The Role of Sensationalism, Tabloidisation and Diversity in News Coverage of Immigration and Attitudes: Public and Commercial Television News Compared

Abstract

Public and commercial news have a distinct logic and adhere to different goals. In this paper, we evaluate the effect of this duality in the case of television news coverage on immigration and ethnic minorities. First, using survey analysis, we investigate whether individuals with a preference for public versus commercial television news differ in their attitudes toward ethnic minorities and immigrants. In a second step, we hypothesize that this attitudinal gap is reflected by differences in content between both types of broadcasters. Relying on a content analysis of Flemish (i.e. the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium) television news (2003-2013), we compare coverage of ethnic minorities and immigrants between public and commercial news. We consistently find that individuals with a preference for commercial news hold more negative attitudes toward ethnic minorities and immigrants. The content analysis shows that, despite the overall negativity bias in coverage, commercial news focuses more on sensational news content, stressing negativity and conflict, and contains more tabloid characteristics like episodic news coverage and soft news topics. In line with its democratic function, public television news offers a more positive view on ethnic minorities and immigrants. We propose that these differences in news content can offer an explanation for the attitudinal gap between public and commercial news consumers. In this regard, we conclude that public broadcasters still have an important tolerance-enhancing and informative role to play in society.status: publishe