%0 Journal Article %J International Journal of Public Opinion Research %D 2024 %T Divining elections: Religious citizens’ political projections and electoral turnout in Israel and France %A Maximilian Overbeck %A Tali Aharoni %A Baden, Christian %A Freedman, Michael %A Tenenboim Weinblatt, Keren %X

How do religious citizens’ election projections influence voter turnout? While previous studies have demonstrated the significant impact of religious orientation on individuals’ general future outlook, little is known about the influence of religion on voters’ electoral expectations and how these expectations affect voter turnout. In this paper, we employ a nuanced conceptual framework of election projections and examine the impact of religion on both the affective and probabilistic aspects of citizens’ expectations regarding election outcomes. Our analysis draws upon original panel survey data collected in two countries, focusing on the 2021 Israeli general elections and the 2022 French presidential elections. The findings reveal a mobilizing effect of religious citizens’ election projections in both Israel and France. Specifically, religious voters tend to have more positive affective forecasts about their projected election outcomes, consequently resulting in increased voter turnout. While affective forecasting plays a significant role in religious citizens’ turnout, probabilistic certitude does not have a similar effect. We discuss the contribution and implications of these findings for research on religion and political behavior.

%B International Journal of Public Opinion Research %V 36 %G eng %U https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edae015 %N 2 %0 Journal Article %J Journal of the Royal Society of Statistics: Series A %D 2024 %T Evolutionary correspondence analysis of the semantic dynamics of frames %A Baden, Christian %A Motta, Giovanni %X

We introduce and implement a novel dimension-reduction method for high-dimensional time-varying contingency-tables: the Evolutionary Correspondence Analysis (ECA). ECA enables a comparative analysis of high-dimensional, diachronic processes by identifying a small number of shared latent variables that shape co-evolving data patterns. ECA offers new opportunities for the study of complex social phenomena, such as co-evolving public debates: Its capacity to inductively extract time-varying latent variables from observed contents of evolving debates permits an analysis of meanings shared by linked sub-discourses, such as linked national public spheres or the discourses led by distinct political camps within a shared public sphere. We illustrate the utility of our approach by studying how the Greek and German right-, centre-, and left-leaning news coverage of the European financial crisis evolved between its outbreak in 2009 until its institutional containment in 2012. Comparing the use of 525 unique concepts in six German and Greek outlets with different political leaning over an extended period of time, we identify two common factors accounting for those evolving meanings and analyse how the different sub-discourses influenced one another over time. We allow the factor loadings to be time-varying, and fit to the latent factors a time-varying vector-auto-regressive model with time-varying mean.

%B Journal of the Royal Society of Statistics: Series A %G eng %U https://academic.oup.com/jrsssa/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jrsssa/qnae022/7629098 %0 Journal Article %J Journal of Information Technology & Politics %D 2024 %T Digital media, democracy and civil society in Central and Eastern Europe %A Koc-Michalska, KarolIna %A Darren Lilleker %A Baden, Christian %A Damian Guzek %A Marton Bene %A Doroshenko, Larissa %A Miloš Gregor %A Marko Scoric %X

CEE countries faced significant political, economic, social, and technological transformations over the last four decades. Democratic processes, after relative stabilization, tremble again around polarizing values, populist leaders, or nationalistic ideologies. Online communication, especially social media platforms, play a vital role in shaping how citizens interact with the state, political actors, media, and other citizens. The collection of manuscripts focuses on some of the challenges democratic institutions in the region face, in transforming and sustaining civil society and attempts to capture how the digital media environments mitigate or exacerbate those challenges. Included manuscripts focus on the role that online platforms play in the satisfaction with democracy in the CEE region, the interactions between journalists and political actors, the strategic media coverage of elections, affective polarization and political antagonism, and discursive attempts to discourage young people from civic engagement.

 

%B Journal of Information Technology & Politics %V 21 %P 1-5 %G eng %U https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19331681.2023.2257012 %N 1 %0 Journal Article %J Computational Communication Research %D 2023 %T Introduction to the special issue on multilingual text analysis %A van der Velden, M. A. C. G %A Schoonvelde, Martijn %A Baden, Christian %B Computational Communication Research %V 5 %P 1-11 %G eng %U https://www.aup-online.com/content/journals/10.5117/CCR2023.2.1.VAND %N 2 %0 Journal Article %J Communication Methods & Measures %D 2023 %T Beyond sentiment: An algorithmic strategy for identifying evaluations within large text corpora %A Maximilian Overbeck %A Baden, Christian %A Tali Aharoni %A Amit-Danhi, Eedan R. %A Tenenboim Weinblatt, Keren %X

