78_FPolitical Campaigning in Referendums

8/12/2019 78_FPolitical Campaigning in Referendums

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Part III

The campaign in thenews

Polls, personalities, and themulti-faceted issue of the euro


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4 The campaign in the news

Referendums are not always about issues of high salience or great import-

ance to the electorate. Generally speaking, the higher the salience of theissue to the public and the more elite stakeholders involved in the cam-paign, the higher the visibility of the referendum in the media. Recentexamples include the recall referendum in California in the fall of 2003 inwhich Democrat Governor Grey Davis was voted out of office following amedia frenzy around Republican candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger,former actor and current Governor of California. Such intense levels ofmedia attention have also been seen in relation to national referendums,such as the Australian vote on sovereignty and the Irish referendum on

the introduction of abortion.Referendums on issues of European integration have produced onlysporadic accounts of the media coverage of the campaigns (see Jenssenet al . (1998) for an account of the 1994 referendums in Norway, Finland,and Sweden on EU membership and Siune and Svensson (1993) andSiune et al. (1994) for descriptive accounts of the previous Danish referen-dums in the early 1990s). The lack of systematic knowledge about themedia coverage of these key events is an example of the underdevelopedunderstanding we have of news reporting of European political affairs

(Semetko et al. 2000). Until recently there was limited scholarly researchavailable about the way in which issues of importance to Europeanintegration were covered in the news. In the past years several studieshave started to map the coverage of the EU in the news (Semetko andValkenburg 2000; de Vreese 2002; de Vreese et al. 2001; Peter et al. 2003),but little is known about the reporting of referendum campaigns in themedia.

In this chapter we analyze the media coverage of the referendumcampaign. We draw on almost 5,000 television news stories and 3,000

newspaper stories during the campaign to analyze the visibility of the ref-erendum issue in the media, the presence and evaluation of key actors inthe news, as well as the focus of the media on the electoral content in theform of poll-oriented news coverage. The results show a major increase inthe amount of coverage of the referendum in the final four weeks of the


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was found in studies of EU summits in which the summit entered the newsagenda, dominated it for the period of the summit, and vanished in theimmediate aftermath (Semetko and Valkenburg 2000; de Vreese 2001b).

A recent study investigated the coverage of EU affairs during a routine

period, that is during times when there are no elections or prescheduledimportant events (Peter and de Vreese 2003). This study showed in mostof the countries studied, EU politics is marginal in national television newsand EU officials are virtually absent from the news. However, when theEU is covered, EU politics tends to be more prominently presented thanother political news.

It is against this backdrop of previous studies that we can assess themedia coverage of a referendum on a European integration topic. Weknow that there is considerable cross-national variation in terms of the vis-

ibility of European news. We know that the coverage tends to be cyclic,that is almost invisible and then, following a short peak, vanishing in theimmediate aftermath of an event.

EUrope in the newsroom

Journalists play an important mediating role in shaping public opinionabout European integration. By choosing to cover some topics and notothers journalists and news organizations play an active role in the cam-

paign process. Moreover, inclusion of one perspective above another orthe use of certain sources or viewpoints can affect the framing of a newsstory. In addition, critical comments and sarcastic remarks can affect thevalence of the news. Obviously, however, journalists do not operate intotal freedom in terms of their choices. They are constrained by a numberof factors.

A distinction can be made between factors internaland externalto jour-nalism that shape and influence news content (de Vreese 2003). Externalfactors include, for example, the political system of a country whether

political conflicts and battles are fought in a two-party system or in amulti-party system. Additionally, in the case of the EU, it may matterwhether or not a country is generally pro-European or rather EU-skeptic.Factors internal to journalism include the editorial policy of a news organi-zation, the journalistic effort invested in covering an issue/event in termsof staff and resources, and the application of news selection criteria.

Editorial approach. Formally defined organizational and editorialapproaches shape news content. In studies of national elections in primar-ily Britain but also the U.S., a theoretical distinction between a sacerdotal

and a pragmatic approach to campaign coverage has been applied(Blumler 1969 in Blumler and Gurevitch 1995; Semetko et al. 1991). Thedistinction refers to the status attributed to elections and campaign news.In a sacerdotal approach, elections are perceived as the fundament ofdemocracy and campaigns are considered newsworthy per se. The attitude

The campaign in the news 67


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towards politicians is respectful, cautious, and reactive. In a pragmaticapproach campaign news is evaluated against conventional news selectioncriteria and is not automatically given special attention.

The pragmatic orientation implies that the amount of time or space

allocated to [political events] will be determined by strict considerations ofnews values, in competition with the newsworthiness of other stories(Semetko et al. 1991: 6). In one study journalists at the BBC were found tobe prudential and cautious, concerned about ensuring that televisionjournalism was, and would appear to be, politically beyond reproach perhaps even politically innocuous (Semetko et al. 1991: 53). In compari-son it was suggested that journalists at the U.S. network NBC were moreanalytic and committed to a conventional journalistic approach lookingfor events to report that would be laced with drama, conflict, novelty,

movement and anomaly (Semetko et al. 1991: 55).In a study of British, Danish, and Dutch news organizations approachto and role in reporting the 1999 European elections, it was found thatthough all news programs had the intention to cover the elections exten-sively, this was adjusted considerably during the campaign. Advance plan-ning concerning the initiation of specific issues was often not implementedin the actual coverage. A commonality between the news programs wasthe pragmatic approach to the elections implying that politics (includingthe elections) was not newsworthy per se, but that political events and

issues competed against other topics in the allocation of time in the news.The event was not considered to have sufficient intrinsic importance orinterest and the European Parliament was evaluated critically and did notenjoy any privileges as a political authority. In general, the elections werenot up-graded and events in the campaign were mostly evaluatedaccording to normal news selection criteria (de Vreese 2003).

