Page 291 - Comparing Political Communication Theories, Cases, and Challenge

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Political Communication Messages

Pictures of Our World on Television News

Patrick R¨ ossler

Televisionnewsisanexcellentmeansofcomparingpoliticalcommunica-
tion across countries. News programs are part of almost every television
system in the world. They are usually broadcast at prime time and au-
diences consistently rate them as the most important of all available
information programs (Straubhaar et al. 1992; Hajok and Schorb 1998).
Television news provides “survival-relevant information about novel
events” (Newhagen and Levy 1998, 10). It also influences political orien-
tation, informs opinion building, and serves as a control mechanism of
statepower.Inthepluralistsocietiesofthewesternworld,televisionnews
exerts a strong influence on the very nature of political communication
(Kamps 1999, 141).
According to Schaap et al. (1998) the research literature on television
news can be organized according to the fields of mass communication,
with a focus on journalist working routines (Esser 1998), audience recep-
tion and the effects of television news at the individual level (Jensen 1998;
Zillmann et al. 1998), and public opinion formation at the societal level.
Thus, Iyengar and Kinder note for the United States: “television news
obviously possesses the potential to shape American public opinion pro-
foundly” (Iyengar and Kinder 1987, 1). This chapter will elaborate on a
fourth approach to examining television news: the content and structure
of television news (Bonfadelli 2000, 33–6). In a comparative empirical
study, we have analyzed news programs from different countries ac-
cording to three main categories of content and structure: news geogra-
phy, issue/actor representation, and topical integration.

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