In this paper, we propose a new strategy for classifying evaluations in large text corpora, using supervised machine learning (SML). Departing from a conceptual and methodological critique of the use of sentiment measures to recognize object-specific evaluations, we argue that a key challenge consists in determining whether a semantic relationship exists between evaluative expressions and evaluated objects. Regarding sentiment terms as merely potentially evaluative expressions, we thus use a SML classifier to decide whether recognized terms have an evaluative function in relation to the evaluated object. We train and test our classifier on a corpus of 10,004 segments of election coverage from 16 major U.S. news outlets and Tweets by 10 prominent U.S. politicians and journalists. Specifically, we focus on evaluations of political predictions about the outcomes and implications of the 2016 and 2020 U.S. presidential elections. We show that our classifier consistently outperforms both off-the-shelf sentiment tools and a pre-trained transformer-based sentiment classifier. Critically, our classifier correctly discards numerous non-evaluative uses of common sentiment terms, whose inclusion in conventional analyses generates large amounts of false positives. We discuss contributions of our approach to the measurement of object-specific evaluations and highlight challenges for future research.

%B Communication Methods & Measures %G eng %U https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19312458.2023.2285783 %0 Journal Article %J Journalism Studies %D 2023 %T "You'd be right to indulge some skepticism". Trust-building strategies in future-oriented news discourse %A Tali Aharoni %A Amit-Danhi, Eedan R. %A Maximilian Overbeck %A Baden, Christian %A Keren Tenenboim-Weinblatt %X

This paper explores trust-building strategies in future-oriented news discourse, marked by a high degree of uncertainty. While current research mainly focuses on audiences’ perceptions of news credibility, this study addresses news trust from a production standpoint. We examine the trust-building efforts of media actors, focusing on their discursive labor within the context of election projections. Drawing on rich data from five election rounds in Israel and the US, we qualitatively analyzed 400 news texts and 400 tweets that were produced by 20 US and 20 Israeli media actors. This textual analysis was supplemented by 10 in-depth interviews with Israeli journalists. Our findings demonstrate three types of journalistic trust-building rhetoric in election coverage: facticity, authority, and transparency. These strategies result in a two-fold form of trust, which re-affirms traditional notions of accuracy and validity, while also challenging the ability of newspersons to obtain them in contemporary political and media cultures. Overall, these strategies hold unique opportunities and challenges for sustaining public trust in journalism and illuminate the complex communicative labor involved in building trust with news audiences. Our findings also highlight the importance of studying trust not only in relation to the past and the present, but also in future-oriented discourse.

%B Journalism Studies %V 24 %P 1651-1671 %G eng %U https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2023.2241086 %N 13 %0 Journal Article %J Studies in Communication and Media %D 2023 %T Meaning multiplicity and valid disagreement in textual measurement: A plea for a revised notion of reliability %A Baden, Christian %A Boxman-Shabtai, Lillian %A Keren Tenenboim-Weinblatt %A Maximilian Overbeck %A Tali Aharoni %X

In quantitative content analysis, conventional wisdom holds that reliability, operationalized as agreement, is a necessary precondition for validity. Underlying this view is the assumption that there is a definite, unique way to correctly classify any instance of a measured variable. In this intervention, we argue that there are textual ambiguities that cause disagreement in classification that is not measurement error, but reflects true properties of the classified text. We introduce a notion of valid disagreement, a form of replicable disagreement that must be distinguished from replication failures that threaten reliability. We distinguish three key forms of meaning multiplicity that result in valid disagreement – ambiguity due to under-specification, polysemy due to excessive information, and interchangeability of classification choices – that are widespread in textual analysis, yet defy treatment within the confines of the existing content-analytic toolbox. Discussing implications, we present strategies for addressing valid disagreement in content analysis.

%B Studies in Communication and Media %V 12 %P 305-326 %G eng %N 4 %0 Book Section %B Challenges and Perspectives of Hate Speech Research %D 2023 %T Evasive offenses: Linguistic limits to the detection of hate speech %A Baden, Christian %E Christian Strippel %E Sünje Paasch-Colberg %E Martin Emmer %E Joachim Trebbe %X

As long as we have attempted to sanction untoward speech, others have devised strategies for expressing themselves while dodging such sanctions. In this intervention, I review the arms race between technological filters designed to curb hate speech, and evasive language practices designed to avoid detection by these filters. I argue that, following important advances in the detection of relatively overt uses of hate speech, further advances will need to address hate speech that relies on culturally or situationally available context knowledge and linguistic ambiguities to convey its intended offenses. Resolving such forms of hate speech not only poses increasingly unreasonable demands on available data and technologies, but does so for limited, uncertain gains, as many evasive uses of language effectively defy unique valid classification.