Though all news programs during the 1999 European Parliament elec-tions were pragmatic in their approach, this had different implications.Some news programs chose to neglect the elections due to an editorial

assessment of the event as non-newsworthy (for example, Dutch NOSJournaal and RTL Nieuws), while others set their own agenda withoutpaying attention to the political party agenda (for example, Danish DRTV-Avisen). Yet other news programs opted to make the anticipatedvoter apathy a key theme in the coverage (for example, British BBC andITN, and Danish TV2). These findings suggest that the approach taken bytelevision journalists in the coverage of European affairs has changed con-siderably since the first EP elections in 1979. Nol-Aranda (1983) con-cluded that broadcasters during the 1979 campaign were cautious and

adhered largely to the agenda put forward by politicians. This was nolonger an appropriate description when assessing the approach taken bybroadcasters in the 1999 elections.

News selection criteria. A second aspect of journalism that shapes newsis the application of news selection criteria. An important indicator is



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whether standard criteria for evaluation of the newsworthiness of eventsand issues are applied or whether special criteria are applied for evalu-ation of campaign stories. While news values are not organizationallydefined, as suggested by, for example, Galtung and Ruge (1965), the news

organization is the place where these are manifest and translated into dailyproduction routines. Shoemaker and Reese (1996) synthesize work onnews values and suggest: a) prominence/importance, b) human interest, c)conflict/controversy, d) the unusual, e) timeliness, and f) proximity as themost important news values to be distilled from both journalistic practiceand literature about journalism.

During the 1999 European Parliamentary campaign, the different newsprograms varied in the degree to which they adapted the political agenda.In Britain, the agenda of the political parties was important for the build-

ing of the news agenda. Most notably, the Conservatives received exten-sive coverage and their slogan In Europe, not run by Europe wasinfluential. Dutch NOS Journaalchose to almost entirely ignore the elec-tions. This was a deliberate editorial choice not to define the elections asnewsworthy. Danish TV-Avisen covered the elections rather extensivelyand assumed a clear agenda-setting profile in the networks focus on thefraud issue (de Vreese 2003).

The elections were most visible in Denmark and Britain and invisible inthe Netherlands. The low visibility of the European elections in the Dutch

news is in line with observations made about the 1979 campaign. For the1979 election, it was suggested that the Netherlands was the only countryin which neither broadcasters nor parties felt very concerned about pro-moting a European consciousness through television which is one expla-nation for the absence in coverage (Nol-Aranda 1983: 92). The argumentput forward by Nol-Aranda (1983) suggests that news coverage of anissue on which there is widespread consensus will be only marginal. Thisseems like a plausible explanation and it is in line with other research on,for example, news values. Studies in different countries have suggested

that presence of conflict in an issue is an important common criterion forselecting news (for example, Eilders 1997; McManus 1994; Shoemaker andReese 1996).

Editorial approach and the application of news selection criteria bothfactors internal to the news organization influence the visibility and pri-ority given to an event/issue in the news. The dimensions also give direc-tion to the news agenda. Agenda-setting addresses the relationshipbetween political actors, the news media, and the electorate (see Chapter6 for an investigation of media agenda-setting in a referendum campaign).

Although the majority of studies on agenda-setting have focused on therelationship between the media and the public agenda, an equally import-ant, but relatively neglected area is the dynamics of how the media agendais formed, agenda-building, and the role news organizations and journal-ists play in this process. Lang and Lang (1981: 278) concluded that the



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whole question of how issues originate is side-stepped, nor is there anyrecognition of the process through which agendas are built. One reasonfor the less central role of this strand of research is reluctance on the partof news organizations to open up their newsroom and share experiences

and insights with communication scholars. Access is a crucial factor whichmay have limited the volume and impact of this type of research (Blumlerand Gurevitch 1998; Holtz-Bacha 1999; Semetko 1996a).

Previous studies of national election campaigns across Europe in the1970s (for example, Asp 1983; Siune and Borre 1975) and 1980s (forexample, Blumler and Gurevitch 1989; Hjarvard 1999; Semetko et al. 1991)suggested that European broadcasters have traditionally covered electionsin a respectful and cautious way, adhering largely to the agenda of partiesand politicians. While this role may be labeled agenda-sending, a refer-

ence to the media passing on the priorities of news sources; in the case ofelections, these are often candidates, party leaders or party spokespersons.Research based on elections in the 1990s and more recently suggests thatthis may no longer be the case (see, for example, Blumler and Gurevitch1998; Hjarvard 1995; Norris et al. 1999; de Vreese 2001a). As in the 1999European Parliament elections, news organizations have been found to bemore pro-active in their coverage of politics and to exert more discretionwhen choosing which stories to bring and how to cover these issues. Thisrole may be more appropriately labeled agenda-setting, a reference to

the medias primary role in shaping the news agenda.The role of journalists and news organizations is unexplored territory inrelation to referendums about European integration. We build on previ-ous research in relation to national and European elections to investigatethe journalistic approach to a referendum and its effect on news coverage.

Key questions

This chapter addresses the coverage of a referendum in the media and the

journalistic approach applied to this coverage. The first part of the analysisinvestigates the visibility of the referendum issue in the media. There areno comparable studies to assess whether the visibility of this referendumexceeds or falls below the standard amount of coverage that a referendumgenerates. We do know that other studies suggest that the EU is periph-eral in national television news, with occasional peaks (de Vreese 2002;Norris 2000). Nothing is known, however, about the visibility of a referen-dum campaign on an issue of European integration.

The second part of the analysis deals with the presence and depiction of

actors in the news. Actors are broadly understood as persons, organi-zations, institutions, political parties, candidates, etc. The visibility ofpolitical actors in the news is a necessary condition for the functioningof political representation in national democracies and this has beenaddressed in studies of national election campaigns (for example, Kleinni-



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jenhuis et al. 2001; Norris et al. 1999; Schnbach et al. 2001). We know littleabout the visibility of EU actors (de Vreese 2002). There is only limitedevidence of how visible EU actors are or whether they are more or lessvisible than other (domestic) political actors (see de Vreese et al. (2004)

for an EU-wide analysis of the visibility of actors during the 1999 Euro-pean elections), and we know even less about the presence of politicalactors in the news during a referendum campaign.

