Downs Meets the Press: How Party Systems Shape the News
Downs Meets the Press: How Party Systems Shape the News
This chapter examines the validity of the “Downsian Premise,” which states that democratic multiparty systems tend to engender political coverage that is more diverse, more policy-centric, and more prone to challenge the government's policy line than coverage in two-party democracies. To test this proposition, the chapter conducts content analyses of international media coverage of four recent multinational conflicts (Kosovo 1999, Afghanistan 2001, Iraq 2003, and Libya 2011). Newspapers in countries with more political parties offered relatively more policy-oriented news, more criticism of government policy, and more varied topical coverage than their counterparts in countries with fewer parties. These results lend credence to the Downsian Premise.
Keywords: multiparty systems, democracies, media coverage, conflicts, Downsian Premise, government policy, newspapers
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