%B Challenges and Perspectives of Hate Speech Research %I Digital Communication Research %P 319–332 %G eng %U https://www.digitalcommunicationresearch.de/v12/baden/ %0 Book Section %B The Elections in Israel, 2019–2021 %D 2022 %T Persistent optimism under political uncertainty: The evolution of citizens’ political projections in repeated elections %A Tenenboim Weinblatt, Keren %A Baden, Christian %A Tali Aharoni %A Maximilian Overbeck %E Michal Shamir %E Rahat, Gideon %B The Elections in Israel, 2019–2021 %I Routledge %G eng %U https://www.routledge.com/The-Elections-in-Israel-20192021/Shamir-Rahat/p/book/9781032213392 %0 Journal Article %J International Journal of Qualitative Methods %D 2022 %T Serial focus groups: A longitudinal design for studying interactive discourse %A Baden, Christian %A Pasitselska, Olga %A Tali Aharoni %A Tenenboim Weinblatt, Keren %X

 

Focus group methods specialize in the analysis of interactive discourse, but are only rarely employed as a stand-alone method to study such phenomena, owing to inherent limitations concerning the comparability and generalizability of findings. In this paper, we argue that focus groups undergo three kinds of transformations, involving changes in participants’ cognitive states, social ties, and discursive behavior, which raise both analytic challenges and valuable opportunities for the study of shared meanings and interactive negotiation processes in society. Introducing Serial Focus Groups, we extend familiar focus group designs as a method for studying interactive discourse in a longitudinal perspective, capitalizing on the analytic potentials raised by these transformations. Reviewing the methodological literature and drawing upon two large-scale focus group studies of socially interactive sense-making, we argue that serial focus groups can help overcome some of the limitations of cross-sectional focus groups and offer valuable new opportunities for analysis and validation.

 

%B International Journal of Qualitative Methods %G eng %U http://doi.org/10.1177/16094069221118766 %0 Journal Article %J Human Communication Research %D 2022 %T Affective forecasting in elections: A socio-communicative perspective %A Keren Tenenboim-Weinblatt %A Baden, Christian %A Tali Aharoni %A Maximilian Overbeck %X

In orienting themselves to the future, people form expectations not only on what will happen but also on how they will feel about possible future occurrences. So far, such affective forecasting – the prediction of future feelings – has been studied mainly from a psychological perspective. This study aims to show the importance of a socio-communicative perspective for understanding the predictors, manifestations, and consequences of affective forecasting, especially when collective futures are at stake. Using the case study of the 2019-2021 Israeli elections and a combination of a twelve-wave survey and twenty-five focus groups, we show how political affective forecasts are associated with socio-communicative factors, are used in social interactions, and drive political polarization and participation. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our findings for future research on affective forecasting in communication studies.

%B Human Communication Research %G eng %U https://doi.org/10.1093/hcr/hqac007 %0 Journal Article %J Communication Methods & Measures %D 2021 %T Three gaps in computational text analysis methods for social sciences: A research agenda %A Baden, Christian %A Pipal, Christian %A Schoonvelde, Martijn %A van der Velden, Mariken A. C. G. %X

We identify three gaps that limit the utility and obstruct the progress of computational text analysis methods (CTAM) for social science research. First, we contend that CTAM development has prioritized technological over validity concerns, giving limited attention to the operationalization of social scientific measurements. Second, we identify a mismatch between CTAMs’ focus on extracting specific contents and document-level patterns, and social science researchers’ need for measuring multiple, often complex contents in the text. Third, we argue that the dominance of English language tools depresses comparative research and inclusivity toward scholarly communities examining languages other than English. We substantiate our claims by drawing upon a broad review of methodological work in the computational social sciences, as well as an inventory of leading research publications using quantitative textual analysis. Subsequently, we discuss implications of these three gaps for social scientists’ uneven uptake of CTAM, as well as the field of computational social science text research as a whole. Finally, we propose a research agenda intended to bridge the identified gaps and improve the validity, utility, and inclusiveness of CTAM.

