Moral Argument in the Public Sphere: The Case of Bosnia

This paper uses a formal content analysis to decide what moral argument looks like in political debate. Does it involve more the abstract arguments and general principles of the philosophers or the devices of the rhetoricians, like ideographs, casuistry, and moral vocabulary? To test this question, we examine the U.S. debate over intervention in Bosnia between 1991 and 1995 as it showed up in the opinion pages of The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, and The Washington Post.

A major, unexpected finding of the research is support for Appiah's (2010) argument against the New Intuitionists in psychology that outside the laboratory, the major moral work to be done is framing.     

Hallin and Mancini Revisited: Four Empirical Types of Western Media Systems

The analysis of media systems has become a cornerstone in the field of comparative communication research. Ten years after its publication, we revisit the landmark study in the field, Hallin and Mancini's “Comparing Media Systems”, and operationalize its framework for standardized measurement. The study at hand is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to comprehensively validate the original dimensions and models using aggregated data from the same sample of Western countries. Three out of four dimensions of media systems show relatively high levels of internal consistency, but “role of the state” should be disaggregated into 3 subdimensions. A cluster analysis reveals 4 empirical types of media systems that differentiate and extend the original typology.     

Deliberative Performance of Television News in Three Types of Democracy: Insights from the United States,Germany, and Russia

We show that television news is considerably more deliberative in established (United States, Germany) than in defective democracies (Russia) and slightly more deliberative in a power‐sharing political system (Germany) than in a power‐concentrating system (United States). We further demonstrate that public‐service channels, nonpartisan programs, and in‐depth news shows make stronger overall contributions toward deliberativeness than their respective counterparts. While national news cultures produce distinct national styles of mediated deliberation, individual channels in the United States (Fox, CNN) and Russia (REN) cut across these national patterns. The significance of deliberative media content for citizens and political elites is discussed.     

Information and Arena: The Dual Function of the News Media for Political Elites

How do individual politicians use the news media to reach their political goals? This study addresses the question by proposing an actor‐centered, functional approach. We distinguish 2 essential functions (and subfunctions) the mass media have for political elites. The media are a source of information; politicians depend on it for pure information and they can profit from the momentum generated by media information. The media also are an arena elites need access to in order to promote themselves and their issues. These 2 functions offer certain politicians a structural advantage over others and, hence, are relevant for the power struggle among political elites. A systematic functional account enables comparisons of the role of the media across politicians and political systems.     

Negotiating Norms of Discussion in the Public Arena: The Use of Irony in Israeli Political Radio Phone‐In Programs

Phone‐in radio programs are part of the public sphere and thus require open access, rationality, and practicality. Simultaneously, they are a media product, which requires entertaining content. We demonstrate these demands through the analysis of interactional irony in Israeli political radio phone‐ins. From an emic perspective, callers see irony as detrimental to the discussions, yet hosts and regular callers use it to make entertaining interactions. Irony is a critical tool that points to violations of norms: the norm of a clear 2‐sided interaction; norms akin to the Habermasian public sphere; and at the content level, irony is used to reject racist positions. Being indirect, irony can be used to create an entertaining yet critical discussion in the public sphere.     

The Polarizing Impact of News Coverage on Populist Attitudes in the Public: Evidence From a Panel Study in Four European Democracies

This study explores how news messages carrying parts of the populist ideology contribute to a polarization of public opinion about populism. It combines a content analysis of news coverage on two policy areas (N = 7,119 stories) with a two-wave panel survey (N = 2,338) in four European metropolitan regions (Berlin, Paris, London, and Zurich). In three regions, unopposed media messages with a populist stance have a conditional effect on populist attitudes that depends on prior convictions. A higher dose of exposure to populist news coverage enhances both prior agreement and disagreement with populism. Although the observed interaction patterns vary between regions, the general picture suggests that populist messages in the news foster polarization between public support and disapproval of populism.