Abstract
This article studies the impact of right and left moderate political orientation of newspapers on the levels of plurality in the news coverage of the Euro Crisis in 20 newspapers from 10 European countries through a methodology based on Simpson’s D index. The expectation of finding distinct patterns of coverage leading to high levels of plurality was not fully supported and the results have shown that national frames influence levels of overall plurality more than political ideology.
Introduction
The focus of this article is on plurality in the news coverage of the Euro Crisis. Any assumption that, in democracy, the news should be representative of the different political opinions entails in itself a dimension of prevalence of plurality in news content. It can also be related to the concept of political parallelism that refers to the extent to which the media system reflects the political system. Times of crisis pose additional challenges to journalists, and McQuail (2000) argues that the media may actually be more influential in times of crises. Newspapers have a defining role in moments of crisis; they provide context, explanations and interpretation for events and issues, contributing therefore to framing those moments, as well as to building particular climates of opinion around political decisions and complex economic issues. These influences and bias may or may not be primarily defined by ideology and political orientation, but they are usually present, whether as an editorial decision or simply as the background of the journalist who writes the article.
Further systematic empirical analyses on how political ideologies and orientations are reflected in the journalistic treatment of different issues, as well as in the plurality and the diversity of information and sources are much needed. The main objective of this research is to investigate the effect of centre-right and centre-left political orientation on the levels of plurality and diversity of the information about the Euro Crisis. Plurality here is viewed as diversity in news content and distinguished from pluralism in the sense that Karppinen (2013: 3–4) defined the concepts: diversity and plurality refer to the empirical fact of plurality, while pluralism is a value orientation that considers multiplicity and diversity in ideas and institutions a virtue.
The analysis covers the most relevant events of the Euro Crisis that occurred from 2010 to 2012, in 20 newspapers, representing the two main political orientations, in 10 European countries that illustrate various interests and different levels of involvement in the Euro Crisis. Both the different political leaning of newspapers and the different national positioning towards the crisis should guarantee diversity in news content.
Plurality and political ideology: An unclear liaison?
The connection between plurality of information and political ideology and orientation of the media is not new. It lies at the very notion of the democratic role of the press since its early theorizing and has been emphasized by many political scientists and media scholars (e.g. for an antique reference, De Tocqueville, 2001 [1835]; or the book edited by Lichtenberg, 1990 for more contemporary references).
The availability of plural and politically diverse information guarantees that all points of view are represented thus being crucial for the development of independent opinions and autonomous decisions in any democracy. Only in this way can citizens be adequately informed and form informed opinions. It is also at the basis of concepts such as the ‘degree of mass media partisanship’ (Blumler and Gurevitch, 1995) and Hallin and Mancini’s (2004) ‘political parallelism’, referring to the way in which media content reflects different political tendencies and the degree and nature of the relations that the media establish with political parties and social organizations.
On the other hand, it has also been often suggested that biased information influences the way how issues are perceived and constructed by citizens, which in turn affects how politicians and their decisions are evaluated and ultimately also has some impact on voting behaviour (e.g. DellaVigna and Kaplan, 2007; Iyengar, 1991). Media outlets may exert influence by opting for a particular slant in the news story or simply by making a selective choice of what and whom to report. This influence may be intentional (in an explicitly politically oriented media outlet, for instance), but it may also be the result of the very nature of journalistic work, which consists primarily in the selection and edition of ‘raw information’. Editing, eliminating inconsistencies and the attempt to ‘tell a story’ are well-known features of any journalistic approach to information that ultimately mean framing issues and events in a particular way. These journalistic procedures open up opportunities to attribute particular meanings to the information, and particularly in the case of complex issues due to the necessary simplification of the information. All of this may finally result in less diversity.
In addition to these news-making procedures, there are also studies pointing to selection mechanisms in the reception side of information (which ultimately also constrain media outlets wanting to please their audiences). The selective exposure theory (largely supported by the cognitive dissonance theory in Psychology) refers precisely to the tendency that individuals have to prefer information and media outlets that reinforce their pre-existent opinions and assessments and to avoid exposure to diverse views (see, for instance, Stroud, 2008, 2010 among others). Audiences differ in their political opinions and views of the world; in itself this may not be proof of the media persuading audiences, but simply an indication that the audiences also base their media choices on their ideology. In sum, apparently of the greatest importance, these connections, and in particular the relation between plurality and political ideology, have not, however, been examined empirically in a thorough manner.