%B Communication Methods & Measures %V 16 %P 1-18 %G eng %U https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19312458.2021.2015574 %N 1 %0 Journal Article %J Communication Methods & Measures %D 2021 %T Machine translation vs. multilingual dictionaries: Assessing two strategies for the topic modeling of multilingual text collections %A Maier, Daniel %A Baden, Christian %A Stoltenberg, Daniela %A De Vries-Kedem, Maya %A Waldherr, Annie %X

The goal of this paper is to evaluate two methods for the topic modeling of multilingual document collections: (1) machine translation (MT), and (2) the coding of semantic concepts using a multilingual dictionary (MD) prior to topic modeling. We empirically assess the consequences of these approaches based on both a quantitative comparison of models and a qualitative validation of each method’s comparative potentials and weaknesses. Our case study uses two text collections (of tweets and news articles) in three languages (English, Hebrew, Arabic), covering the ongoing local conflicts between Israeli authorities, settlers and Palestinian Bedouins in the West Bank. We find that both methods produce a large share of equivalent topics, especially in the context of fairly regular news discourse, yet show limited but systematic differences when applied to highly variable social media discourse. While the MD model delivers a more nuanced picture of conflict-related topics, it misses several more peripheral topics, especially those unrelated to the dictionary’s focus, which are picked up by the MT model. Our study is a first step towards instrument validation, indicating that both methods yield valid, comparable results, while method-specific differences remain.

%B Communication Methods & Measures %V 16 %P 19-38 %G eng %U https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19312458.2021.1955845 %N 1 %0 Journal Article %J International Journal of Comparative Sociology %D 2021 %T The memories of others: How leaders import collective memories in political speech %A Adams, Tracy %A Baden, Christian %X

Owing to the increasing presence of globalized communication and the accelerated exchange of cultural products, there is a consensus that collective memories transcend their original contexts. We investigate how imported memories are recruited in political speech to render meaning relevant to domestic publics. Based on a qualitative comparative long-term analysis of speeches held by heads of state in the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, and Germany (1945–2018), we identify three ways in which memories are imported into new settings. Findings show that memories are not imported as meaningful wholes, but arranged selectively and recontextualized, confining their role to supporting predetermined domestic agendas. While the progressing transnationalization may have expanded the repertoire of memories available for public sense-making, the use of memories remains firmly rooted within the national context.

%B International Journal of Comparative Sociology %V 61 %P 310-330 %G eng %U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0020715220983391 %N 5 %0 Journal Article %J Communication Theory %D 2021 %T Blinded by the lies? Toward an integrated definition of conspiracy theories %A Baden, Christian %A Tzlil Sharon %X

Despite widespread concern over the alleged rise of conspiracy theories, scholars continue to disagree whether it is possible to distinguish specific kinds of conspiracist accounts that can justifiably be denounced as objectionable. In this article, we review scholarship from multiple disciplines to develop a composite definition of “conspiracy theories proper” (CTP) that violate fundamental norms of democratic discourse. Besides referring to grand conspiracies to account for social phenomena, we argue, such conspiracy theories: (a) assume conspirators’ pervasive control over events and information, (b) construct dissent as a Manichean binary, and (c) employ an elusive, dogmatic epistemology. We discuss the operational potential and limitations of our definition using news user talkbacks on the U.S., British and German online editions of Russia Today (RT), a popular platform among proponents of out-of-mainstream political views. Identifying key operational challenges in the classification of natural discourse, we sketch avenues toward a more rigorous study of contentious political talk.

%B Communication Theory %V 31 %P 82-106 %G eng %U https://doi.org/10.1093/ct/qtaa023 %N 1 %0 Journal Article %J Political Communication %D 2021 %T Political polarization on the digital sphere: A cross-platform, over-time analysis of interactional, positional, and affective polarization on social media %A Yarchi, Moran %A Baden, Christian %A Neta Kligler-Vilenchik %X

Political polarization on the digital sphere poses a real challenge to many democracies around the world. Although the issue has received some scholarly attention, there is a need to improve the conceptual precision in the increasingly blurry debate. The use of computational communication science approaches allows us to track political conversations in a fine-grained manner within their natural settings – the realm of interactive social media. The present study combines different algorithmic approaches to studying social media data in order to capture both the interactional structure and content of dynamic political talk online. We conducted an analysis of political polarization across social media platforms (analyzing Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp) over 16 months, with close to a quarter million online contributions regarding a political controversy in Israel. Our comprehensive measurement of interactive political talk enables us to address three key aspects of political polarization: (1) interactional polarization – homophilic versus heterophilic user interactions; (2) positional polarization – the positions expressed, and (3) affective polarization – the emotions and attitudes expressed. Our findings indicate that political polarization on social media cannot be conceptualized as a unified phenomenon, as there are significant cross-platform differences. While interactions on Twitter largely conform to established expectations (homophilic interaction patterns, aggravating positional polarization, pronounced inter-group hostility), on WhatsApp, de-polarization occurred over time. Surprisingly, Facebook was found to be the least homophilic platform in terms of interactions, positions, and emotions expressed. Our analysis points to key conceptual distinctions and raises important questions about the drivers and dynamics of political polarization online.

