The Causes and Consequences of Differential Press Coverage of Legislators

该项目探讨了当地报纸在两年期间如何报道众议院议员。该项目包括搜索所选报纸的所有版本，以寻找提及所选代表的任何文章，社论，专栏或信件，为它们的内容编码，并分析编码数据。该项目旨在确定报纸是否报道了公民要求代表对其任职期间的行为负责所需的信息。假设无偏见和容易获得的信息增强了问责的前景，而不完整或有偏见的信息则阻碍了问责。该研究探讨了地方报纸报道唱名表决的规律，报纸报道代表其他活动的程度，包括提出法案，举行听证会和建立联盟，以及吸引记者注意的政策问题的类型。该项目涉及收集四个数据集，以回答有关报纸报道的数量，内容，原因和后果的问题。它包括：（1）系统地描述了1993年1月1日至1994年11月8日期间，25家报纸如何在8,003篇文章、社论、专栏和信件中报道了25名代表;（2）比较分析了1993年和1994年期间，6对报纸如何报道了来自波士顿、芝加哥、弗朗西斯科、西雅图、图森和华盛顿的6名代表;（3）分析影响67份地方报纸在两年期间覆盖187名代表的广泛程度的因素，数据集为61，084次引用;以及（4）分析地方报纸的报道量如何影响公民对他们的地方代表的了解程度，通过连接61个数据集，084引文与1994年的调查进行的国家选举研究。目前的建议是开展一个项目，清理和记录这四个数据集，并使其做好永久存档和公众使用的准备。该项目是第一个系统研究报纸如何在竞选期间之外报道个别立法者的项目。这也是第一个研究超过几周的新闻报道的研究。以往的大多数研究都是在没有分析报道内容的情况下估计代表的新闻报道范围。该项目展示了计算机在从报纸档案中识别和检索有关代表的文章方面的效用。以前所有关于媒体如何报道立法者的研究都要求研究人员浏览报纸，寻找提到个别立法者的文章。这项研究使用计算机进行浏览。计算机的优势是比普通劳动力更高效、更不容易出错。因此，它们允许样本量的大幅增加。更好地了解新闻界如何报道代表的行动，应该为更好地了解公民的选举决定、代表的政策决定以及权力分立和政党力量薄弱的大政体中政治问责制的性质奠定基础。

This project explores how local newspapers covered members of the House of Representatives during a two-year period. The project involves searching all editions of the chosen newspapers for any articles, editorials, columns, or letters that mention the selected representatives, coding the items for their content, and analyzing the coded data. The project is designed to determine whether newspapers report the kinds of information that citizens need to hold representatives accountable for their actions in office. The assumption is that unbiased and readily available information enhances the prospects for accountability, while incomplete or biased information thwarts it. The study explores the regularity with which local newspapers report roll-call votes, the extent to which newspapers cover representatives' other activities, including introducing bills, holding hearings, and building coalitions, and the types of policy issues that attract journalists' attention. The project involves collecting four data sets to answer questions about the volume, content, causes, and consequences of newspaper coverage. It includes: (1) a systematic account of how 25 newspapers covered 25 representatives between January 1, 1993, and November 8, 1994, in 8,003 articles, editorials, columns, and letters; (2) a comparative analysis of how six pairs of newspapers covered six representatives from Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Tucson, and Washington during 1993 and 1994; (3) an analysis of the factors that affected how extensively 67 local newspapers covered 187 representatives during a two-year period, with a data set of 61 ,084 citations; and (4) an analysis of how the volume of coverage in local newspapers affected how much citizens knew about their local representatives, achieved by linking the data set of 61 ,084 citations with the 1994 survey conducted by the National Election Studies. The current proposal is for a project to clean and document these four data sets and prepare them for permanent archiving and public use. The project is the fIrst systematic study of how newspapers cover individual legislators outside the campaign period. It is also the first study to examine press coverage for a period longer than a few weeks. Most previous studies estimated the extent of press coverage for representatives without analyzing the content of coverage. The project demonstrates the utility of computers for identifying and retrieving articles about representatives from newspaper archives. All previous studies of how the press covered legislators have required that researchers browse through newspapers searching for articles that mention individual legislators. This study employs computers to do the browsing. Computers have the advantage of being more efficient and less error-prone than ordinary labor. Thus, they permit a vast increase in sample size. A better understanding of how the press covers representatives' actions should provide the foundation for a better understanding of citizens' electoral decisions, representatives' policy decisions, and the nature of political accountability in a large polity with separated powers and weak political parties.