A different, but equally important question has to do with the actual presence of plurality in a given media system as a result of media outlets having and displaying different political tendencies. Considering that the mere existence of several content suppliers and media ownerships do not guarantee in itself actual plurality of information, do the different political orientations of media outlets entail distinct journalistic treatments and framing of issues? In other words, do differently politically oriented media outlets guarantee diversity in the journalistic information supply?
Right and left (political) bias in news coverage
The news media’s political orientation should expectedly condition how reports about facts, events, issues, statements and so on are formulated and presented. The media outlets’ political ideology, which may be explicitly assumed or not, is therefore seen as having a potentially important impact on news coverage. Not only the editorial line is defined by who owns and runs the newspaper, but readers also expect to find particular interpretations of reality in it. This expectation has been supported by previous empirical research (for instance, Eilders, 2002; Larcinese et al., 2007). Larcinese et al. (2007) found evidence in the United States that pro-Democratic newspapers tend to give more coverage to high unemployment when the incumbent is Republican than when the president is Democratic.
In some mainstream media, these leanings are not clearly assumed in order not to turn readers away, but they are often perceptible in news stories, analyses, commentaries and opinion articles by attentive readers. The labels ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’ in the United States or the broader right and left wing conventionally indicate an ideological divide over issues, including the economy and the role of the government. For example, right wing supporters tend to favour the free development of private initiative without much government intervention, emphasizing the role of the market in economy. In contrast, left wing supporters see the role of the state as crucial to regulate excesses and address inequalities, and to tackle economy and society’s problems.
Even though the discussion about the weight of ideologies in contemporary societies is on the agenda, there are many situations in which these ideological cleavages have no perfect parallel in real life. The Euro Crisis and the national deficits reduction objectives, for instance, have posed dilemmas to both right and left wing governments. It was possible to see right wing governments implementing tax increase measures, while left wing governments were forced to cut public spending on health and education and privatize public assets at the same time, for instance.
In addition, many mainstream political parties have also toned down some of their positions in order to capture more voters in the centre of the political spectrum (following Kirchheimer’s concept of ‘catch-all parties’ 1 ), and, in the case of the European Union (EU), due to the transfer of national sovereignty to European institutions, elected governments have often been forced to adopt policies and implement measures that are not in line with their political orientations and electoral promises.
On the other hand, today it is impossible to live in an ideological bubble: journalists and citizens get political information from different situations and different types of media outlets, including online and alternative media, and may therefore be exposed to dissenting political views practically on a daily basis. Furthermore, in the absence of an established pan-European press (De Vreese, 2002; Picard, 2015: 2), the news coverage of European issues is often nationally driven, emphasizing domestic interests more than the European perspective. This could potentially also impact on the coverage of the Euro Crisis, which would be mostly affected by national views.
All this makes it difficult to draw clear ideological borders and highlights the complexity of applying polarized labels. Nevertheless, some distinctions still make sense and are expected to be found in news coverage. Not only many newspapers position themselves more on the right or more on the left of the political spectrum, but also it is possible to notice the presence of left and right political ideologies in some journalistic interpretations of issues. For example, when discussing the Euro Crisis, some right wing newspapers would tend to emphasize more the responsibility of the countries with sovereign debt problems, while left wing newspapers would tend to stress the private financial actors misconduct and speculation as the cause of the crisis. Following its economic logic, right wing newspapers may also be more prone to consider that struggling countries themselves should be responsible for solving their own problems, thus insisting on austerity measures and structural national reforms or an exit from the euro, while left wing papers would mainly suggest assistance in the form of loans and ‘haircuts’, and growth policies.
Studying the news coverage of the Euro Crisis
This study relies on data collected and coded through content analysis by a larger comparative project that investigated how the Euro Crisis was portrayed in different types of newspapers in 10 European countries through time (2010–2012). 2 Four newspapers from each country were included in this larger study: the leading financial/business newspaper, a tabloid, and the two leading papers representing (moderate) right and left wing views. In a previous work developed in the scope of this larger project, Salgado et al. (2015) focused on defining a framework for measuring diversity and plurality in the news and analysed 6 countries (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Greece, the United Kingdom) with very different interests and positions in Europe and in the Euro Crisis. This study pointed to a convergence in time in some of the most important issues, for example, the long-term solutions for the crisis, which suggested an overall consonance trend more than to an actual display of plurality.