%B Political Communication %V 38 %P 98-139 %G eng %U https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10584609.2020.1785067 %N 1-2 %0 Journal Article %J Dagstuhl Manifestos %D 2021 %T Diversity in News Recommendations %A Bernstein, Avraham %A de Vreese, Claes H. %A Helberger, Natali %A Schulz, Wolfgang %A Zweig, Katharina %A Baden, Christian %A Beam, Michael A. %A Hauer, Marc P. %A Heitz, Lucien %A Jürgens, Pascal %A Katzenbach, Christian %A Kille, Benjamin %A Klimkiewicz, Beate %A Loosen, Wiebke %A Moeller, Judith %A Radanovic, Goran %A Shani, Guy %A Tintarev, Nava %A Tolmeijer, Suzanne %A Van Atteveldt, Wouter %A Vrijenhoek, Sanne %A Zueger, Theresa %X

News diversity in the media has for a long time been a foundational and uncontested basis for ensuring that the communicative needs of individuals and society at large are met. Today, people increasingly rely on online content and recommender systems to consume information challenging the traditional concept of news diversity. In addition, the very concept of diversity, which differs between disciplines, will need to be re-evaluated requiring a interdisciplinary investigation, which requires a new level of mutual cooperation between computer scientists, social scientists, and legal scholars. Based on the outcome of a multidisciplinary workshop, we have the following recommendations, directed at researchers, funders, legislators, regulators, and the media industry: 1. Do more research on news recommenders and diversity. 2. Create a safe harbor for academic research with industry data. 3. Optimize the role of public values in news recommenders. 4. Create a meaningful governance framework. 5. Fund a joint lab to spearhead the needed interdisciplinary research, boost practical innovation, develop. reference solutions, and transfer insights into practice.

%B Dagstuhl Manifestos %V 9 %P 43-61 %G eng %U https://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2021/13745/ %N 1 %0 Journal Article %J Communication Research %D 2021 %T Gendered communication styles in the news: An algorithmic comparative study of conflict coverage %A Keren Tenenboim-Weinblatt %A Baden, Christian %X

Over the past few decades, numerous studies have examined the question of whether women and men tend to use different communicative styles, strategies, and practices. In this study, we employed a high-resolution algorithmic approach to examine the role of gender in structuring conflict news discourse, focusing on a comparison between the texts produced by foreign and domestic women and men journalists in their coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Extracting recurrent semantic patterns from over 80,000 texts, we show that women and men journalists tend to interpret journalistic professionalism in slightly different ways: While women emphasize precision and professional distance, men focus more on certitude and providing orientation. Moreover, women journalists tend to give more centrality to various groups of people in their coverage. We discuss these findings in the context of scholarship on gender and language use, journalism, and conflict.

%B Communication Research %V 48 %P 233-256 %G eng %U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0093650218815383 %N 2 %0 Journal Article %J Journalism %D 2020 %T Dynamics of (dis)trust between the news media and their audience: The case of the April 2019 Israeli exit polls %A Tali Aharoni %A Keren Tenenboim-Weinblatt %A Baden, Christian %A Maximilian Overbeck %X

This paper explores the dynamics of (dis)trust among experts, journalists, and audiences through the case study of an inaccurate exit poll aired on a leading Israeli television channel. It combines empirical data from the Israeli April 2019 elections with a conceptual view of exit polls as both sources of information and national rituals to address public discourse on the polls and its underlying suspicions. A multi-method approach yielded a corpus consisting of focus groups meetings with citizens, in-depth semi-structured interviews with journalists, pollsters and experts, and qualitative textual analysis of news reports. Using inductive-qualitative analysis, we identified three types of public narratives, each casting blame for the erroneous exit poll projection on a different type of actor. The statistical and biased-media narratives tally with declining trust in the news media and assume misbehavior by pollsters and news creators respectively. The deception narrative, on the other hand, suggests that right-wing voters systematically sabotaged the exit poll projections. By extending trust beyond journalistic information, this narrative foregrounds the cultural meaning of election night rituals. Taken together, the narratives found in this study delineate (dis)trust as an interplay of active participants in the creation, reception, and interpretation of news. Our findings thus touch upon key attitudes towards both media and democracy and have implications for further studies on collective rituals and information evaluations in an era of eroding trust.

