Personalization of political newspaper coverage: a longitudinal study in the Dutch context since 1950
Ellis Aizenberg, Wouter van Atteveldt, Chantal van Son, Franz-Xaver Geiger
VU University, Amsterdam
This study analyses whether personalization in Dutch political newspaper coverage has increased since 1950. In spite of the assumption that personalization increased over time in The Netherlands, earlier studies on this phenomenon in the Dutch context led to a scattered image. Through automatic and manual content analyses and regression analyses this study shows that personalization did increase in The Netherlands during the last century, the changes toward that increase however, occurred earlier on than expected at first. This study also shows that the focus of reporting on politics is increasingly put on the politician as an individual, the coverage in which these politicians are mentioned however became more substantive and politically relevant.
Keywords: Personalization, content analysis, political news coverage, individualization, privatization
Introduction
When personalization occurs a focus is put on politicians and party leaders as individuals. The context of the news coverage in which they are mentioned becomes more private as their love lives, upbringing, hobbies and characteristics of personal nature seem increasingly thoroughly discussed. An article published in 1984 in the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf forms a good example here, where a horse race betting event, which is attended by several ministers accompanied by their wives and girlfriends is carefully discussed[1]. Nowadays personalization is a much-discussed phenomenon in the field of political communication. It can simply be seen as: ‘a process in which the political weight of the individual actor in the political process increases over time, while the centrality of the political group declines’ (Rahat & Sheafer, 2007: p. 65). The process of personalization is part of a larger shift, in which the role of the media seems to change from being societally responsible to being profitable where journalists are increasingly concerned with what the public is interested in rather than what the publics’ interest should be (Underwood, 2001; Hanitzsch, 2007; Takens, 2012).
A report published in 2003 concludes that the press increasingly focuses on individual politicians and therefore turns away from substantive reporting (RMO, 2003). According to this study this process results in improperly informed citizens that are lacking political engagement causing an unhealthy democracy. Some scholars share this view and argue that the personalization of political newspaper coverage can cause damage to a healthy democracy as it puts focus on individual politicians and thus turns the attention away from parties, programs, policies and substantive issues (Van Aelst, 2012; Van Santen, 2012; Langer 2007). This process clashes with the normative requirements that a healthy democracy demands: it can damage the public debate and it could inhibit citizens from casting a well-informed vote (Takens, 2013; Van Aelst et al., 2012), which could form a problem according to some models of democracy and their associated requirements.
In spite of the assumption that personalization is a process that increases over time (Rahat & Sheafer, 2007; Hart, 1992), empirical findings illustrate a scattered image as empirical studies in several Western democracies showed no increase of personalization (Takens, 2012; Vliegenthart 2011; Wilke & Reinemann, 2001: Sigelman & Bullock, 1991), a few studies did show an increase of personalization (Wattenberg, 1998; Dalton et al., 2000) or presidentalization (Takens, 2012) and some studies show mixed results (e.g. Kriesi, 2011). Van Santen (2012) shows through a qualitative content analysis that personalization could be seen as a historical continuity in Dutch television. It is not a surprising fact that studies led to different results in different countries as trends that can lead to personalization do not per se occur (simultaneously) in every country. It is however rather interesting that scholars found differences in results when it comes to countries that are much alike and even found mixed results within one country: The Netherlands (Vliegenthart, 2011; Kriesi, 2011; Takens, 2012; Van Santen, 2012). According to Kepplinger (2002) and Vliegenthart (2011) these contradictory findings can be explained by the timeframes that were analyzed in these studies for two reasons. Firstly, as the fundamental changes toward that trend of personalization, such as the process of depillarization and the emerging competitive media market, occurred earlier on. Secondly, the larger shift of which personalization seems to be part has been identified as a slow process and can therefore be best analyzed over several decades.
Due to the scattered image that exists of personalized political newspaper coverage in The Netherlands that can be explained by the relatively short timeframes that were analyzed and the threat that personalization can be to a healthy democracy it is of importance to study personalization in the Dutch context while applying a broad timeframe. The research question of this paper is stated as follows:
RQ: Did the amount of personalized political newspaper coverage increase since 1950 in The Netherlands?
