Election Coverage

This entry looks at media election coverage to highlight the advantages of an international perspective, looking across a number of European contexts. It draws attention to a number of common themes and challenges in the relationship between journalism and the political process. These include journalism’s self-image as public watchdog, compelled by a shared expectation that media will occupy the center of the political public sphere. Another factor is the persistent influence [Page 542]of public service media—frequently, though not always, assumed to establish professional standards for political events such as elections—and the extension of public service-oriented aspirations to neutrality into dynamic commercial news environments.

The entry then looks to the various qualities of election coverage across national settings. There is, first, the extensive use of a competitive frame to structure election coverage, including the widespread use of sporting metaphors and a discourse of political contest. These are most noticeable in newspaper coverage of the fortunes of parties and candidates, and the visuals and narrative structure of election night coverage online and on television. By presenting politicians as players in a competitive field, it is suggested that elections are reduced to the expressive field of a race, encouraging a focus on individual politicians over political parties, institutions, and alliances.

The use of public opinion also emerges as an important component of contemporary election coverage. The regularity of references to public sentiments reflects the claimed heritage of journalism as guardians of a shared interest. However, most notably in periods of political populism or economic crisis, formations of public opinion can occupy a place of particular prominence. Representations of ordinary voters can be deployed to outsource and lend weight to preferred interpretations of the election and surrounding events. This foregrounding of discourses of the public and their potential for misuse is presented to show how social media and its integration into the main election news text can challenge conventions of journalistic judgment and professional autonomy.