Advancing Understanding in News Information, Political Knowledge and Media Systems Research

民主制度要发挥作用，有两个基本先决条件：公众必须能够追究当权者的责任，选民必须在知情的情况下投票。虽然“问责制”和“知情投票”等概念的确切含义存在争议，但没有争议的是，它们取决于个人对政治世界有一定程度的了解和参与，例如了解他们的代表是谁以及他们做了什么，如果有人关注政治环境，这种可能性就更大。对于绝大多数人来说，他们对政治的了解程度是间接获得的，通过接触媒体对政治世界的报道，而不是直接接触。大多数人都没有机会见到他们的代表，更不用说询问他们的行为了。因此，研究人员一直对媒体提供的政治信息感兴趣--有多少，它的重点和基调，硬新闻与软新闻，电视与报纸的供应--以及它对个人的影响--媒体对政治的报道是为了教育和吸引他们，还是有相反的效果？它是扩大了公众之间现存的知识差距，还是缩小了这些差距？比较政治学的学者提出了另外一个问题，即各国不同的媒体系统，如党派或无党派的媒体，或者在电视上，强大的公共服务广播传统与过多的商业娱乐频道是否会产生影响。这些问题的答案告诉了我们很多关于民主制度健康与否的信息，然而，先前的研究得出了各种相互矛盾的答案。为什么？为什么？有几个可能的原因，但其中最有可能的是，研究人员并不总是使用最适当的方法来检查媒体效应（例如，经常关注人们的媒体习惯，但不关注他们自己所接触的报道的实际内容），而且他们并不总是比较相似，即，在这个项目中，我们使用了三个公开的二级调查数据集--2009年欧洲选举研究，2006年，2008年和2010年欧洲社会调查，和2005-2010年英国选举研究小组-审查1）媒体报道与政治知识和政治参与之间关系的实质性问题，以及2）衡量媒体效果的四种不同方法。我们的重点是传统媒体的电视新闻和报纸;虽然社交媒体有一定的作用，但其影响力仍然与传统媒体相比相形见绌。我们将把我们拥有的或可获得的媒体内容数据与这些调查联系起来，以估计政治信息的曝光量、主题、语气等以及对政治态度和行为的影响。这些数据集是跨国的，使我们能够研究不同媒体系统的相互作用，媒体内容的特点，和个人。我们的项目将显示二级数据的潜力，回答有关欧洲民主国家和媒体的影响，尤其是在一个跨越自20世纪30年代大萧条以来最严重的金融危机的时代，人们对人们的生活产生了疑问。本书的主题是：如何继续保持对民主的信念，以及媒体在当代社会中的作用何时受到莱韦森调查等机构的审查;同时也回答了重要的实际问题，即如何应用不同的方法来估计媒体的影响，何时合适，它们揭示了什么样的关系，以及何时以及为什么它们的发现会发生冲突。

For democracies to work two fundamental prerequisites are that their publics must be able to hold those in power accountable and that their electorates cast informed votes. While the exact meaning of concepts like "accountability" and an "informed vote" is contested, what is not in dispute is that they depend on individuals having certain levels of knowledge about, and engagement with, the political world, such as knowledge of who their representatives are and what they have done, which is in turn more likely if someone pays attention to the political environment.For the vast majority of people the level of knowledge they have about politics is acquired indirectly, through exposure to media coverage of the political world, rather than directly. Most people do not get to meet their representatives, let alone ask them about their actions. Thus researchers have long been interested in both the supply of political information from media--how much, its focus and tone, hard news vs. soft news, the supply from television vs. newspapers--and its effects on individuals--does media coverage of politics serve to educate and engage them or have the opposite effects? Does it increase extant knowledge gaps among the public or close them? And scholars of comparative politics ask the additional questions of whether different media systems across countries, such as a partisan or non-partisan press, or, on television, a strong public service broadcasting tradition versus a plethora of commercial, entertainment-oriented channels makes a difference. The answers to such questions tell us a great deal about the health of a democracy.However, previous research has come up with a variety of conflicting answers. Why? There are several possible reasons, but among the most likely is that researchers do not always use the most appropriate methods to examine media effects (e.g., often looking at people's media habits but not at the actual content of the coverage they expose themselves to) and that they are not always comparing like with like, i.e., media effects in one country may differ from those in another for very good reason.In this project we use three publicly available secondary survey data sets--the 2009 European Election Study, 2006, 2008, and 2010 European Social Survey, and 2005-2010 British Election Study Panel--to examine 1) the substantive issue of the relationship between media coverage and political knowledge and engagement, and 2) four different methods to gauge media effects. Our focus is on the traditional media of television news and newspapers; while social media have a role to play their influence is still dwarfed by traditional media. We will link media content data that we have or that are available to each of these surveys in order to estimate the amount of exposure to political information, its subject matter, tone etc. and the consequences for political attitudes and behaviour. These data sets are cross-national, allowing us to examine the interaction of different media systems, characteristics of media content, and individuals.Our project will show the potential of secondary data for answering fundamental questions about European democracies and the effects of media, particularly timely in an era that spans the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s when there are questions about people's continuing faith in democracy, and when the role of media in contemporary society is under scrutiny through bodies such as the Leveson Inquiry; while also answering the important practical questions of how to apply different methods of estimating media effects, when they are appropriate, the kinds of relationships they uncover, and when and why their findings conflict.