%B Journalism %V 23 %P 337–353 %G eng %U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1464884920978105 %N 2 %0 Journal Article %J Journalism Studies %D 2020 %T Maintenance of news frames: How US, British and Russian news made sense of unfolding events in the Syrian chemical weapons crisis %A Baden, Christian %A Stalpouskaya, Katsiaryna %X

Frames are indispensable tools for journalists to make sense of unfolding events, but they also constrain their perspective to most readily see what they expect to see. In this study, we examine how pre-established news frames continue to inform journalists’ framing practices despite the ongoing arrival of novel, often contravening information. Specifically, we argue that dominant frames rooted in pre-existing cultural perceptions and strategic elite frame building have the capacity to overpower an open-minded appraisal of available information. In a qualitative, diachronic analysis of US, British and Russian news coverage of the 2013 Syrian Chemical Weapons crisis, we analyze journalists’ strategies for negotiating between pre-established news frames and novel, discrepant claims and observations. We find that most claims that directly contravened existing frames were either ignored or discounted by questioning the credibility of sources. By contrast, unforeseen events effectively challenged the predictive validity of dominant frames, necessitating adaptations with often far-reaching consequences for the frame. Observed patterns were consistent across outlets, despite the different journalistic cultures and embedding media systems and political settings. Our findings illuminate the important role of journalists’ pre-established ideas, which shape their news selection and framing practices, contributing to the maintenance of existing news narratives.

Frames are indispensable tools for journalists to make sense of unfolding events, but they also constrain their perspective to most readily see what they expect to see. In this study, we examine how pre-established news frames continue to inform journalists’ framing practices despite the ongoing arrival of novel, often contravening information. Specifically, we argue that dominant frames rooted in pre-existing cultural perceptions and strategic elite frame building have the capacity to overpower an open-minded appraisal of available information. In a qualitative, diachronic analysis of US, British and Russian news coverage of the 2013 Syrian Chemical Weapons crisis, we analyze journalists’ strategies for negotiating between pre-established news frames and novel, discrepant claims and observations. We find that most claims that directly contravened existing frames were either ignored or discounted by questioning the credibility of sources. By contrast, unforeseen events effectively challenged the predictive validity of dominant frames, necessitating adaptations with often far-reaching consequences for the frame. Observed patterns were consistent across outlets, despite the different journalistic cultures and embedding media systems and political settings. Our findings illuminate the important role of journalists’ pre-established ideas, which shape their news selection and framing practices, contributing to the maintenance of existing news narratives.

 

%B Journalism Studies %V 21 %P 2305-2325 %G eng %U https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1461670X.2020.1843066 %N 16 %0 Journal Article %J Communication Methods & Measures %D 2020 %T Hybrid content analysis: Toward a strategy for the theory-driven, computer-assisted classification of large text corpora. %A Baden, Christian %A Neta Kligler-Vilenchik %A Yarchi, Moran %X

Given the scale of digital communication, researchers face a painful trade-off between powerful, scalable computational strategies, and the theoretical sensitivity offered by small-scale manual analyses. Especially in the study of natural discourse on digital media, the interactive, ever-evolving stream of conversations across multiple platforms regularly defies efforts to obtain well-defined samples of manageable size, while their linguistic variability imposes major limitations upon the accuracy of automated tools. In this paper, we draw upon recent advances in computational text analysis to develop a hybrid approach to the deductive analysis of large-scale digital discourse, which combines the algorithmic extraction of coherent, recurrent patterns with a manual coding of identified patterns. The approach scales up to treat millions of texts at minimal added human effort, while affording researchers close control over the process of theory-guided classification. We demonstrate the power of Hybrid Content Analysis by studying polarization in a quarter of a million contributions from cross-platform interactive social media discourse about a controversial incident.

%B Communication Methods & Measures %V 14 %P 165-183 %G eng %U https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19312458.2020.1803247 %N 3 %0 Journal Article %J Social Media + Society %D 2020 %T Interpretative polarization across platforms: How political disagreement develops over time on Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp %A Neta Kligler-Vilenchik %A Baden, Christian %A Yarchi, Moran %X

Political polarization, seen as a key threat to contemporary democracy, has been tied to the rise of digital social media. However, how this process develops in the context of a social media environment characterized by multiple platforms—with differing norms, contents, and affordances—has not been sufficiently explored. In the present article, we propose a distinction between positional polarization, that is, people’s view on a political issue, and interpretative polarization, that is, how that political issue is contextualized and understood. We use this distinction to examine an issue of political controversy in Israel, examining how polarization develops over time, on three social media platforms—Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp. We find that contrasting positions are strongly connected to conflicting interpretations, both of which are clear from the start, with only minor overtime shifts. Moreover, while sharing broad similarities, the three platforms show a few distinctive polarization dynamics—both positional and interpretative—that can be connected to their varied socio-technical affordances. The study advances our theoretical understanding of polarization by examining how different social media platforms may shape distinct polarization dynamics over time, with different implications for democratic debate.

