1. Structural bias in cross-national
perspective
How political systems and journalism cultures
influence government dominance in the news
Arjen van Dalen
Centre for Journalism,
University of Southern Denmark

2. Van Dalen, Arjen (2012). Structural bias in cross-national
perspective. How political systems and journalism cultures
influence government dominance in the news. International
Journal of Press/Politics 17(1): 32-55.
2

3. Studying coverage of government and
parliament cross-nationally
 Battle for media attention integral part of political
conflicts
 Media attention reflects and reinforces political power
(Sheafer and Wolfsfeld, 2009; Bennett et al., 2007)
-governments dominate the news
-cross-national differences reflect differences in
political system
But what about the influence of differences in journalistic
culture, in particular the news value of conflict?

4. Structural biases comparatively
 Journalistic routines lead to a structural biases;
- News value of political power leads to cumulative
inequality
(Wolfsfeld, 2007)
- News value of conflict opens up oppositional space
(Althaus, 2003; Arnold, 2004; Shehata, 2010)
Central thesis: Government dominance in the news is
moderated by journalistic culture
-Weakened in pragmatic journalistic cultures
-Strengthened in sacerdotal journalistic cultures

5. Countries and expectations of
government dominance in the news
Denmark Germany United
Kingdom
Spain
Political
system
Consensus Consensus Majoritarian Majoritarian
Journalistic
culture
Pragmatic Pragmatic Pragmatic Sacerdotal
Expectations
:
Visibility
compared to
parliament
Weak
dominance
Weak
dominance
Strong
dominance
Strong
dominance
Challenged
by
oppositional
voices
Challenged Challenged Challenged Not
challenged
Government
dominance
(combined)
Weakest
dominance
Weakest
dominance
Medium Strongest
dominance

6. Content analysis
 Outlets
2 broadsheet and 1 tabloid newspaper
commercial and public service broadcaster
 Sample
two constructed news weeks, sampled from 2 month
period
 Intercoder tests
coder-trainer tests
inter-coder tests per language and outlet
Total: 1306 news stories; 2.176 actors

7. Results I: Goverment/parliament ratio
Denmark Germany United
Kingdom
Spain
Main
actors
1.00a 2.87b 3.69b 2.05b
All actors 0.46a 1.37b 1.52b 1.78b
Quoted
actors
0.27a 1.08b 1.15b 1.20b

9. Results III: opposition in government
stories
Percentage of government stories which feature opposition politicians
or unofficial sources
Opposition
politicians
as sources
Unofficial
sources
Opposition
or
unofficial
sources
Denmark (94) 33 31 56
Germany (204) 5 24 28
United Kingdom (177) 33 31 57
Spain (150) 13 5 17

10. Discussion
 Support for main thesis:
Government dominance in the news is moderated by
journalistic culture
 Journalistic culture rather than political system or type of
outlet
 Normative perspective:
-Incentive for politicians to attack opponents (-)
-More arguments enter the public debate (+)
 Future research:
(1) Longitudinal perspective; (2) coherent counter frames