The Winner-Loser Spiral in Political News Coverage

Investigating the Impact of Poll Coverage on Subsequent Party Coverage

Bibliographic Data

ID12409341
AuthorsPer Oleskog Tryggvason (0000-0003-0384-0286, University of Gothenburg, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume38
Issue6
Pages672-690
Publication date2020-11-27
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitical Communication (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1058-4609 • E-ISSN: 1091-7675
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10584609.2020.1843571
OpenAlexW3109888429
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited61

One consistent finding within journalism research is the media's heavy reliance on the so-called game frame when covering the political process. One main component of this frame is the frequent use of horse race polls, a tool that by its zero-sum nature provides journalists with immense opportunities to portray political actors as either winners or losers. While there is an extensive literature on how horse race reporting can influence opinion formation and political behavior among citizens, little is known about how such coverage affects journalists' coverage of political parties. To remedy this, this paper investigates how the tone toward political parties in media's poll coverage affects the subsequent tone toward political parties in general (non-poll related) news coverage. This is done by using time-series regression on a large dataset of daily Swedish top news stories (n = 7553), covering a period of 4 years (2014–2018). The main finding is that positively framed poll stories appear to affect the tone in subsequent coverage, while there does not appear to be a corresponding effect of negatively framed poll stories

Advertising · Business · Content analysis · Frame analysis · Journalism · Media coverage · Media studies · Political communication · Political science · Politics · Public opinion · Social science · Sociology · Tone (literature · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Media Influence and Politics · Media Studies and Communication

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