The present analysis intends to look more closely at the prevalence of diversity in the news coverage of the crisis by extending the sample of countries to 10 and by specifically comparing the two differently politically oriented newspapers from each of these countries (see Table 1).
Countries and newspapers.
Basically, the main objective is to test the assumption that different political orientations fuel different perspectives on issues and events, thus inducing journalistic coverages that differ from each other. In other words, the underlying research question can be formulated this way: does a different political orientation of newspapers mean plurality in the news coverage of the Euro Crisis? Given the differences in the economic approaches advocated by right and left wing positions, we expect to find clear distinct patterns in the news coverage of the Euro Crisis influenced by these two political orientations (H1). We therefore also expect to find high levels of plurality in the news arising from those marked differences between the (moderate) right and the left wing newspapers in their coverage of the crisis (H2). We test these assumptions both by aggregating the data of the 10 European countries into one sample and by analysing in detail the situation of each country. Basically, we calculate whether the coverage is more diverse when it includes both types of newspapers compared to a situation in which only one type is published. We then evaluate the evolution of the situation over time. Ultimately, we are interested in determining which factor – political ideology or national frames and interests – affects the prevalence of plurality in the news coverage of the Euro Crisis more.
To provide a comprehensive perspective of the positions taken on by the two types of newspapers, the analysis investigates the coverage of six very different topics. It can be the case that some issues induce higher levels of consonance per se than others, so it is important to examine a varied selection of topics to have the clearest picture as possible of the newspapers’ content diversity. The topics that were content analysed focused first on the main causes behind the crisis and the responsibility to solve it, then on the type of answers the authorities should give to solve the crisis and on the consequences of those measures, and finally on the portrayal of the EU institutions and of their actions in the crisis.
On the subject of the Euro Crisis’ causes, the possibilities of coding included the structure of the Euro system and European Central Bank’s (ECB) policies, national economic structure and policies, global economic problems, private banks and financial institutions’ behaviour, and political deficiencies (national and European), for example. Regarding the responsibilities for addressing the crisis, the options were the struggling countries themselves, countries without sovereign debt problems, Eurozone countries, EU institutions and ECB, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, or private debt holders.
As to the short-term solutions to the crisis, the alternatives comprised loans from other countries and institutions, ECB loans and bond purchases, abatement of existing loan provisions (extension, reduced rates, haircut), reduction of budget deficits through tax increases and austerity measures, fiscal stimulus and growth policies. Longer term solutions to the crisis involved possibilities such as nations (weak or strong economies) dropping the Euro, more EU power over national budgets, national structural reforms in nations with problems, or the breaking up of the Eurozone.
The potential forecast of the consequences of the measures adopted to tackle the crisis was also included in the analysis, and the coding options dealt with potential success and failure: Eurozone preserved, a deeper integration and transfer of national sovereignty to European institutions, a stronger and stable single currency, the establishment of an enduring backup system to countries with sovereign debt problems, or the final breakup of the Eurozone, the countries with sovereign debt problems dropping out of the Euro, and other economic repercussions as wide inflation.
Finally, the portrayal of the EU, European Commission and Eurozone institutions was also analysed. The coding alternatives covered a broad range of possible cases, such as the news story portrays them as insignificant in addressing the crisis, as lacking capabilities (authority or proper tools) to solve the crisis, as ineffectual or confused with the situation, but also on the opposite end of the spectrum, as central in solving the crisis, or as strong and determined in addressing the crisis.
Methodology for measuring plurality in news content
This analysis is rooted in our previous work on how to measure quantitatively plurality in journalistic content (Salgado et al., 2015), but goes beyond by adding new indicators and a new dimension: the impact of political orientation on the newspapers’ content concerning the Euro Crisis.
We have applied and adjusted to news content the same diversity measures that have been used in a wide range of fields (geology, geography, sociology, communication, etc.). The approach is based on Simpson’s D diversity index (Simpson, 1949) and its extensions as developed by Lieberson (1969) and Agresti and Agresti (1978), as well as guided by McDonald and Dimmick (2003) who have studied the conceptualization and measurement of diversity and applied it to radio and television programme diversity. This type of measurement is particularly suited for our purpose and for our sample composed of news that were previously content analysed, because it allows probabilistic interpretability and reflects two different aspects of diversity: the number of issues covered by newspapers and their distribution.
