The Causes and Consequences of Differential Press Coverage of Legislators

这个项目探讨了地方报纸如何在两年的时间里报道众议院议员。该项目涉及在所选报纸的所有版本中搜索提到所选代表的任何文章、社论、专栏或信件，为其内容对项目进行编码，并分析编码数据。该项目旨在确定报纸是否报道公民需要为其在任行为追究代表责任的信息。其假设是，公正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阻碍了这一前景。这项研究探讨了当地报纸报道唱名表决的规律性，报纸报道代表的其他活动的程度，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)系统地叙述了从1993年1月1日到1994年11月8日，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6对报纸在1993-1994年期间如何报道来自波士顿、芝加哥、旧金山、西雅图、图森和华盛顿的6名代表；(3)分析了影响67家地方报纸在两年时间里覆盖187名代表的因素，数据集为61,084条；以及(4)分析当地报纸的报道数量如何影响公民对他们的地方代表的了解程度，这是通过将61,084条引用数据与1994年全国选举研究组织进行的调查联系起来实现的。目前的提议是一个项目，对这四个数据集进行清理和记录，并准备将其永久存档和公开使用。该项目是第一个系统研究报纸如何在竞选期间报道个别立法者的项目。这也是第一次对超过几周的媒体报道进行检查的研究。以前的大多数研究都估计了媒体对代表的报道范围，但没有分析报道的内容。该项目展示了计算机在识别和检索报纸档案中有关代表的文章方面的效用。之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。与普通劳动力相比，计算机的优势在于效率更高，更不容易出错。因此，它们允许样本大小的大幅增加。更好地了解媒体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在一个权力分散、政党薄弱的大政体中政治问责的性质奠定基础。

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.