Political parallelism in news and commentaries on the Haider conflict. A comparative analysis of Austrian, British, German, and French quality newspapers
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Barbara Berkel
Abstract
Normative theories of media functions require a clear distinction between the media's two roles as forum and speaker in public spheres. This article seeks to study potential violations of the rule of separating fact from opinion. The comparative content analysis takes a European political conflict, the so-called Haider debate, as a litmus test of objectivity of news reporting. The study reveals some critical consequences of the press' political involvement in the debate. In all countries under study, the press tends to incorporate journalistic evaluations into the news. The Haider debate was characterized by a ‘political parallelism’ of the press in a manner which Hallin and Mancini re-defined as ‘party-press parallelism’. The newspapers favorably gave voice to speakers supporting their own positions, thus instrumentalizing opportune witnesses. As a result, the newspapers ‘synchronized’ the coverage with their editorial stances, which lead to biased news reporting in all outlets.
© Walter de Gruyter
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Introduction to the special issue: News decisions and news values
- News factors and news decisions. Theoretical and methodological advances in Germany
- Predicting news decisions. An empirical test of the two-component theory of news selection
- The theory of newsworthiness applied to Mexico's press. How the news factors influence foreign news coverage in a transitional country
- Frames, schemata, and news reporting
- Political parallelism in news and commentaries on the Haider conflict. A comparative analysis of Austrian, British, German, and French quality newspapers
- News and newsworthiness: A commentary