We go beyond investigating the mere visibility of the different actors inthe news to also assess the tone of the news coverage of these actors. Thisis potentially crucial for the public evaluation of these actors (see Chapters8 and 9). Evaluations of politicians have been investigated in contentanalyses of national politics (for example, Herr 2002; Kepplinger 1998;McCombs et al. 2000; Semetko et al. 1991). Moreover, many of these

studies suggest that the news coverage of candidates may significantlyaffect audiences perceptions of these candidates (for example, Kiousis etal. 1999; McCombs et al. 2000) and under certain conditions also affectvoting preferences and behavior (Herr 2002). Evaluations in the news are,when predominantly and permanently negative, considered to contributeto a decrease of citizens participation in democratic processes (forexample, Kepplinger 1998). Recent research has focused specifically onthe evaluation of EU representatives in news. It suggested that EU repre-sentatives are generally depicted neutrally, but when they are evaluated

this tends to be in a negative direction (Peter et al. 2003; de Vreese 2002).This pattern, moreover, is similar to the evaluation of domestic politicalactors (de Vreese 2002).

The third dimension of the content analysis deals specifically with therole that opinion polls play in the news coverage of the referendum. Elec-tion time is poll time. In the content analysis we investigate the visibility ofpolls and assess the quality poll reporting in the news media coverage ofthe referendum campaign. We draw on a number of indicators for thequality of poll reporting that pertain to the presence of methodological

information such as provision of question wording, population definition,sample size, interview method, and data collection field dates.

Finally, we address the organization and journalistic approach to thereferendum campaign as discussed above. We address the factors internaland externalto journalism that shape and influence news content that werediscussed at the outset of this chapter.

The visibility of the campaign in television and newspapers

To gain an initial idea of the volume of the coverage of the referendumduring the campaign we first take a look at television news. Drawingon our content analysis of 5,000 news stories from the outset of the cam-paign in March until Election Day in September 2000, we found that thereferendum, on average, occupied about 10 percent of the news, albeit



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somewhat less during the summer months in the middle of the campaign(see Figure 4.1). In the final month of the campaign the visibility of refer-endum increases to take up more than one-quarter of the news.

The analysis suggests that the 2000 referendum campaign was visible in

the news media. Compared to, for example, the 1999 European elections,the referendum was highly visible. During the final two weeks leading upto the 1999 European elections, about 10 percent of the news in Denmarkwas devoted to the elections (de Vreese 2002). In the comparable twoweeks leading up to the 2000 referendum, this figure was higher than 30percent. Media attention of this magnitude to a referendum suggests theimportance of the topic and the potential domestic political implications.

To get a general idea of the news environment during the campaign, weturn to the overall television news agenda in the period from March

September. As Figure 4.1. shows, the euro issue increases from about 10percent of the news early in the campaign to around 25 percent in the finalmonth (see also second row in Table 4.1). The economy took upbetween 510 percent of the news throughout the campaign and otherpolitical news varied from 22 percent (TV1 September) to 40 percent(TV1 July) (see Table 4.1).

Did the referendum increase the overall percentage share of newsdevoted to political and economic topics? Or did other political and eco-nomic news get bumped off the screen when the referendum became more

visible, so that the overall percentage share the news devoted to politicaland economic topics remained the same? A previous study found that


Figure 4.1 Visibility of the referendum in television news.

NotePercentage of news stories about referendum on TV1 DR 9 oclock news and TV2 7 oclocknews. A total of 4,953 stories are analyzed (TV1 n2,578; TV2 n2,375) between Marchand September 2000.

%o

fnewsstoriesabouteuroreferendum/EU30

25

20

15

10

5

0

TV1 (DR)

TV2

SeptemberAugustJulyJuneMayAprilMarch


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Table4.1Televisionnewsagendaduring

referendumcampaign

March

April

May

June

July

August

Sep

tember

TV1

TV2

TV1

TV2

TV1

TV2

TV1

TV2

TV1

T

V2

TV1

TV2

TV

1

TV2

(n268)(n278)(n38

2)(n283)(n385)(n301)

(n402)(n364)(n340)(

n377)(n381)(n365)(n402)(n395)