Briefly, the basic Simpson’s D (Dw) looks at the probabilistic occurrence of diversity of one ‘specific characteristic’ within one ‘population’. In our approach, ‘specific characteristics’ may refer to the causes of the Euro Crisis, for example, in which we apply Dw to determine the probability of different causes being singled out in two randomly selected news stories that addressed this topic (for further details, see Salgado et al., 2015: 110). 3 In sum, a characteristic is an issue included in the content analysis (causes of the crisis, etc.) and catalogued by the relative frequencies that result from coding that issue. Three types of ‘populations’ were defined in this study: first, the 20 single newspapers; second, the two groups of 10 newspapers each, which result from the aggregation of all of the centre-left in one aggregate and all of the centre-right in another,to analyse the weight of ideology in coverage; and third, to assess the national position, 10 aggregates representing the national samples of the 10 countries, that include the two types of newspapers from each country.
Lieberson (1969) developed an extension of Simpson’s D, the multivariate Dw, to measure diversity in the cases where a population is classified by more than just one characteristic. In our approach, not only the causes of the crisis, but also, for example, responsibility, solutions and so on. 4 Then, to study diversity across different populations, Lieberson (1969) developed a further extension of Simpson’s D, called Db. An example of its utilization may be calculating the probability of finding different causes of the Euro Crisis in two randomly selected news stories from two different newspapers. 5 The gain in diversity obtained by the coverage of two newspapers – instead of only one – can be obtained calculating the absolute or percentage increase of Db over the average Dw of the two newspapers, which provides an indication of the average increase of diversity; or alternatively over the Dw of the newspaper presenting lower diversity, which indicates the increase of diversity to which the audience of this paper would be exposed by reading a second newspaper. We interpret the Dw of any single newspaper as ‘internal plurality’, the Dw of the ideology aggregates as ‘plurality according to ideological positioning’, and the Dw of the 10 national aggregates as ‘country plurality’. The Db between left and right ‘populations’ (newspapers or aggregates) is named ‘cross-ideological plurality’, and finally, the Db between the 10 countries’ aggregates refers to ‘cross-country plurality’. 6
The newspapers’ coverage of the Euro Crisis: The role of political ideology, national frames and the levels of plurality
Differences and similarities between left and right leaning newspapers
Before analysing the indicators of plurality based on Simpson’s D, we looked at the relative frequencies of the right and left news coverage (Table 2 and Table 5 in Appendix 1). This provides an initial overview of the weight of ideology and tests H1. Basically, we searched for different patterns in the news coverage of the different topics.
Plurality in the 20 newspapers of 10 European countries by topic: analysis of political ideology and national frame.
EU: European Union.
A preliminary observation is that although both types of newspapers have covered all of the topics under consideration, including the various options of coding, the salience attributed to them and their interpretation sometimes varies. This means that divergent perspectives towards the crisis are covered by both types of newspapers and at times with similar weight, but some cases display differences. For instance, regarding the causes, centre-right newspapers pointed more often to the failure of national economic policies in the countries with sovereign debt problems, while centre-left papers focused more on the structure of the Euro system and on the private financial actors’ misconduct.
The responsibility for solving the crisis also divided positions: centre-left newspapers focused mainly on the role of the EU, both EU institutions and Euro countries, and the centre-right press emphasized more the responsibility of the struggling countries in solving their own problems. Economic growth stimulus was more emphasized and austerity measures less by the centre-left papers as measures to tackle the crisis, when compared with the centre-right newspapers. Regarding potential consequences, centre-right newspapers predicted deeper integration and the transfer of national sovereignty more often than the centre-left press, which was more critical of the EU institutions, portraying them as inefficient in addressing the Euro Crisis.
These results seem to partly confirm our assumption as articulated in H1 that there are differences in the way the two types of newspapers have covered the Euro Crisis. But we were also expecting to find distinct differing patterns of coverage, so the next step is to determine how significant these differences are. 7 This can be assessed by an analysis based on Simpson’s D, which indicates the extent to which the two groups of newspapers actually differ from each other: Db can measure the probability of finding different perspectives on a topic in two randomly selected news stories from the two groups of newspapers, and the increase of Db over Dw demonstrates the gain of plurality caused by the existence of news coverage influenced by the two different ideological orientations.