%B Social Media + Society %V 6 %G eng %U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2056305120944393 %N 3 %0 Journal Article %J The Journal of Language and Politics %D 2020 %T Who are ‘the people’? Uses of empty signifiers in propagandistic news discourse %A Pasitselska, Olga %A Baden, Christian %X

 

As expressions without clear definition but with strong normative charging, empty signifiers play an important role in political discourse: Uniting diverse populations under a common banner and endowing political demands with self-evident legitimacy, they constitute a potent tool for rallying support for political action. Among empty signifiers, one particularly versatile construct are ‘the people’ as bearers of ultimate political legitimacy. In this paper, we investigate how ‘the people’ are constructed in propagandistic conflict narratives during the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, imbuing the concept with different meanings in the pursuit of competing political ends. We show how ‘the people’ are constructed as democratic sovereign, enduring nation, moral humans or dispersed media publics, each time summoning different kinds of legitimacy and using different strategies to construct encompassing consensus and marginalize dissent. We discuss implications for the study of ideological discourse, populism and political communication.

 

%B The Journal of Language and Politics %V 19 %P 666-690 %G eng %U https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/jlp.19057.pas %N 4 %0 Journal Article %J Information, Communication & Society %D 2020 %T Reframing community boundaries: The erosive power of new media spaces in authoritarian societies. %A David, Yossi %A Baden, Christian %X

This study examines the role of digital media within the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Israel, a conservative closed community, whose leadership is unable or unwilling to control the effects of digital media on the rank-and-file. Over the past decade, digital media have played an important role for challenging authoritarian rule around the globe. Especially in ideological communities sustained by strict taboos, digital media hold the potential to subvert hegemonic discourses. In this study, we make use of an incident that forced Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox community to address its long-standing taboo and hateful attitudes toward LGBT and Queer issues. In July 2015, an Ultra-Orthodox community member attacked participants of the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade, murdering one and wounding six. While traditional community media attempted to ignore the event, two major Ultra-Orthodox news websites fell outside the control exercised by the community leadership, and enabled subversive discussions within the Ultra-Orthodox community. Through a process of negotiating the meaning of the attack, these discussions resulted in a reframing of the boundaries of the community, breaking a path for further contestation and debate. Using grounded theory analysis, this article contributes to a better understanding of the role of digital media in enabling contestation and challenging established power structures within authoritarian closed communities.

This study examines the role of digital media within the Ultra-Orthodox Jewish community in Israel, a conservative closed community, whose leadership is unable or unwilling to control the effects of digital media on the rank-and-file. Over the past decade, digital media have played an important role for challenging authoritarian rule around the globe. Especially in ideological communities sustained by strict taboos, digital media hold the potential to subvert hegemonic discourses. In this study, we make use of an incident that forced Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox community to address its long-standing taboo and hateful attitudes toward LGBT and Queer issues. In July 2015, an Ultra-Orthodox community member attacked participants of the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade, murdering one and wounding six. While traditional community media attempted to ignore the event, two major Ultra-Orthodox news websites fell outside the control exercised by the community leadership, and enabled subversive discussions within the Ultra-Orthodox community. Through a process of negotiating the meaning of the attack, these discussions resulted in a reframing of the boundaries of the community, breaking a path for further contestation and debate. Using grounded theory analysis, this article contributes to a better understanding of the role of digital media in enabling contestation and challenging established power structures within authoritarian closed communities.

 

%B Information, Communication & Society %V 23 %P 110-127 %G eng %U https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369118X.2018.1486869 %N 1 %0 Book Section %B The Handbook of Journalism Studies %D 2019 %T Framing the news %A Baden, Christian %E Karin Wahl- Jorgensen %E Hanitzsch, Thomas %X

This chapter reviews the ample scholarship on framing the news in light of what it can contribute to understanding the specific role and contribution of journalists. Journalists are framers. Within the journalistic news production process, one of the key decisions that every journalist needs to make time and again concerns what “aspects of a perceived reality” to foreground; what “connection among them” to weave; and thus what meaning to provide “to an unfolding strip of events”. In academic scholarship, the framing of journalistic news has also received an immense amount of attention. One difficulty in assessing the role of journalism within this public process of negotiating frames derives from the relative scarcity of research directly addressing journalistic framing practices. Owing to the power of news frames to shape public opinion and political agendas, scholars have accumulated a huge body of literature scrutinizing the specific frames used for covering virtually any kind of issue.

