Hostname: page-component-7dc689bd49-q9qq5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2023-03-21T01:19:54.200Z Has data issue: true Feature Flags: { "useRatesEcommerce": false } hasContentIssue true
  • English

Comparative determinants of horse-race coverage

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2014

Susan Banducci  and
Chris Hanretty
Susan Banducci
Affiliation:
Professor of Politics, College of Social Sciences and International Studies, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
Chris Hanretty*
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Politics, School of Political, Social and International Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
*
*E-mail: c.hanretty@uea.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions[Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We investigate the levels of horse-race coverage in 160 different European print and broadcast outlets in 27 different countries at three different points in time. We match information on outlets’ content to survey-based information on the average levels of interest in politics and education of outlets’ audiences. We formulate hypotheses concerning journalists’ and citizens’ preferences over the ideal level of horse-race coverage, as well as hypotheses concerning the information content of horse-race coverage in different party systems. After controlling for the composition of each outlet’s audience, we find that horse-race coverage is most frequent in polarized party systems with close electoral contests, and in large markets with professional journalists. These findings challenge the traditional view of horse-race journalism as a ‘low-quality’ form of news.

Keywords

opinion pollsmedia systemselection coverage
Type
Research Article
Information
European Political Science Review , Volume 6 , Issue 4 , November 2014 , pp. 621 - 640
Copyright
© European Consortium for Political Research 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aalberg, T., Strömbäck, J. and de Vreese, C. (2011), ‘The framing of politics as strategy and game: a review of concepts, operationalizations and key findings’, Journalism 13(2): 162–178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Antista, J., Coukos, J., Desrosiers, M., Jewett, L. and Niemi, R. (2010), Newspaper coverage of presidential campaigns, 1888–2008. Western Political Science Association 2010 Annual Meeting Paper.Google Scholar
Baek, M. (2009), ‘A comparative analysis of political communication systems and voter turnout’, American Journal of Political Science 53(2): 376–393.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banducci, S., de Vreese, C., Semetko, H., Boomgarden, H. and Luhiste, M. (2010), EES longitudinal media study data advance release documentation. Retrieved 17 December 2012 from www.piredeu.eu Google Scholar
Bates, D., Maechler, M. and Bolker, B. (2011), lme4: Linear mixed-effects models using S4 classes. R package version 0.999375-42.Google Scholar
Benoit, K. and Laver, M. (2006), Party policy in Modern Democracies, London: Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar
Brettschneider, F. (1997), ‘The press and the polls in Germany, 1980–1994: Poll coverage as an essential part of election campaign reporting’, International Journal of Public Opinion Research 9(3): 248–265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broh, C. (1980), ‘Horse-race journalism: reporting the polls in the 1976 presidential election’, Public Opinion Quarterly 44(4): 514–529.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cappella, J. and Jamieson, K. (1997), Spiral of Cynicism: The Press and the Public Good, USA, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Castles, F. and Mair, P. (1984), ‘Left–right political scales: some ‘expert’ judgments’, European Journal of Political Research 12(1): 73–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dalton, R. (2008), ‘The quantity and the quality of party systems’, Comparative Political Studies 41(7): 899–920.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Vreese, C. (2005), ‘The spiral of cynicism reconsidered’, European Journal of Communication 20(3): 283–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Döring, H. and Manow, P. (2010), ‘Parliament and government composition database (ParlGov)’, An infrastructure for empirical information on parties, elections and governments in modern democracies 10(11): 6.Google Scholar
Dunaway, J. (2008), ‘Markets, ownership, and the quality of campaign news coverage’, The Journal of Politics 70(4): 1193–1202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Endersby, J., Galatas, S. and Rackaway, C. (2002), ‘Closeness counts in Canada: voter participation in the 1993 and 1997 federal elections’, Journal of Politics 64(2): 610–631.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
European Audiovisual Observatory (2000), Statistical Yearbook. Strasbourg.Google Scholar
European Audiovisual Observatory (2005), Statistical Yearbook. Strasbourg.Google Scholar
European Audiovisual Observatory (2010), Statistical Yearbook. Strasbourg.Google Scholar
European Commission (2011), Eurobarometer 74: Information on European political matters.Google Scholar