Euro/EU

9.8

8.6

9.4

8.8

11.9

8.6

10.9

7.7

7.4

5.3

7.3

8.2

26.1

23.8

Economy

6.3

5.4

10.2

6.4

8.1

3.7

7.7

6.3

1.8

6.6

5.2

3.3

7.7

9.9

Politics

36.7

37.4

29.6

29.3

36.0

36.9

31.1

32.1

40.3

28.6

30.7

27.4

23.9

22.0

Unemploymen

t

0.3

0.4

1.6

1.1

2.1

3.0

2.2

0.3

1.8

2.7

1.8

0.0

2.0

0.0

Welfare

3.1

4.3

3.1

2.8

2.9

1.7

1.5

1.1

3.8

3.4

3.7

2.7

2.0

1.5

Environment

2.8

1.8

3.4

0.0

1.0

1.7

2.5

1.6

6.2

6.9

3.4

3.0

4.0

2.5

Immigration

3.1

0.4

2.9

1.4

0.5

1.0

1.0

1.9

0.6

1.1

2.6

4.9

2.2

6.6

Norms/values

0.0

0.0

1.8

0.0

1.0

1.7

1.7

0.3

0.3

0.3

4.2

0.3

1.5

0.3

Accident/disasters

4.5

4.0

4.2

4.9

2.1

3.0

2.7

4.7

7.6

8.5

8.7

9.6

5.0

2.5

Crime

16.4

15.5

11.0

16.3

13.5

14.0

19.2

20.9

13.8

14.6

15.7

15.9

9.7

9.4

Humaninteres

t

2.8

10.4

8.9

13.1

6.8

9.0

7.7

8.2

6.2

5.8

5.0

8.8

2.5

3.5

Sport

0.0

0.0

0.5

0.7

2.3

2.7

2.0

3.0

0.9

1.3

0.8

1.1

3.2

6.1

Weather

7.3

7.2

7.3

9.2

7.8

8.0

7.5

7.4

8.2

8.0

7.1

7.9

6.5

7.6

Other

6.6

4.7

6.0

6.0

3.6

5.3

2.2

4.4

1.2

6.9

3.7

6.8

3.7

4.3

Total

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

1

00.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

Note

BaseisalltelevisionnewsbetweenMarchand

September2000.Cellentriesa

repercentageofallstories,n4.953).


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when the euro was introduced, the event itself was visible in the news butthis news displaced coverage of other political and economic topics, so thatthe overall share of the program devoted to political and economic newsremained constant (de Vreese et al. 2001). In Figure 4.2 we illustrate the

percentage share of news about the referendum, other political and eco-nomic news, and news about topics such as crime and human interest, onthe two television channels in the final two months during the campaign.

We clearly see that the share of news about the referendum as well asother political and economic news increased from around 40 percent inboth news programs in August to about 55 percent in both programs inSeptember. The share of economic and political news remained stablein both programs thus suggesting that the increase was accounted for bythe increase in the coverage of the referendum, indicated by the black bars

in Figure 4.2. In the 2000 euro referendum then, we see the unusual resultthat the overall percentage share of political and economic newsincreased.

The press

Turning to the content analysis of the newspaper coverage, we identified3,201 items dealing with the referendum during the campaign. We distin-guish among front-page articles, regular articles, newspaper features

and reportages, letters to the Editor, Editorials and Commentaries,advertisements as well as information boxes and cartoons. Table 4.2 sum-marizes the distribution of these more than 3,000 items dealing with thereferendum.


Figure 4.2 Share of news topics on television in August and September 2000.

%

100

50

40

30

20

10

0TV2

September

TV2

August

TV1

September

TV1

August

90

80

70

60

Human interest

Crime

Politics

Economy

Euro/EU


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In total more than 150 references to the referendum were found on thefront pages of the five dailies included in the sample in the final month ofthe campaign. The number of regular news articles totaled more than 800

which means that each newspaper, on average, carried one article aboutthe referendum each day during the entire period from when the referen-dum was called in March until election day in September. The number ofLetters to the Editor (876) and editorials (323) was also very high, which isan indication of the high salience of the topic also to the electorate whichengaged in considerable public debate. To gain an initial idea about thetopics and the tone of the newspaper coverage, we collected key headlinesfrom newspapers during the final month of the campaign (see Table 4.3).

The number of front-page headlines varied significantly between the

different newspapers. Politiken, Berlingske Tidende, and JyllandsPostenare all broadsheet quality newspapers while EkstraBladet and BT aretabloid with a format comparable to the popular British tabloid the Sun.The front pages of the broadsheet newspapers were dominated by the ref-erendum in the entire month leading up to the referendum. The headlinescentered around four themes:

1 Contradictory announcements of the costs of a Yes or a No,2 Human interest headlines about key campaign leaders,

3 The exchange rate and strength of the euro,4 Disagreement on Yes side.

The announcements of the costs of a Yes or a No were found in severalnewspapers and spread throughout the campaign. They ranged from


Table 4.2 Visibility referendum in daily newspapers

Politiken Berlingske Jyllands- B.T. Ekstra-Tidende Posten Bladet

(Yes) (Yes) (Yes) (Yes) (No)

(n842) ( n779) ( n771) ( n367) (n523)

Front page article/ bullet 47 43 49 7 13

Inside the paperArticle 256 246 248 72 84Reportage/analysis 13 31 8 1 1Portrait/interview 40 43 43 8 35Letter to the Editor 150 128 216 159 223Editorial/commentary 80 81 55 30 77Advertisement 72 73 62 47 42

Information box/quiz 78 80 45 13 13Other (e.g., cartoon, 129 84 70 30 35bullet, graphs)

NotePeriod is August 28September 27, 2000. Cell entries are counts.


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Table4.3Ke

ynewspaperheadlinesduringthecampaign

DateEkstraBladet

B.T.

Politiken

BerlingskeTidende

JyllandsPosten

28/8

UndecidedvoteYesafter

ABankersaysno

Nocamp:Nomor

eUnion

deliberatepoll

29/8

Inflationtoohighin

Denmarktojointheeuro

30/8

Nowillcost5billion

EuroNowillcostb

illions

31/8

EUdefenseplans:

fullspeed

ahead

01/9

Eurohitsrock-bottom.

DanishPeoplesPartylow-

profilecampaignnottoscare

Novoters

02/9

LeaderDanishPeo

plesParty:

Maybeeurooned

ay

03/9

Lawyers:Informationon

the

euroisbiased

04/9

BritonssupportNo

Deadraceontheeuro

Britsrowoversupportto

campaign

DanishNocampaign

05/9

AYesisthreetimesm

ore

expensivethanaNo

06/9

07/9

Eurotakesanotherdive

Experts:Nordicwelfare

willsurvivetheeuro


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08/9

Jelved

(EconomyMinister

)

Emergencyaidtotheeuro

promisesstrongeuro

09/9

10/9

11/9

12/9

AustriacaseaffectsPrime

Gallup:ANoisemerging

Tietmeyer

(Preside

ntGerman

Minister

Bank):Notpossib

letoleave

euroonceyouarein

13/9

14/9

Moeller

(Director

Aboringcampaig

nsays

Denmarkslargestcom

pany)politicalanalysts

saysYes

15/9

Ministerseuro-

DuisenbergrejectsUn

ited

Yessidejoinforcestosecurea

bomb

:Pension

StatesofEurope;Yes

Yes

indanger!

partiesjoinincommon

campaign

16/9

ForeignMinister:Nosideis

Pensionguaranteedafter

PanicontheYesside

dishonest;DanishKrone

euro

underpressure;Noovertakes

Yesinthepolls

17/9

Nyrup

(PM):AYes

Nyrups(PM)triesto

secure

HarshcriticismofNyrups(PM)

securesDanishwelfare

pension

pensionguarantee

continued


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Table4.3con

tinued

DateEkstraBladet

B.T.