Cross-ideological plurality: The weight and patterns of political ideology in the news coverage
Considering ideology, the analysis shows similar levels of plurality in each of the six topics examined, which means that both types of coverage include divergent interpretations and do not exclude specific issues based on political orientation (see Table 2, columns 1 and 2). It is also possible to see that the plurality of the left and right papers concerning the different topics shows noteworthy variations between 0.62 and 0.83, when measured by Dw. In general, plurality is higher in left leaning newspapers, except when the coverage is related to the responsibility of solving the crisis, which was covered with more diversity by the right leaning press. There is almost no gain in plurality when we compare the levels of cross-ideological plurality (Db) with the average plurality in the two different political orientations (column 6 in Table 2). The maximum gain of plurality for readers on any topic is only 2% (column 5 in Table 2).
This signals a quite low relevance of the previously observed differences between the coverage of the two groups of newspapers, which means that, with this sample of news, it is not possible to support the assumption that there were two contrasting ways of covering the Euro Crisis augmenting overall plurality, one influenced by a centre-left ideology and another by a centre-right ideology. The results do not thus fully confirm H1, because the existence of two very distinct patterns of coverage was not supported by the analysis. It also suggests that the high levels of plurality inherent to the differences in coverage of both types of newspapers may not be confirmed (H2).
Analysis of plurality over time
The analysis of the newspapers’ plurality done so far has focused on the entire period of analysis (February 2010 to July 2012) and when comparing centre-right and centre-left newspapers it uncovered lower-than-expected levels of diversity. To examine whether there were significant changes over time and whether some periods of time were more prone to diversity than others, we divided the sample period into three equal periods to then compare the coverage of events included in the first and in the last periods (February 2010 to August 2011 and November 2012 to July 2012). The results are shown in Table 3.
Plurality over time.
EU: European Union.
Plurality has grown slightly over time. On average it grew, but the gains in plurality were more expressive in topics such as the short-term and long-term solutions in both types of newspapers. This means that the press portrayed to an increasing extent different solutions, as growth strategies and economic stimulus policies. Plurality only decreased in the portrayal of the EU, which is explained by a stronger focus on two coding options only (‘the article portrays them as central to addressing the crisis’ and ‘the article portrays them as ineffectual of confused in addressing the crisis’) in both types of newspapers in the third period. It is also possible to see that plurality increases slightly more in the centre-left papers than in the centre-right papers in issues such as the causes of the crisis and the responsibility to solve it.
The increasing plurality was accompanied by some convergence between the coverage of the two types of newspapers. The gain in plurality across ideological positions (Db) compared with the plurality in each ideological position (average Dw) was low in the first period, but even lower in the third (columns 5 and 6). The only exception is the short-term solutions, where there was a small increase of plurality over time. This convergence reinforces our previous finding that pointed to the absence of distinct right and left ideological positions in the coverage of the topics related to the Euro Crisis in these 10 countries, which means that H1 was only partly confirmed and H2 was not confirmed. In other words, the differences found in the news coverage done by these newspapers did not contribute decisively to higher levels of plurality. A note here to explain that the differences in coverage may have been mitigated by the composition of our sample, with centre-left and centre-right newspapers in most cases, but this methodological option is justified because these are considered the most reliable illustration of the national press in these countries.
Political ideology versus national frame
If political ideology does not determine decisively diversity in the news coverage of the Euro Crisis, what does? Or does this mean that the news coverage was mostly homogeneous? We did not find pronounced differences between newspapers with different ideological orientations, but what happens to the levels of plurality when we compare countries instead? The results can be seen in Table 2, columns 6, 7 and 8.
The various countries’ plurality (Dw) and cross-country pluralities (Db) were measured using the aggregated content of the two national newspapers and the average cross-country plurality was calculated as the average of all pairs of the 10 countries. Column 7 shows the average probability of finding different perspectives on a given topic when two news stories are randomly selected from newspapers of two countries.
The results displayed in column 8 show that the gain in plurality of average cross-country plurality versus the country plurality was on average 7% and that according to topics it varied between 4% (responsibility to solve the crisis and short-term measures) and 13% (portrayal of the EU). These figures reflect a greater impact of national frames in the news coverage than of political ideologies, whose analysis had shown gains in plurality of around 1% in some topics only (column 5). This means that readers in these 10 European countries would be more exposed to plural perspectives about the Euro Crisis by reading national and foreign newspapers even if those papers had similar political ideology, than by reading their two national left and right leaning newspapers. The most significant differences found in the news coverage are therefore driven by national frames more than by political ideology.
