Parliamentary Questions, Newspaper Coverage, and Consumer Confidence in Times of Crisis : A Cross-National Comparison

This article investigates the interactions among parliamentary questions, newspaper coverage on the economic crisis, and consumer confidence. It focuses on France, Spain, Germany, and the Netherlands for the period 2005–2016. Based on insights from political agenda-setting and media effects research, we expect multidirectional relationships to be present. Parliamentary records and newspaper archives are used to analyze the monthly amount of attention for the economic crisis. Pooled time series models and vector autoregression analyses are employed to demonstrate that indeed, politicians, journalists, and citizens depend on one another, but also that remarkable cross-national and over-time differences exist. In the countries where the economy was severely damaged by the crisis (France and Spain), news coverage is less strongly affecting both parliamentarians and citizens. However, when the economic situation worsens, political agenda-setting influences get stronger,while media effects on consumer confidence becomeweaker over time

Media Effects Across Time and Subject : How News Coverage Affects Two Out of Four Attributes of Consumer Confidence

Previous studies using aggregate-level designs demonstrated that the tone of economic news affects consumer confidence. However, the individual-level mechanisms underlying this effect remain to be investigated: It is not clear which consumer confidence attributes are most susceptible to media effects. Theoretically, we integrate the economic voting literature and extend media system dependency by differentiating between the media effects on sociotropic versus egocentric evaluations and the effects on prospective versus retrospective economic evaluations. Methodologically, data from a manual content analysis are linked to data from a three-wave panel survey, containing repeated measurements of consumer confidence. The findings demonstrate that the effects of tone on consumer confidence are largely a consequence of media effects on its sociotropic and prospective attributes: As citizens were exposed to relatively more positive economic news, only the national economic evaluations and expectations for the future improved. The egocentric and retrospective evaluations were not influenced by the tone in news that people had been exposed to

Taking it personal or national? Understanding the indirect effects of economic news on government support

This article studies the impact of economic news on government support and the mediating role of people’s national (sociotropic) and personal (egotropic) economic evaluations. Employing two complementary studies, a large literature is contributed to by adding a media perspective to the economic voting hypothesis. The first study was fielded in 2015 and combines an extensive content analysis of economic news (print, television, online; N = 5,630) with a three-wave panel survey (N = 3,240). As a follow-up, an experiment was conducted in 2018 exposing participants (N = 1,452) to negative and positive economic news. Both studies confirm that the tone of news directly affects national economic evaluations but not personal ones. Whereas both types of evaluation predict government support, the effect of national evaluations is significantly stronger. Most importantly, it is shown that the effect of national evaluations on government support is actually a mediation of the effect of economic news

To Credit or to Blame? The Asymmetric Impact of Government Responsibility in Economic News

This article studies the asymmetric effects of credit and blame attributions in economic news on government evaluations. We rely on a dataset combining a manual content analysis of Dutch economic news (print, television, online; N = 5,630) with a three-wave panel survey (N = 3,240) that was fielded in 2015. Results show that people who are exposed to news in which the government is blamed for the economy tend to adopt this frame by assigning responsibility to the government for the economic crisis. In addition, exposure to blame attributions leads to more negative government evaluations. This effect is partly mediated through the attribution of crisis responsibility. Credit attributions in the news do not have any effect on public opinion

The impact of immigration news on anti-immigrant party support : unpacking agenda-setting and issue ownership effects over time

This study focuses on immigration news as driver of anti-immigrant party support. Predicting the poll results of the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV), we distinguish between (a) general immigration news, news in which immigration is linked to (b) crime, (c) terrorism, or (d) the economy, and (e) immigration news in which the Freedom Party is mentioned explicitly. Focusing on the period 2004–2017, an extensive dataset has been generated using computer-assisted content analyses of media coverage (n = 1,697,976), public opinion data, and real-world indicators. Time-series analyses demonstrate a positive impact of general immigration news on anti-immigrant party support–and not on the support for other parties. No media effects are found for the immigration sub-issues or the visibility of the Freedom Party in the news. However, the main competitor on the right side of the political spectrum–the Liberal Party (VVD)–may also benefit from immigration news but only when it manages to be linked to the issue in the media coverage. Our results raise relevant questions about the preconditions of issue ownership effects, and show how issue ownership is a highly contested political asset in a fragmented and competitive multiparty system

Going Beyond General Media Trust: An Analysis of Topical Media Trust, its Antecedents and Effects on Issue (Mis)perceptions

A key problem with research on news media trust is that it has mostly focused on general media trust and that there is limited research on how media trust might vary across levels of analysis. In this paper, we seek to remedy this by investigating whether news media trust differs depending on the topic of news coverage and whether topical trust can be distinguished from general media trust. We also investigate the antecedents of trust in news coverage of different topics and the effects of topical trust on issue (mis)perceptions. Among other things, findings show that topical media trust can be distinguished from general media trust and is a better predictor of correct perceptions on political matters

Robustness analyses

For peer-revie

What Does Fake Look Like? A Review of the Literature on Intentional Deception in the News and on Social Media

This paper focuses on the content features of intentional deceptive information in the news (i.e., fake news) and on social media. Based on an extensive review of relevant literature (i.e., political journalism and communication, computational linguistics), we take stock of existing knowledge and present an overview of the structural characteristics that are indicative of intentionally deceptive information. We discuss the strength of underlying empirical evidence and identify underdeveloped areas of research. With this paper, we aim to contribute to the systematic study of intentional deception in the news and on social media and to help setting up new lines of research in which intentionally deceptive news items can be operationalized in consistent ways