Politiken

BerlingskeTidende

JyllandsPosten

18/9

Brutal

Prime

MemberEU

Nyrup

(PM)demands

PredictionsofclearNo

Guaranteedpensio

n

MinisterdeliversParliament:

SocialistPartytojoinino

n

harshcriticismofexcessingreed:

thepensionguarantee

LeaderSocialist

60daysEXTRA

Party

vacation

19/9

Europoliticians

Harshcriticismonpensio

n

Fogh

(Liberalleader):

Acampaignonem

otions;

alert:Karen

guarantee

Nyrup

(PM)harmsY

es

Yessideguarantee

:Pensionis

(domesticaffairs

side;Wheretogoafter

secure

minister)worse

aNo

thanHaider!

20/9

FormerForeign

Nyrups(PM)campaign

ANowillcost20.0

00jobs;

Nyrup

(PM)givesuponletter

Secretary:Prime

heavilycriticized

Nyrup

(PM)forcedto

tootherEUcountriestosecure

Minste

risto

changestrategy

pension

blame

forNoto

theeuro

21/9

LeaderDanish

ANowillcost20,0

00jobs

Totaldisagreementbe

tween

Criticism:Noside

campaign

People

sParty:

Yesparties

basedonliesand

Thanksfor

exaggerations

helpingoutPoul

(PM)

22/9

Disagreementonthecosts

Newstrategyinthefin

al

EastEuropeancou

ntries:Tired

ofaNo

hotphase:EUcanbeused

oftheDanishNov

oters

toimproveenvironme

nt


17/27

23/9

Nyrupschaos

Banksintervenetostop

Supportforweakeuro

TradeUnion:ANowillbe

management

eurofreefalling

costly;

WorldBankbuyse

urotosaveit

24/9

Deadrace:Yes

Notclearhowtoproceed

in

Yesgainssupport:Adead

Deadraceonthee

uro

side3percent

caseofaNo

race

behindNoside

25/9

LeaderSocialist

Yessideimprovesinthe

Yesside:financialcutsif

ANocansplittheEUintwo

Party:Speak

polls

itsNo

thetru

thNyrup

(PM)

26/9

Nyrup

(PM)is

EUscompetenceandpo

werInterestratewillgoupifNo

Noside:Maybeeurolater

unclearabout

mustbeclear

Poll:DanishYeswillgive

Danish

EU

SwedishYes

policyincase

ofNo

27/9

Yes,B.T.

Hardfinaldebate:Beha

ve

Neweuroreferendum

again

recommends,

please!

soonifitisaNo

DenmarkMUST

bein

28/9

Yescandidates

Finalpoll:

YesorNo:TodayDenmark

TodaytheDanesdecide;

Exitpollnotpopular

preparingfora

47percent

decidesiftheKroneisto

be

Gallup:Mostexcitingrace

loss:Readyto

47percent

replacedbythecommon

indecades

faceaNo

currency


18/27

A No will cost 5 million (Politiken, August 30, 2000), via A No will cost20,000 jobs (Berlingske Tidende, September 20, 2000) to Nordic welfarewill survive the euro (Berlingske Tidende, September 7, 2000). The head-lines pertaining to the performance of the campaign leaders were primar-

ily found in the tabloid newspapers and centered around Poul NyropRasmussen, then Prime Minister: Brutal Prime Minister (EkstraBladet,September 18, 2000), Thanks for helping out Poul (EkstraBladet, Sep-tember 21, 2000), and Speak the truth Poul (EkstraBladet, September25, 2000). The strength of the single currency and the exchange rateagainst the U.S. dollar emerged in headlines such as Euro hits rock-bottom (Politiken, September 1, 2000), First aid to the euro (Jyllands-Posten, September 8, 2000), and Bank intervenes to stop euro freefalling(Politiken, September 23, 2000). Finally, the campaign style and strategy of

the Yes camp hit the headlines with stories such as Yes side joins forcesto secure Yes (JyllandsPosten, September 15, 2000) and Nyrops chaosmanagement (B.T., September 23, 2000).

The centrality of polls

We now turn to a more substantive aspect of the campaign coverage: the useof opinion polls in news. Polls are the essence of campaigning. The questionof who is ahead, which camp, which party, which candidate is at the core.

News coverage of U.S. election campaigns is saturated with polls andexpressions of public opinion and the use and importance of polls has grownexplosively (Lavrakas and Traugott 2000). Kerbel (1994) described thenetwork coverage of the 1992 U.S. presidential campaign as a poll orgy.

Polls are a prominent feature of election news reporting and togetherwith people-on-the-street-reporting, they are the two most commonexpressions of public opinion which drive horse race news coverage(Larson 1999, 2000). Patterson (1993) points to the increasing importanceof indicators of who is ahead in the political race to give form to news of

politics as a strategic game in his analysis of the evolution of presidentialcampaign news coverage since 1960. Given the centrality of polls andmedia coverage of public opinion in campaigns, two questions arise: Howimportant are polls to campaign coverage? To what extent are pollsreported in a way that enables citizens to judge the quality of the poll andthe interpretations derived from it?