Countries’ plurality
The fact that the greatest differences in news coverage are found among countries does not necessarily mean that every country has considerable levels of plurality or that there is no diversity between left and right leaning papers in some of the countries. That is why it makes sense to examine in more detail the extent to which news coverage varies within each country (Table 4).
Analysis of internal plurality by country – all topics.
The internal plurality indicator analyses the levels of diversity within single newspapers. Internal plurality comprises two aspects: Dw measures the internal plurality of a newspaper concerning a particular topic of coverage, and the multivariate Dw (calculated as the average Dw of all topics) gives the overall picture of each newspaper on the full set of topics.
The levels of internal plurality when the average of all topics is considered (Dw) vary from the highest plurality, 0.73 in the Spanish centre-left newspaper and 0.72 in both Italian newspapers, to the lowest, 0.58 in the Finnish centre-left paper (columns 1 and 2). Focusing on the differences between the two types of press within each country and measuring the percentage difference between centre-right and centre-left newspapers (column 3), it is possible to see that Finland has the highest difference, –9%, the minus indicating that the left newspaper has the lowest plurality. The United Kingdom (7%) and Spain (6%) follow. Only in Finland and Belgium, internal plurality is smaller in left newspapers than in right wing papers, but in the remaining eight cases, the situation is the opposite with left leaning papers being more plural and displaying higher levels of internal plurality.
To analyse whether readers are exposed to more diversity by reading both types of newspapers, we compared plurality across political ideology (Db) with internal plurality (Dw) within each country. For the readers of the least plural newspaper, the gain in plurality is higher in Belgium (9%), followed by Finland (7%) and the United Kingdom (6%) and lower in Italy (2%). If we would take the average reader instead, the gain in plurality would be higher in Belgium (6%), Greece (5%) and Poland (4%). Despite noteworthy, these gains in plurality are smaller than the gain in plurality obtained by the comparison between cross-country plurality and average country plurality, which was on average 7% (Table 2, column 8). This means that the best way to ensure exposure to a wider range of perspectives is, in most cases, by reading national and foreign newspapers, even if they have similar political orientations.
Conclusion
This study proposed a methodology for measuring plurality in news content and applied it to the Euro Crisis news coverage by looking closely at the relationship between ideological positions and plurality in 20 newspapers from 10 European countries. Our starting point (RQ) was to question whether the different political orientation of newspapers guarantees plurality in coverage. We based our initial expectations on the assumption that we would find considerable differences in the journalistic treatment of the Euro Crisis in right and left leaning newspapers, because these different political ideologies uphold very different perspectives on the role of the state and on how economy and finance should work in a society.
These expectations were embedded into two hypotheses and then tested with a methodology developed from Simpson’s D diversity index. H1 was only partly confirmed because we did find certain differences in centre-left and centre-right newspapers, but the existence of two clearly distinct patterns of coverage was not supported. Even though some interpretations of issues received more or less salience according to the newspapers’ political tendency, both types of newspapers covered all of the topics. In fact, only narrow gains in diversity were found.
We were interested in investigating whether readers gain different perspectives – in the sense that they are exposed to different topics, to different salience attributed to topics, but also to different viewpoints on issues – by reading both types of newspapers, because our expectation was that this would contribute to the prevalence of higher plurality in the news (H2). The newspapers’ coverage of the Euro Crisis in these 10 countries did not support this expectation and therefore did not confirm H2. Instead, we noticed that national interests contribute more to diversity in coverage than ideological stances. In the absence of a Pan-European press, national frames shape the Euro Crisis events more than political ideology. This also seems to suggest not only the inexistence of a supranational European public sphere (De Vreese and Boomgaarden, 2012), but also a weak Europeanization of national public spheres, in the sense that the coverage of European themes would entail an evaluation from a perspective that extends beyond the domestic realm (Gerhards, 1993, 2000 as cited in De Vreese and Boomgaarden, 2012).
Finally, the overall gains in plurality are on average moderate, which suggests some degree of consonance in the news coverage. Our sample composed of centre-left and centre-right newspapers may have conditioned the prevalence of differences, so additional investigation testing other types of newspapers will be useful to find out more about the relationship between political ideology and plurality in the news. The complexity of these issues, which often involve conflicting information, may also reduce the effect of political ideology, as journalists try to eliminate contradictions in their news reports.
