How media allow for the orientation of citizens in a pluralized political landscape: Media representation of parties in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland
Many Western countries have seen a pluralization and polarization of the political landscape in recent years. The resulting increase in diversity of political positions poses challenges to media that aim at providing citizens with orientation. Using Germany, Austria, and Switzerland as examples, the...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | deu |
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Seismo Verlag
2022-06-01
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| Series: | Studies in Communication Sciences |
| Subjects: |
| Summary: | Many Western countries have seen a pluralization and polarization of the political landscape in recent years. The resulting increase in diversity of political positions poses challenges to media that aim at providing citizens with orientation. Using Germany, Austria, and Switzerland as examples, the article analyzes how parties present themselves in the respective national parliament and how domestic media relay these utterances. The parties’ positions are examined via value frames that reflect three central cleavages of Western societies. The results show that parties express different combinations of posi-tions on these cleavages. Especially the cleavage related to globali-zation is clearly polarized, with right-wing populist parties at one end, conservative parties in a moderate place, and left-liberal parties at the other pole of the cleavage. Media reflect the parties’ positions mostly similarly to their own utterances in parliament. However, the right-wing populist parties are depicted in an even more polarized way compared to how they position themselves. The media thus fulfill their orientation function to different degrees across the party spectrum. |
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| ISSN: | 1424-4896 2296-4150 |