Many critics claim that poll coverage is superficial and inaccurate. Theempirical evidence for this claim, however, is missing as only very fewsystematic studies of poll coverage have been published (Smith and

Verrall 1985: 59). In one study of television election coverage Smith andVerrall (1985: 77) concluded that simplification was achieved by omittingmethodological details, reporting results in general terms, and committingthe errors of overgeneralization, ambiguous comparison, and evaluativedescription.



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Brettschneider (1997) echoed this in an investigation of the news mediareporting of poll results and comments on public opinion prior to nationalGerman elections from 1980 to 1994. Drawing on indicators for both thequantity and formal and substantial quality of the press coverage of the

polls, he concluded that the quantity of reports on public opinion hadincreased over the years, but that the formal quality leaves much to bedesired. Similarly, a study of the television and newspaper reporting ofpre-election polls in the 1997 Canadian elections examining both theemphasis given to polls and the quality of reporting of methodologicalinformation similarly found that the media relied heavily on polls to chartthe dynamics of the campaign, but that polls were often reported withlittle or no information about methodology (Andersen 2000).

We investigate the visibility of polls and assess the quality poll reporting

in the news media coverage of the referendum campaign. We draw on anumber of indicators for the quality of poll reporting. These indicators arepartly derived from Smith and Verrall (1985) and pertain to the presenceof methodological information in reports of poll results such as provisionof question wording, population definition, sample size, interview method,and data collection field dates.

The overall conclusion from the analysis of the five largest and mostwidely read daily newspapers as well as the two most widely viewed mainevening news programs from the public and the private broadcasters is

that polls and expressions of public opinion played an important role inthe referendum campaign coverage. More than one-third of the storiesreferred to polls and the Yes and No sides standing (see Table 4.4).With many news organizations joining forces with renowned pollsters in


Table 4.4 Visibility and quality of reporting of polls

Television Newspapers

TV1 (DR) TV2 Broadsheet

(n76) ( n79) ( n160)

Stories mentioning a poll 32.9 36.7 34.4Stories referring to specific poll 17.1 15.2 23.1

Of the stories dealing with a specific pollPollster identified 92.3 75.0 94.6Population identified 15.4 16.6 2.7Sample size identified 15.4 61.5 91.9Data collection method identified 7.6 8.3 83.8Error margin identified 23.1 25.0 83.8

Field work dates identified 38.5 33.3 86.5Question wording mentioned 0.0 38.5 86.5

NoteTelevision and Newspapers, August 28September 27, 2000. n is number of stories about thereferendum on TV1 and TV2 and on the front pages of the broadsheet newspapers.


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conducting regular, some even daily, polls, the poll coverage has become anews beat of its own (Kagay 2000). However, while polls may seem tohave been a prominent feature of the coverage, comparatively speakingthe share of the coverage focused on the horse race aspect of the referen-

dum is much less than what was found in, for example, the 2000 U.S. elec-tion campaign where more than 70 percent of the news mentioned thehorse race (Patterson 2002).

In terms of the quality of poll reporting, newspapers did a better jobthan television in providing methodological information. This finding hasresonance in previous analyses of the features and quality of poll reportingwhich also found newspapers to be superior to television (Hardmeier1999). By applying simple layout tools such as adding high-densityinformation boxes to the poll, Danish newspapers were able to provide

elaborate technical information. Comparatively speaking, Danish newsmedia overall, however, seemed to do well in providing information aboutthe poll which is required to evaluate the quality of the information andthe accuracy of the conclusions drawn. In most cases all news outlets, bothtelevision and the press, provided some methodological information whichis a far better record than what an analysis of the Australian televisionelection poll coverage found (Smith and Verrall 1985).

There was considerable awareness and anxiety about poll-driven cover-age, also on the side of the news organizations. Given the close race of the

referendum, minor sample biases and question wording differences at thedifferent pollsters, led to contradictory poll outcomes about who wastaking the lead in the referendum. TV1 issued an internal memo to thejournalists covering the campaign warning to be cautious when reportingpolls. This memo also included a short section on how to critically evaluatepolls, including the ones commissioned by the network itself.

This caution was echoed at TV2 where there was considerable fear ofreporting flawed polls. TV2 played an important role with respect to pollsin the referendum. The network decided to release two exit polls during

Election Day when the voting stations were still open. This decision is inaccordance with Danish law, but it was a breach of the previous gentle-mans agreement not to publish exit polls before the closing of all votingbooths. The intention to publish these polls led to questions in Parliamentand an initiative, in vain, to prohibit the publication. The Editor-in-Chiefof TV2, responsible for the decision to go ahead and publish the exit poll,referred to the situation in the U.S. when the exit polls from the EastCoast were published prior to closing time on the West Coast. In additionhe emphasized the potentially mobilizing effect of publishing exit polls

with the polling stations still open:

If there is any effect of this [publishing the exit polls], it will only be toanimate some people to go out and vote. And that should not be aproblem. The idea that people are affected by the poll suggests that



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people are so stupid and easy to influence that they turn out to voteNo, even though they support a Yes, just to adjust the current stand-ing. It does not work like this.

The awareness of the pitfalls of poll reporting in a close race did nottranslate into modesty in terms of the number of used polls. As discussedabove, polls were a substantial part of the referendum coverage in thenews. While the literature is divided on the issue of whether polls influ-ence voter mobilization and vote choice (see de Vreese and Semetko(2002b) for a summary of this literature), we investigate in Chapter 7 howthe proliferation of polls in the news affected citizens perceptions of thecampaign.