In this paper I will first shed light on the theory of personalization, where conceptualizations, explaining factors such as depillarization and the emerging competitive media market and existing literature on personalization will be discussed, which will lead to the hypotheses that are formulated. Then the newspaper data and methods of automatic and manual content analysis will be discussed. Subsequently the results of this study on the development of personalization since 1950 will be presented, interpreted and be put into their context together with the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. Following this paper will be concluded with a discussion including limitations and suggestions for future research.
Theory
Personalized political newspaper coverage
In the literature there does not seem to be a broad consensus on how personalization should be conceptualized. Personalization is often described as the relative attention for politicians compared to the total amount of attention for political parties in newspaper coverage (Wattenberg, 1998; Vliegenthart et al., 2011). What that attention comprises however is unclear (Van Santen, 2012) and therefore this conceptualization seems incomprehensive. In 2007 Rahat and Sheafer propose a more refined concept of personalization in which they distinguish between institutional personalization, media personalization and behavioral personalization. The first form claims that an emphasis is put on the individual politician by institutions and mechanisms. The second form relates to how politics is presented by the media. The authors refer to a change over time where a focus is placed on individual politicians and less attention is given to organizations and parties. The third type of personalization refers to politicians that increasingly participate in individual political activities rather than political party activities (Rahat & Sheafer, 2007). In the second form of personalization Rahat and Sheafer (2007) further differentiate between (media) personalization and privatization. Where personalization is related to activities and traits of the individual politician that are politically relevant and where privatization refers to activities and traits that are personal (Rahat & Sheafer, 2007). Langer (2007) also distinguishes between traits of individual politicians that are politically relevant and traits that are related to the personal life of a politician.
In 2012 Van Aelst and his colleagues propose a concept of personalized newspaper coverage in which they build on the following definition of media personalization: ‘a change in the presentation of politics in the media, as expressed in a heightened focus on individual politicians and a diminished focus on parties, organizations, and institutions’ (Rahat & Sheafer, 2007: p. 69). This concept will be followed in this paper. Van Aelst and colleagues differentiate between two types of personalization: individualization and privatization.
Individualization
Individualization refers to a change over time where there is a heightened focus on politicians as individuals in newspaper coverage rather than a focus on political parties. The first concept consists of two sub dimensions: general visibility and concentrated visibility.
The first sub dimension, general visibility, relates to a shift in focus on individual politicians rather than parties. The second sub dimension, concentrated visibility, refers to a shift in focus on political leaders (Van Aelst et al., 2012). This dimension can also be referred to as presidentialization (Van Santen, 2012; Takens, 2012; Langer, 2007; Kriesi, 2011). Langer (2007) further differentiates between the presidentialization of power and presidentialization of presentation where the former relates to a ‘shift in the distribution of power towards leaders’ and the latter refers to ‘the associated increase in leaders’ overall mediated visibility’ (Langer, 2007; p. 373).
Privatization
The second form of personalization, which is privatization, relates to a change over time where individual politicians are put in a more private context rather than in a context that is politically relevant and substantive. Privatization also consists of two sub dimensions where the authors distinguish between personal characteristics and personal life of the politician (Van Aelst et al., 2012). The former has also been identified by Langer (2007). She refers to this type of personalization as politicisation of private persona. The first concept, personal characteristics, can best be described as ‘a change from features regarding their professional competence and performance to features concerning personality traits related to their personal life’ (Adam & Maier, 2010: p. 216). The second concept, personal life, involves a shift toward a focus in media coverage on the personal life of the politician, where there is an increased focus on news about the family, upbringing, love life and leisure time of the politician (Van Aelst et al., 2012).
The rise of personalization: explaining factors
The applied definition of personalization of Rahat and Sheafer (2007) refers to a change in the presentation of politics in the media over time, that is: there is simply more of it today (Hart, 1992: p. 68). Therefore it can be argued that a shift in focus on individual politicians in newspaper coverage has taken place. There are two important interlinked factors that can explain the rise of personalized political newspaper coverage: the process of depillarization in The Netherlands and the changing media landscape.
