influencing the economy. In
addition to the usual relationship between media content and public effect this study also examines the
relationship between the economy and public perception.
- The state of the economy itself can be affected by public confidence because policy is
influenced by public opinion.
- News coverage, public opinion, and economic situation should be examined simultaneously
because they can all reinforce and influence each other over time; in addition, these variables
are not likely to be endogenous under any circumstance
- Particularly because the economy is an obtrusive issue—in addition to media the public can
obtain information about the economy from other sources—reality cues must be taken into
account when media effect is assessed.
The data
- In order to get a more complete scenario, a time frame was selected that would cover the
periods well before and after the recession period – January 1987 through March 1996
3 variables: reality; public opinion & news coverage
Variable 1: News coverage: For a measure of newspaper coverage of economic recession, the
monthly frequency of New York Times news stories that contained recession’ in the headline
or lead was retrieved. → NYT was chosen to represent the news coverage of recession
because it is the leading elite national newspaper ar well as an important source of influence
for other media.
- Variable 2: Public opinion: data used to represent the people’s perception of the present
situation, expectation and confidence were gathered through monthly survey questions nation
wide under 3000 adults.
- Variabele 3: Reality: the overall state of the economy in the USA—was represented by the
Economic Index, which was calculated and maintained by the US Department of Commerce
until it was taken over by the Conference Board.
- Because all of the data were measured and recorded monthly, the total of cases observed is
which meets the requirement for implementing time-series analysis.
- Use of monthly data -- Because economic problems are obtrusive domestic issues, their optimal
effect span is supposed to be longer. This fact justifies the use of monthly data.
Resultaten:
- The state of the economy appears to hover around 100 before July 1990 and then plunges
sharply to the lowest point in January 1991. After that date, the slope starts to climb and
reaches a peak in December 1994.
- Precisely mirroring this trend, the number of New York Times stories about recession rockets
to a peak twice in January 1991 and January 1992 , respectively, and then decreases sharply
right after January 1992.
- The indices of people’s perceptions toward the economy vary to some extent, but reflect a
similar trend. The index of people’s evaluation on present situation resembles a roller coaster
ride; the public’s expectation also has rapid ups and downs during the recession period.
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- This analysis showed that evaluation of the present situation, state of the economy and New
York Times coverage are cointegrated with one another over time, whereas the other
cointegration set (expectation, state of economy, and coverage) is not statistically significant.
- The public’s expectation about the economy is not entirely reflective of the current economic
situation → this results in the insignificant output of its cointegration with the other two
variables. This finding is worth noting since the vector autoregression (VAR) test is based on
this foundation.
- As the econometrics literature indicates, the existence of cointegration among variables only
indicates a co-movement over time, which does not necessarily imply any causal or predictive
relationship.
- The Trivariate VAR allows us to test the significance of the total (direct and indirect) impact
of a variable on another variable in the
system. – dus Trivariate VAR kan significantie van directe en indirecte impact van de ene
variabele op de andere variabele testen.
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- Lag 1 and 2 → the economic indicator can predict people’s evaluation of the present situation
(all lags) and news coverage.
- The public’s expectation was not influenced by either news coverage or even the economic
reality.
- Lags 2,3,4 → people’s perception of the economy coincidentally affected the economic
situation
- Media’s role in this model → no significant impact on either the public or the economy.
Therefore, the hypotheses of media malady (on the economy) and media effect (on the public)
are not supported when the whole period is examined.
Downturn period
- People’s assessment of the present economic situation was overwhelmed by recession
coverage, entirely free of the influence of the state of the economy. (Significant at lags 1 and
4)
- Media coverage during the downturn period was not a reflection of reality → the media did
follow the people’s expectation about the economy (Lags 2 to 4).
- Also in this downturn period, the media malady hypothesis seems partially supported
by the finding that news coverage leads the economic indicator at some lags
(particularly when people’s assessment of the present situation is controlled).
- The public’s perceptions were not found systematically influential on the
economy (only for present situation at lags 3 and 4).
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Recovery period
- The influence over people’s evaluation of the economic situation is entirely opposite to the
downturn period; public perception can be predicted by the economic indicator but not by the
news.
- News coverage about recession in this period was not influenced by either economic reality or
people’s sentiment
- Nor was the economic indicator systematically predicted by the two variables (although there
are sporadic significant predictions). In addition, both the economy and news coverage appear
to follow their own courses independent of other factors.
Conclusion:
- This study demonstrates the distinctive predictive relationships among news coverage, public
perception, and economic reality across varied periods.
- Media coverage was found to be a good predictor of the public’s assessment of the
economy during the downturn period even after the state of the economy is controlled for; citizens
pay greater attention to economic news during economic downturns.
- Mass media during the slump seemed to reflect more of the public’s perception about the
economic situation and less of the economic reality
- People’s sentiments about the economy (both present and future) were not influenced by the news
coverage but by the economic condition.
- Since more people were affected by the bad economy during the downturn period, personal
recession experiences made individuals more susceptible to the agenda setting effect.
- The amount of recession coverage cannot be predicted either by the economy or the public’s
sentiment in the recovery period. This might be explained by the following two reasons:
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1. the news media still indulged themselves with recession-related topics and were not sensitive
enough to detect the economic rebound;
2. the topics of recession and recovery may be mingled in the news stories in such ways that this
preliminary content analysis cannot distinguish.
- Results based on the whole period of data show that the economy affected people’s evaluation of
the present situation but not their economic expectation and that news coverage overall did not
influence people’s sentiments when the state of the economy is controlled.
- News generally followed economic reality rather than public sentiments, which indicates that
news media, when looked at in the long run, had done a good job of reflecting the economic
reality.
- Public opinion predicts economic condition.
- When public opinion is examined over the entire period → economic reality works as the better
predictor.
- Another important finding is that the public’s expectation about the economy is hard to predict and
probably capricious, due to varied personal experience, community scenario, and media exposure.
Given the results from VAR tests, it is clear that neither news coverage nor reality cues can
forecast people’s expectation levels.
- Lastly, that recession news is obtrusive leads us to ask whether other kinds of information would
yield a similar conditioned impact. Will unrelated foreign events be more likely to shorten the
people’s attention span than related, pressing stories like domestic recession?
HC.1 – Kleinnijenhuis & van Hoof (2007) A Test of rivaling approaches to explain news effects:
news on issue positions of parties, real-world developments, support and criticism, and success
and failure.
This article combines a number of rivaling approaches in a single study to answer the research
hypothesis: Positive evaluations (support) are beneficial, whereas negative evaluations (criticism) are
detrimental for the party or the politician being evaluated.
Theory
- Characteristics of political campaign news
Politics is about policy outcomes, who is succeeding and winning and who is failig and losing
in debates, policy negotiations, news about issue positions of parties.
4 news types:
• News on issue positions of political actors
Agenda setting: issues that appear frequently in the news tend to become the issues
that voters deem important. BUT agenda setting & priming don’t predict which
candidate or party will be preferred when a given issue is salient in the voters mind.
Issue ownership theory enables such link; parties are expected to emphasize not only
their own issues, but also what effects of such emphasis will be → a party will attract
voters when the news emphasizes issues on which that party already has a solid vested
reputations. A party owns an issue if the voters spontaneously associate a party with a
specific position and a strong reputation on that issue.
H1: More news on a party’s position on owned issues increases the likelihood to vote
for that party.
• News on real world developments
Positive real-world developments such as full employment are beneficial for
incumbent (zittende) parties whereas real-world problems such as unemployment are
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