The importance of personalities: visibility of party leaders inthe campaign

The literature on campaigning and the media consistently points out theimportance of individual politicians and candidates in the news. We there-fore analyzed the presence and depiction of party leaders and othercandidates in the coverage of the referendum campaign. The presence ofpolitical actors is necessary for a viable concept of political representation.While the visibility and evaluation of actors in the news in national elec-

tion campaigns has been studied often, the presence of political actorsduring a referendum campaign, however, is unexplored territory.As Table 4.5 shows the Prime Minister and other members of his Social


Table 4.5 Political actors in the news

Political actor Frequency actor in the news

Prime Minister Poul Nyrup 78Other members of the Social Democrats 105

Finance Minister Marianne Jelved 19Other members of the Liberal Democrats 16

Anders Fogh Rasmussen 31Other members of the Liberals 20

Bendt Bendtsen 13Other members of the Conservatives 22

Socialist Peoples Party 74Danish Peoples Party 66Christian Peoples Party 26June Movement 29Peoples Movement 7

EU-level actor 30

Total 536

NoteTelevision news, MarchSeptember, both channels.


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Democratic Party were the most visible actors in the news. Other highlyvisible actors included members from the No parties, including the Social-ist Party and the Danish Peoples Party. As argued above, the potentialadvantage of visibility in the news for a political candidate is conditional

upon the tone of the coverage. After all, it is only an asset if the coverageis not negative. A news story may portray an actor either neutrally (noevaluations), favorably, mixed, or unfavorably. Based on investigations ofthe evaluation of politicians in content analyses of news about domesticpolitics, we expect that evaluations are primarily absent (i.e. the news isneutral), but when evaluations are present we expect to find that they aremostly negative. For each actor the visibility and average tone wasassessed by adding the number of negative evaluations subtracted by thenumber of positive evaluations divided by the total number of

evaluations.1

In the final month of the campaign, the analysis of the visibility and theevaluation of the most important political candidates and actors in thenews showed that all actors received either neutral or negative coverage(Table 4.6). On the scale ranging from 1 to 1, most actors received abalanced mixture of positive and negative evaluations (resulting in a meanaround zero) or a slightly negative overall evaluation (ranging from 0.10to0.30).

The government as an entity, the two key actors representing the

government, Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen and Finance Minster,Marianne Jelved, and other members of their political parties all receivednegative coverage in every media outlet. The most negative coverage ofthese actors appeared in the press and on TV2 news while the least unfa-vorable (albeit still negative) evaluations appeared on TV1. Othermembers of the Yes camp such as Anders Fogh Rasmussen (Liberal) andBendt Bendtsen (Conservatives) were less visible in the news andreceived, on average, neutral coverage in all outlets.

Members of the No camp were less visible than government actors in

the final month of the campaign. No camp actors received modestly negat-ive news coverage, but this was significantly less negative than the cover-age of the Yes camp actors. For example, on TV2 Prime Minister NyropRasmussen received a mean evaluation of m0.26 and Pia Kjaersgaard,leader of the Danish Peoples Party and the most visible No camp cam-paigner received a mean evaluation of m0.13.

Covering the euro referendum: a challenge for politicaljournalism

To get an impression of the constraints and challenges that journalists facewhen covering a referendum, interviews were held with Editors-in-Chiefand key political reporters at the two national television news programs.The visibility of an election in the news as well as the choice of topics and



23/27

news sources are, at least in part, attributable to the official policy of newsorganizations, the daily logistic challenges, the application of news selec-tion criteria, and the approach to politics (Blumler and Gurevitch 2001).Above we outlined how the application of news selection criteria may

differ from news outlet to news outlet and between elections. Additionallywe summarized recent research from national elections that suggests thatbroadcasters today are lesssacerdotal that is less cautious and reactive and morepragmatic that is selective and proactive in their coverage. Weinvestigated the news production process by analyzing the editorialapproach to the referendum, the news organizations application of newsselection criteria, and the implementation of balance in the reporting ofthe referendum. We first turn to the organization of the news coverage.

Organization. In the case of the referendum on the introduction of the

euro, none of the news programs implemented a special segment in theirbulletin which has been tradition during, for example, national electioncampaigns. The referendum was covered within an already existing triadicstructure of political and economic EU coverage. The studio headquartersand central newsroom cooperated with the political units in the Parlia-ment, Christiansborg in the center of Copenhagen, and the news organi-zations Brussels desk. However, a number of additional initiatives weretaken. Both news programs made additional funding available for the ref-erendum news coverage. TV1 conducted a number of surveys that in

addition to identifying public support for the euro also assessed whichissues the public considered important in relation to the referendum. TV2created a euro group that consisted of journalists from the Parliament-ary unit and journalists from the domestic desk.

News executives at TV1 produced an internal document outlining theguidelines for its journalists in the coverage of the referendum. This docu-ment defined the journalistic approach to the referendum and listed anumber of criteria for news stories to fulfill. One criterion defined by thenews executives was a rather classical information-provisional one.

According to the Editor-in-Chief of TV1:

We acknowledge the rather substantial need for basic informationfrom our audience. We therefore prioritize content more than forexample who is ahead in the coverage.

A similar approach was found at TV2 where there was a short daily itemwith audience members posing questions about the referendum and theeuro to a senior political editor. This rather old-fashioned and pedagogical

television item was a conscious editorial choice.Editorial approach. The two news programs differed slightly in their

approach to the referendum. TV1 assumed a more pro-active policy. Itconducted its own surveys and played an initiating role in contributing tothe agenda of the referendum. The Editor-in-Chief:



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Table4.6Visibilityandevaluationofpoliticalactorsinthefinalmon

thofthecampaign

TV1

TV2

Newspapers

(n

76)

(n

79)

(n

79)

