In the first phase of the NCCR, the project (IP 12) analyzed the strategies and processes of issue selection and construction within media organizations, as well as the news coverage of the three political campaigns. One of our central findings is that, overall, Swiss media organizations consider the coverage of domestic politics as important for their identity, thus invest important resources into it, and cover political campaigns on a high level. In this context, journalistic values still play an important role even though market-orientation is another important point of orientation. The question arises whether this result is due to the particular case of Switzerland with its direct democratic political system and rich media landscape, or whether it can be generalized and translated into other contexts. The general research question thus is: How do media organizations in different countries deal with the problem of market-orientation vs. journalistic values in covering public debates?
Against the theoretical background of deliberative democracy, media are expected to deliver political news coverage of high or at least reasonable quantity and quality (e.g. Kriesi et al. 2007). By contrast, the market-orientation of media organizations impedes that this expectation can easily be fulfilled (see e.g. Croteau & Hoynes 2001; Hamilton 2004; Heinrich 1996; McQuail 1986 and 1998; Picard 2004 and 2005; Siegert 2003; McManus 2009). Hence, the question to be answered is under what conditions media organizations do produce which kind of political news coverage. Following the media economics literature there are only two theoretical approaches which explain why media organizations should cover political debates, although high quality political news coverage is not suitable for making a big profit in general: 1) as a reference to journalistic values (see e.g. Viall 1992; Märkt 2005), or 2) as an essential part of the media brand identity (see e.g. Siegert 2001; Lobigs 2004; Siegert 2005; Rademacher & Siegert 2007; Siegert, Rademacher & Lobigs 2008). In the first phase we theoretically and empirically derived a model analyzing the role of media brands in campaign communication, named MBAC-Model (Media Brands/Actors/Campaign Coverage, cf. progress reports 2008). This model can also serve as the basic framework for the analysis of the role of media organizations in public debates. It allows us to empirically analyze the following indicators for the two paradigms of our main question, i.e. the market-orientation vs. journalistic values: editorial positioning, financial conditions, audience orientation, advertising orientation, and sources of coverage. Further components of the model are the journalistic and the economic competition that will particularly serve as basic conditions for the comparative research. Following the MBAC-Model our specific research questions/hypotheses for the second phase are the following:
- Media brand: How do media organizations position their media outlets in the market considering the different journalistic and economic competition, that is what kind of brand identity do they use as an orientation, and to what extent is this positioning reflected in the content of their outlets? (cross check with content analysis of the module)
- Editorial positioning: Are similar positioned media outlets across countries dealing with political debates in the same way and generating similar media coverage? (cross check with content analysis of the module)
- Financial conditions: Are similar positioned media outlets across countries investing comparable resources in the media coverage of political debates although they face different market conditions?
- Audience orientation: To what extent do media outlets address the audience as citizens or as consumers, and to what extent does this approach reflect the needs of the audience? (cross check with audience survey)
- Sources of coverage: To what extent are media outlets using which kind of sources for their news coverage of public debates, to what extent do politicians influence the way media outlets deal with public debates, and what is the role of political advertising? (cross check with interviews with political actors, and content analysis)
