Idag har jag lagt till två nya tidskriftsartiklar för nedladdning. Titeln på den första av dessa är ”Not (Yet) a New Era of Minimal Effects: A Study of Agenda Setting at the Aggregate and Individual Levels”. Artikeln är skriven tillsammans med Adam Shehata och handlar om mediernas dagordningseffekter i samband med valet 2010, eller mer precist:
In recent years, profound media environmental changes have sparked a controversy regarding whether we are entering a new era of minimal effects. Focusing on one of the most important media effect theories, agenda setting, this study combines a panel survey and a media content analysis to test three claims derived from the new era of minimal effects discussion: (1) that recent media environmental changes have reduced the agenda setting influence of traditional news media to non-significance, (2) that increased opportunities for media choice have made partisan selective exposure the key mechanism behind media effects, and (3) that the availability of alternative online news sources reduces susceptibility to agenda setting effects from the traditional news media. Among other things, the results show that traditional news media still exert agenda-setting influence on both the aggregate and individual levels, but that these effects are weakened by use of multiple online news media. Overall, the results suggest that a generalized “we” have not (yet) entered a new era of minimal effects, and that certain media system characteristics are likely to condition the pace of any potential transition to a new minimal effects era.
Titeln på den andra artikeln är ”Do Campaign Strategies and Tactics Matter? Exploring Party Elite Perceptions of What Matters When Explaining Election Outcomes”, och den är skriven tillsammans med Christina Grandien och Kajsa Falasca. Som titeln antyder handlar den om hur svenska riksdagsledamöter ser på väljarna och på hur viktiga olika faktorer är när det gäller att förklara varför människor röstar som de gör. Särskilt fokus ligger på vilken betydelse som tillskrivs olika kampanjstrategier och taktiker. För att citera artikelns abstract:
In research on political campaign communication, it is often assumed that campaign strategies and tactics are highly important for explaining election outcomes. In contrast, most research in political science tends to emphasize the importance of political substance, long-term factors such as party identification, and real-world conditions for explaining election outcomes.
Although political parties in practice treat election campaigns as highly important and consequential, there is virtually no research on how party elites perceive the importance of campaign strategies and tactics when explaining election outcomes. Hence, drawing on a survey among Swedish members of parliament, this study investigates party elite perceptions of what matters when people decide which party to vote for and of what matters when explaining election outcomes. In brief, the results show that members of parliament perceive campaign strategies and tactics as significantly less important than the substance of politics. In the concluding analysis, the implications of the results are analyzed.
Båda artiklarna kan, liksom en rad andra publikationer, laddas ner här.
Jesper Strömbäck 