Strategic Media, Cynical Public? Examining the Contingent Effects of Strategic News Frames on Political Cynicism in the UK

Through the use of experimental methods, this study examines the claim that strategic news engenders political cynicism. Firstly, it builds upon previous theory by conceptualising and measuring political cynicism at both issue-specific and global levels. Secondly, the contingency of framing effects is a contested but crucial area of the framing paradigm, and deserves greater attention in strategic framing studies. The study therefore examines this in detail by testing a number of individual characteristics for their moderating effects. I found that relative to issue-based coverage, strategic news frames increased issue-specific political cynicism, but this effect was only evident for those who were less politically engaged and knowledgeable. The effects of the strategy frame on more global measures of political cynicism were minimal. The findings are discussed in the light of ongoing debates about framing effects and the media’s role in democratic engagement

Strategic news frames and public policy debates: Press and television news coverage of the euro in the UK

There is growing concern amongst observers of the media that news coverage of politics has moved away from a focus on issues, and instead towards political strategy. Research evidencing such concerns has tended to examine strategic news at a macro level and rarely delves into the complexities surrounding its manifestations. This study addresses this issue by conducting a content analysis of a non-election issue in the British news media (press and TV news) over a three-month period, whereby strategy news as a frame was examined. The issue chosen for case study was the “euro debate” of May-June 2003. Findings showed the euro debate to fulfil many typical characteristics of EU reporting in the British media, with coverage cyclical and driven by events, and subsequently lacking sustained engagement with the issues. Although there was a roughly equal balance of issue and strategy framed stories in the press, certain features of coverage gave strategy greater prominence. Despite much of the content analysis findings confirming the worries of media critics, a number of qualifications emerge, such as the active role that politicians play as sources of strategic news

A new distribution for robust least squares

A new distribution is introduced, which we call the twin-t distribution. This distribution is heavy-tailed like the t distribution, but closer to normality in the central part of the curve. Its properties are described, e.g. the pdf, the distribution function, moments, and random number generation. This distribution could have many applications, but here we focus on its use as an aid to robustness. We give examples of its application in robust regression and in curve fitting. Extensions such as skew and multivariate twin-t distributions, and a twin ofComment: 29 pages. 5 figures provided at the end of the pape