| Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools. |
Voters in a Changing Media EnvironmentA Data-Based Retrospective on Consequences of Media Change in GermanyInstitute for Social Science, University of Erlangen-Nuernberg D-90020, Germany, winfried.schulz{at}wiso.uni-erlangen.de
Institute for Social Science, University of Erlangen-Nuernberg
Institute for Communication and Media Research, University of Munich The mediatization of politics in general, and of election campaigns in particular, seems to be an obvious consequence of media changes during recent decades and of an increasing interdependence between political processes and mass communication. As in many other European countries, three trends mark such development in Germany: (1) an enormous expansion of supply of new types of media and content genres, (2) the growing importance of television in political communication and (3) the transformation of election campaigning. Based on election studies and content analysis data, this article examines these changes with regard to their impact on voter behaviour. The article looks for evidence of voter mobilization, television dependency and personalization trends, and discusses potential consequences of a changing campaign style. The findings support and, at the same time, modify some implications of the mediatization hypothesis. They concur with recent scepticism about the notion of Americanization. The article discusses the results with reference to changes in campaigning strategies, e.g. tendencies towards the secularization of election research having repercussions on research concepts and results
Key Words: Americanization • elections • Germany • mediatization • political communication
European Journal of Communication, Vol. 20, No. 1,
55-88 (2005) This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
 |
|
Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
