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

民主政体要发挥作用，有两个基本先决条件，一是其公众必须能够追究当权者的责任，二是其选民投下知情的选票。虽然“问责”和“知情投票”等概念的确切含义存在争议，但没有争议的是，这些概念依赖于对政治世界有一定程度的了解和接触的个人，例如他们的代表是谁以及他们做了什么的知识，反过来，如果有人关注政治环境，这反过来更有可能。对绝大多数人来说，他们对政治的了解是通过接触媒体对政治世界的报道而间接获得的，而不是直接获得的。大多数人都没有机会会见他们的代表，更不用说询问他们的行动了。因此，长期以来，研究人员一直对媒体提供的政治信息感兴趣--它的焦点和语气、硬新闻与软新闻、电视与报纸的提供--以及它对个人的影响--媒体对政治的报道是起到教育和参与他们的作用，还是起到相反的作用？它是扩大了公众之间现有的知识差距，还是缩小了差距？比较政治学的学者提出了另外一个问题，即各国不同的媒体体系，如党派或无党派媒体，或者在电视上，强大的公共服务广播传统与过多的商业、娱乐导向的频道是否会有所不同。这些问题的答案告诉我们许多关于民主国家健康状况的信息。然而，之前的研究得出了各种相互矛盾的答案。为什么？有几种可能的原因，但其中最有可能的是，研究人员并不总是使用最合适的方法来检查媒体效果(例如，经常查看人们的媒体习惯，而不是他们暴露给自己的报道的实际内容)，而且他们并不总是将相似之处进行比较，即，一个国家的媒体效果可能与另一个国家的媒体效果不同，这是有充分理由的。在这个项目中，我们使用了三个公开的次要调查数据集--2009欧洲选举研究，2006,2008，和2010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参与之间的关系的实质性问题，以及2)衡量媒体影响的四种不同方法。我们的重点是电视、新闻和报纸等传统媒体；尽管社交媒体可以发挥作用，但它们的影响力仍然与传统媒体相形见绌。我们将把我们已有或可用于每项调查的媒体内容数据联系起来，以估计接触到政治信息的量、其主题、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，使我们能够检查不同媒体系统、媒体内容的特征和个人之间的相互作用。我们的项目将展示二次数据的潜力，以回答关于欧洲民主和媒体影响的基本问题，特别是在一个跨越1930年代大萧条以来最严重的金融危机的时代，当人们对民主的持续信仰存在疑问时，当媒体在当代社会中的角色通过莱韦森调查等机构受到审查时；同时还回答了如何应用不同的方法估计媒体影响的重要实际问题，何时这些方法是适当的，它们揭示了哪些类型的关系，以及它们的发现何时和为什么会发生冲突。

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.