First of all, the traditional ties between the press, voters and political parties have weakened. During the age of pillarization in the Netherlands between 1917 and 1967 (Lijphart, 1992), close ties used to exist between newspapers, political parties and its voters. As Hallin and Mancini (2004; p. 53) put it: ‘different subcommunities – Protestant, Catholic, Socialist, and Liberal – developed their own educational, cultural, social and political institutions – ranging from sports clubs to trade unions and political parties’. Lijphart (1990) describes the concept of pillarization as four closed groups with separate political parties, pressure groups and media outlets. There was no discourse between the four groups; the elites of the groups however did liaise with members from other groups. After 1960 when the process of depillarization took place these ties began to fade and a more general bond between newspapers, parties and the public started to arise (Van Kempen, 2007; Hallin & Mancini, 2004; Dalton et al., 2000). Lijphart (1990) argues that developments as secularization, ‘de-ideologising’ and the loosening of ties between pillarized organizations, such as political parties, pressure groups and media outlets are all part of the process of depillarization.
In the recent decades political scholars argue that the press has become an autonomous institution, which is independent and not tied to political parties (Cook, 1998; Schudson, 2002; Hallin & Mancini, 2004). A result of this development is the institutionalization of the media (Takens, 2012: Cook, 1998; Rahat & Sheafer, 2007). During the pillarization era, the news media used to function as instruments of parties to reach potential voters, this concept can be referred to as the instrumentalization of the media (Hallin & Mancini, 2004). When these ties began to weaken the press became a professional institution of its own, in service of the public interest.
However due to the second factor: the changing media landscape, the press started to determine its coverage based on the preferences of consumers rather than the interest of the public good (Brants & Van Praag, 2006; Takens, 2012; Van Aelst et al., 2012, McManus, 2009). Two aspects of the changing media landscape are of particular importance: firstly the growing role of television (Hart, 1992; Schudson, 2002; Van Aelst et al., 2012; Mazzoleni & Schulz, 1999; Adam & Maier, 2010) and secondly the emerging competitive media market (McManus, 2009; Takens, 2012). The former is of importance as television has the tendency to give more attention to personalities compared to parties because of its visual nature (Schudson, 2002). As Eide (1997: p. 179) puts it: ‘politicians in a way become human beings, while the voters become customers’. The latter could occur due to declining readership numbers (Bird & Dardenne, 2009) and declining numbers of paid journalists (McManus, 2009). In order to survive the competitive media market the press has to attract the attention of the public at all costs and is therefore addressing its readers, more than ever, as consumers rather than citizens where the press, among other things, increasingly focuses on personalities (Gans, 2009; Kriesi, 2011) as they ‘are available to serve as objects of general identification’ (Galtung & Ruge, 1965: p. 29) to the readers. It is also time and cost saving as it is easier to capture a news story about a person than an event (Galtung & Ruge, 1965).
As a result of the interconnecting factors above, not only a heightened focus on individual politicians in newspaper coverage emerged, but also parties, NGO’s and politicians had to adapt their strategies in order to generate coverage (Schudson, 2002; Meyer, 2002). As Cook (1989: p. 168) puts it: generating news coverage is a ‘crucial component of making laws’. This development might in turn contribute even more to the personalization of political newspaper coverage.
Effects of personalization on democracy: a normative perspective
The much-discussed topic and possible rise of personalization also brings along a normative discussion among scholars on personalization and its possible effects. In a healthy democracy, citizens, journalists and politicians are all expected to fulfill a certain role. It can be argued that the relationship between these three entities is somewhat symbiotic. To participate in a democracy, citizens need to be able to cast a well-informed vote. To do so the public needs information provided by journalists about current societal issues (Takens, 2013; Strömbäck, 2006). The press, in turn, needs citizens to subscribe to their newspapers and to pay heed to their coverage in order to attract and maintain advertisers. So as to attract readers and compete with other media outlets, journalists have to include scoops and newsworthy facts in their news stories. When reporting on politics, the press needs scoops that have to be provided by politicians. Politicians also benefit from this close relationship with the press, as they can reach their potential voters through these media outlets in order to generate votes (Takens, 2013; Strömbäck, 2006).