Franzese, R. (2002), Macroeconomic Policies of Developed Democracies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hallin, D. and Mancini, P. (2004), Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hanretty, C. (2011), Public Broadcasting and Political Interference, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Heston, A., Summers, R. and Aten, B. (2011), Penn World Table Version 7.0. Center for International Comparisons of Production, Income and Prices at the University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Huber, J. and Inglehart, R. (1995), ‘Expert interpretations of party space and party locations in 42 societies’, Party Politics 1(1): 73–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laakso, M. and Taagepera, R. (1979), ‘Effective number of parties: a measure with application to West Europe’, Comparative Political Studies 12(1): 3–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laver, M. and Sergenti, E. (2012), Party Competition: An Agent-Based Model, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Leroy, P. and Siune, K. (1994), ‘The role of television in European elections: the cases of Belgium and Denmark’, European Journal of Communication 9(1): 47–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, P. and Potter, D. (1998), ‘Preelection polls and issue knowledge in the 1996 US presidential election’, The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 3(4): 35–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patterson, T. (1993), Out of Order, New York: A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Peter, J. and Lauf, E. (2002), ‘Reliability in cross-national content analysis’, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 79(4): 815–832.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pilkington, H. (1962), Report of the Committee on Broadcasting, 1960, London: HM Stationery Office.Google Scholar
Popescu, M., Gosselin, T. and Pereira, J.S. (2010), European Media Systems Survey 2010. Data set.Google Scholar
Reiser, S. (1994), Parteienkampagne und Medienberichterstattung im Europawahlkampf 1989: Eine Untersuchung zu Dependenz und Autonomieverlust im Verhältnis von Massenmedien und Politik , Kostanz: UVK Medien Ölschläger.Google Scholar
Sigelman, L. and Bullock, D. (1991), ‘Candidates, issues, horse races, and hoopla’, American Politics Research 19(1): 5–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siune, K. (1983), ‘The campaign on television: what was said and who said it’, in Blumler J.G. and Fox A.D. (eds) Communicating to Voters. Television in the First European Parliamentary Elections, London: Sage, pp. 223–240.Google Scholar
Smith, A., Pew Internet & American Life Project (2011), The Internet and Campaign 2010.Google Scholar
Sonck, N. and Loosveldt, G. (2008), ‘Making news based on public opinion polls: the Flemish case’, European Journal of Communication 23(4): 490–500.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strömbäck, J. and Dimitrova, D. (2006), ‘Political and media systems matter’, The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 11(4): 131–147.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strömbäck, J. and Shehata, A. (2007), ‘Structural biases in British and Swedish election news coverage’, Journalism Studies 8(5): 798–812.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strömbäck, J. and van Aelst, P. (2010), ‘Exploring some antecedents of the media’s framing of election news: a comparison of Swedish and Belgian election news’, The International Journal of Press/Politics 15(1): 41–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Szwed, R. (2011), ‘Print media poll reporting in Poland: poll as news in polish parliamentary campaigns, 1991–2007’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies 44(1): 63–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valentino, N., Beckmann, M. and Buhr, T. (2001), ‘A spiral of cynicism for some: the contingent effects of campaign news frames on participation and confidence in government’, Political Communication 18(4): 347–367.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Association of Newspapers (2000), World Press Trends 2000. Paris.Google Scholar
World Association of Newspapers (2005), World Press Trends 2005. Paris.Google Scholar
World Association of Newspapers (2010), World Press Trends 2010. Paris.Google Scholar
Zaller, J. (1998), ‘The rule of product substitution in presidential campaign news’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 560(1): 111–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zaller, J. (1999a), Market competition and news quality. In Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Atlanta, GA.Google Scholar
Zaller, J. (1999b), A theory of media politics. Unpublished MS.Google Scholar
Zhao, X. and Bleske, G. (1998), ‘Horse-race polls and audience issue learning’, The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 3(4): 13–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Banducci and Hanretty Supplementary Material

Table A1

Download Banducci and Hanretty Supplementary Material(File)
File 52 KB