The issues of consonance in the media and homogeneity of news content have occasionally been the subject of attention (Noelle-Neumann and Mathes, 1987; Ramonet, 2002; Salgado, 2010, etc.; and specifically on the financial crisis, Bach et al., 2013). The political and ideological orientation of newspapers will often effect on how reports about facts, events and issues are selected and formulated, but this may not be always as pronounced as initially expected as there is a parallel tendency for media outlets to cover reality in similar ways, citing and referring to each other, and commonly following closely the coverage of leading and opinion-making media outlets, such as The Financial Times. Not only journalists use the same news values, but they also interact and rely on one another in the exercise of the profession, which together with the pressure to get the latest news updates, often results in similar news coverage. In addition, the tendency of media suppliers to share and recycle content across different journalistic products has increased considerably in the last years.
Borrowing Hallin and Mancini’s (2004) words, ‘no serious media analyst would argue that journalism anywhere in the world is literally neutral’ (p. 26), but the external and internal factors that influence the news coverage and therefore determine news frames and stances, the extent to which different factors impact on different journalistic coverages, and their actual effect on the plurality of news content are still matter for scholarly debates. By developing a methodology to study plurality in news content further and by looking closely at how a complex issue – Euro Crisis – was covered in different European countries, our approach intended to make a contribution to these debates.
Footnotes
Appendix 1
Content analysis coding options – frequencies according to political orientation of papers in the 10 European countries.
| Centre-left press (%) | Centre-right press (%) | |
|---|---|---|
| Causes of the Euro Crisis | ||
| National economic policies | 40.62 | 33.07 |
| Structure of the Euro system | 18.23 | 23.14 |
| Private financial actors’ misconduct | 14.71 | 18.61 |
| Political deficiencies | 15.35 | 14.01 |
| General economic conditions | 6.08 | 5.99 |
| Other | 3.73 | 3.87 |
| Central banks’ policies | 1.28 | 1.31 |
| Responsibility to solve the crisis | ||
| EU/Euro countries and institutions | 52.47 | 56.62 |
| Struggling countries themselves | 24.36 | 20.43 |
| Central banks | 10.04 | 7.94 |
| Countries without debt problems | 6.06 | 6.89 |
| Other | 4.46 | 4.92 |
| Private debt holders | 2.61 | 3.19 |
| Short-term solutions | ||
| Loans from Euro countries and ECB | 49.38 | 47.29 |
| Austerity measures | 23.00 | 21.07 |
| Other | 12.89 | 11.26 |
| Growth stimulus | 8.51 | 12.45 |
| Haircut | 6.23 | 7.93 |
| Long-term solutions | ||
| National structural reforms | 43.86 | 44.74 |
| More EU power | 31.34 | 30.35 |
| Other | 13.69 | 14.05 |
| Breaking up the Eurozone | 11.12 | 10.87 |
| Consequences of the Euro Crisis | ||
| Success/Eurozone preserved | 25.94 | 25.41 |
| Deeper integration/transfer of national sovereignty to European institutions | 24.42 | 20.91 |
| Other | 14.85 | 12.14 |
| Failure/countries with sovereign debt problems will drop the Euro finally | 12.41 | 14.99 |
| Final breakup of the Eurozone to more than one | 6.92 | 8.77 |
| Stronger and stable Euro | 6.92 | 5.17 |
| Establishment of an enduring transfer system to countries with sovereign debt problems | 6.61 | 9.15 |
| Europe wide inflation | 1.93 | 3.45 |
| Portrayal of the EU | ||
| The article portrays them as central to addressing the crisis | 41.91 | 33.92 |
| The article portrays them as ineffectual or confused in addressing the crisis | 30.57 | 35.45 |
| The article portrays them as strong and determined in addressing the crisis | 13.72 | 14.72 |
| The article portrays them as lacking capabilities to address the crisis | 9.37 | 10.37 |
| The article portrays them as insignificant in addressing the crisis | 3.04 | 3.95 |
| Other | 1.40 | 1.59 |
EU: European Union; ECB: European Central Bank.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article:The data used in this study was collected in the scope of a larger research funded by the John Fell OUP (Oxford University Press) Research Fund.Susana Salgado’s research work is currently sponsored by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (IF/01451/2014/CP1239/CT0004).