TY - JOUR
T1 - Does the 4th estate deliver? The Political Coverage Index and its application to media capture
AU - Dewenter, Ralf
AU - Dulleck, Uwe
AU - Thomas, Tobias
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - With the upswing of populist, right-wing, and EU-skeptical parties and politicians
in Europe, as well as the success of Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential elections,
the media and its role in democracies are, once again, under scrutiny. To investigate
whether the media fulfll its role as the fourth estate, i.e. providing another
level of control for government, or whether there is evidence of media capture, frst,
we introduce the Political Coverage Index (PCI), a new measure of the relative positioning
of media within the political spectrum. In contrast to existing measures of
political positioning (e.g., language similarities, explicit endorsements, mentions of
ideological references), we utilize the tonality of articles and newscasts on political
parties and politicians. Then, we apply the PCI to 35 opinion-leading media in
Germany, on the basis of more than 10 million news items on political parties and
politicians between 1998 and 2012. Lastly, we use the PCI to investigate whether
the media fulfl its fourth estate role. Our fndings show that the media outlets in our
sample report more negatively on governing parties, which we interpret as suggestive
evidence that media is fulflling its role as fourth estate in democracies.
AB - With the upswing of populist, right-wing, and EU-skeptical parties and politicians
in Europe, as well as the success of Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential elections,
the media and its role in democracies are, once again, under scrutiny. To investigate
whether the media fulfll its role as the fourth estate, i.e. providing another
level of control for government, or whether there is evidence of media capture, frst,
we introduce the Political Coverage Index (PCI), a new measure of the relative positioning
of media within the political spectrum. In contrast to existing measures of
political positioning (e.g., language similarities, explicit endorsements, mentions of
ideological references), we utilize the tonality of articles and newscasts on political
parties and politicians. Then, we apply the PCI to 35 opinion-leading media in
Germany, on the basis of more than 10 million news items on political parties and
politicians between 1998 and 2012. Lastly, we use the PCI to investigate whether
the media fulfl its fourth estate role. Our fndings show that the media outlets in our
sample report more negatively on governing parties, which we interpret as suggestive
evidence that media is fulflling its role as fourth estate in democracies.
U2 - 10.1007/s10602-019-09291-5
DO - 10.1007/s10602-019-09291-5
M3 - Article
SN - 1043-4062
VL - 31
SP - 292
EP - 328
JO - Constitutional Political Economy
JF - Constitutional Political Economy
ER -