Number

ofMean

Numbero

fMean

Numberof

Mean

mentions

evaluation

mentions

evaluation

mentions

evaluation

Yesactors

Government

7

0.43

PrimeMinister,PoulNyrupRasmussen

17

0.18

19

0.26

27

0.44

Othermem

bersoftheSocialDemocra

ts

27

0.11

15

0.20

21

0.29

MinisterofE

conomy,MarianneJelved

3

0.00

8

0.25

13

0.23

MinisterofForeignAffairs,N

ielsHelveg

Petersen

2

0.00

2

0.00

7

0.00

Othermem

bersoftheRadicalLiberals

0

2

0.00

2

0.00

Leaderofthe

LiberalParty,AndersF.R

asmussen

6

0.00

4

0.00

7

0.00

Othermem

bersoftheLiberalParty

5

0.00

1

0.00

6

0.00

LeaderofCo

nservatives,BendtBendtsen

3

0.00

1

0.00

4

0.00

Othermem

bersoftheConservatives

1

0.00

5

0.00

7

0.00

Noactors

Leaderofthe

SocialistPeoplesParty,HolgerK.N

ielsen

10

0.10

17

0.18

18

0.16

Othermem

bersoftheSocialistsPeoplesParty

0

5

0.20

7

0.14

Leaderofthe

PeoplesParty,P

iaKjaersg

aard

6

0.00

8

0.13

4

0.25

Othermem

bersofthePeoplesParty

5

0.20

7

0.00

7

0.14

Leaderofthe

ChristianPeoplesParty,JannSjursen

1

0.00

0

2

0.00

Othermem

bersoftheChristianPeoplesParty

2

0.00

0

0


25/27

Leaderofthe

UnityList,FrankAaen

0

4

0.00

1

0.00

Othermem

bersoftheUnityList

0

2

0.00

2

0.50

Leaderofthe

JuneMovement,JensPete

rBonde

2

0.50

5

0.20

3

0.00

Leaderofthe

JuneMovement,DrudeDahlerup

1

0.00

1

0.00

4

0.25

Othermem

bersoftheJuneMovement

2

0.00

0

0

Leaderofthe

PeoplesMovement,OleK

rarup

0

0

2

0.50

Othermem

bersofthePeoplesParty

0

0

0

Europeaninstitutions

EuropeanCe

ntralBank

3

0.33

0

3

0.00

EuropeanParliament

0

0

2

1.0

0

EuropeanCo

mmission

1

0.00

0

1

0.00

Experts

15

0.06

11

0.00

35

0.02

Votersandcitizens

25

0.00

47

0.00

2

0.00

Note

Meanevaluationoftheactorsisbasedonascalerangingfrom1.0

0(consistentlynegative)0(neutral

)to

1.00(consistentlypositive

).An

actorinanews

storyisdefined

asaperson/institutioninthestorywhoismentionedatleasttwice

(newspapers)ormentione

dandseenatleastonce

(television

).


26/27

We wanted to set an agenda that had as a starting point some of thethemes that we know are important to the voters, the Danes, our audi-ence. These themes may not necessarily be at the top of the politi-cians agenda. We have implemented this to some extent, though

obviously we have at times followed the political agenda if majorissues surfaced on a particular day.

This approach resembles TV1s approach to the European electionswhere the news agenda was partially influenced by the outcome of asurvey defining the audiences priorities in relation to the election (deVreese 2003a). According to the Editor-in-Chief, the approach was con-siderably different though:

In the European election campaign we chose to put a very criticalfocus on one particular topic: fraud and corruption. That resulted in aperhaps negative depiction of the system which the electorate wasnow voting for. For the referendum, our surveys meant that weaddressed a wider range of issues, such as the EU enlargement and thewelfare state.

The two news programs differed in their approach to initiating topics.While TV1 was rather pro-active, there was reluctance towards this atTV2. Both the Senior Political Editor who said,

We are not here to create news, but to report it.

and the Editor-in-Chief of TV2 agreed on this:

We have not defined the agenda. I do not believe it is our task to do soeither. [. . .] Our agenda-setting efforts are little more than trying totranslate what we believe the public wants to hear about.

In terms of the application of news selection criteria, the two news pro-grams hardly differed and both devoted extra attention to the referendumby default. TV1 gave the referendum extra attention through, for example,bringing reports from its international network of correspondents. TV2gave the referendum no extra attention until about a month prior to theelection when it was upgraded in the selection. The TV2 Editor-in-Chiefcommented on this upgrade in the final weeks:

The use of criteria in election is difficult. The criteria applied daily are

dissolved when you enter an election or referendum time. [. . .] Someof that is just news regardless of whether we like it or not. We some-times bring stories that almost require that people saw the news yes-terday. We would not accept that outside the election moment, butnow we have to do it.



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Indeed when looking at the visibility of the referendum in both news pro-grams during the campaign (Figure 4.1) there is a sharp increase in thefinal weeks.

In the coverage of a referendum news programs are challenged to adapt

the notion of impartial and balanced coverage. Potential biases in newsduring general elections are avoided, for example, by providing equalaccess to the news of different political parties or access proportional tothe representation in Parliament (Semetko 1996a). However, in the case ofa referendum where political parties and leaders may run in the campaignwithout being represented in parliament, this interpretation of the bal-anced reporting is inappropriate. Under such circumstances, equal accessto the Yes and No camp could be a more appropriate measure. In theDanish case, for example, more than 80 percent of the candidates in Par-

liament favored a Yes which could bring in to question whether a 5050access to the news represents balanced coverage. Based on our contentanalysis during the six-month long campaign, we assessed the visibility ofactors in the news from the Yes and No camps.

Figure 4.3 shows that Yes actors made up 60 percent of all actors in thenews about the referendum while No actors made up 40 percent. Editorsand journalists from both news programs expressed anxiety about strikinga balance. All agreed that balanced reporting was more likely to beachieved when looking at a number of stories rather than within each indi-

vidual news story. The Editors-in-Chief both emphasized the politicalpressure to report impartially. The TV2 Editor said that the politicianscall us after the bulletin and the TV1 Editor stressed an example of a


Figure 4.3 Share of actors from the Yes and No camps.

NoteBase is total number of actors (n506) in television news, MarchSeptember 2000.

60%

Yes actors

40%

No actors

Documents

78_FPolitical Campaigning in Referendums