%B The Handbook of Journalism Studies %7 2nd %I Routledge %P 229-245 %G eng %U https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315167497/chapters/10.4324/9781315167497-15 %0 Book Section %B Media in war and armed conflict: Dynamics of conflict news production and dissemination %D 2018 %T Not so bad news? Investigating journalism’s contribution to what is bad, and good, in news on violent conflict %A Baden, Christian %A Keren Tenenboim-Weinblatt %E Fröhlich, Romy %B Media in war and armed conflict: Dynamics of conflict news production and dissemination %I Routledge %P 51-75 %G eng %0 Book Section %B Media in war and armed conflict: Dynamics of conflict news production and dissemination %D 2018 %T Dissecting media roles in conflict: A transactionist process model of conflict news production, dissemination, and influence %A Baden, Christian %A Meyer, Christoph O. %E Fröhlich, Romy %B Media in war and armed conflict: Dynamics of conflict news production and dissemination %I Routledge %P 23-48 %G eng %0 Journal Article %J Media, Culture & Society %D 2018 %T On Resonance: A study of culture-dependent reinterpretations of extremist violence in Israeli media discourse %A Baden, Christian %A David, Yossi %X

When and why do communities accept novel ideas as intuitively convincing? In the present study, we make use of the socio-cultural fragmentation of Israeli society to expose the discursive processes shaping the culture-dependent resonance of ideas. Specifically, we trace how Israeli president Reuven Rivlin’s interpretation of two lethal attacks by Jewish extremists on a Palestinian family and the Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade were received across Israel’s ultra-orthodox, settler, LGBT and Palestinian communities, as well as the mainstream right, center, and left. In a comparative analysis of media coverage catering to these groups, we distinguish six discursive responses to proposed ideas, which depend on their perception as plausible and appropriate given prior community beliefs. Our findings suggest a distinction between two possible meanings of resonance: Some ideas ‘click’ and are seamlessly appropriated in passing by a community, while others ‘strike a chord’ and raise a salient and emotional public debate.

%B Media, Culture & Society %V 40 %P 514-534 %8 2017 %G eng %U http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0163443717734404 %N 4 %0 Journal Article %J Media, War & Conflict %D 2018 %T Navigating the complexities of media roles in conflict: The INFOCORE approach %A Meyer, Christoph O. %A Baden, Christian %A Frère, Marie-Soleil %X

The article draws on the first findings of the INFOCORE project to better understand the ways in which different types of media matter to the emergence, escalation or, conversely, the pacification and prevention of violence. The authors make the case for combining an interactionist approach of media influence, which is centred on the effects of evidential claims, frames and agendas made by various actors over time, with greater sensitivity for the factors that make conflict cases so different. They argue that the specific role played by the media depends, chiefly: (a) on the ways in which it transforms conflict actors’ claims, interpretations and prescriptions into media content; and (b) their ability to amplify these contents and endow them with reach, visibility and consonance. They found significant variation in media roles across six conflict cases and suggest that they are best explained four interlocking conditioning factors: (i) the degree to which the media landscape is diverse and free, or conversely, controlled and instrumentalized by conflict parties; (ii) societal attitudes to and uses of different media by audiences; (iii) different degrees of conflict intensity and dynamics between the conflict parties; (iv) the degree and nature of the involvement of regional and international actors. The article maintains that de-escalatory media influence will be most effective over the longer term, in settings of low intensity conflict and when tailored carefully to local conditions.

%B Media, War & Conflict %V 11 %P 3-21 %8 2018 %G eng %U http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1750635217719754 %N 1 %0 Book Section %B Doing news framing analysis II: Empirical and theoretical perspectives %D 2018 %T Reconstructing frames from intertextual news discourse: A semantic network approach to news framing analysis %A Baden, Christian %E Paul D'Angelo %X

News items rarely stand by themselves. In order to grasp their meaning, news audiences need to interpret the news against a background of rich contextual knowledge, much of which is derived from previous news discourse. Accordingly, news frames can be understood as intertextual leads that guide audiences to contextualize events in specific ways, referring selectively to familiar entities and ideas and embedding present news items within the context of ongoing news stories, debates and issues. In this chapter, I propose an approach to news framing analysis that acknowledges the many ways in which news frames transgress the boundaries of single news items, spanning an intertextual network. I show how a corpus of prior news can be used to go beyond the manifest news content and explicate the additional knowledge imported by intertextual framing devices. By bringing together textual, cultural, and psychological perspectives upon framing, I develop strategies for determining how audiences complete the missing information needed for constructing meaningful news frames, and discuss avenues for the treatment of subjectivity in framing research.

%B Doing news framing analysis II: Empirical and theoretical perspectives %I Routledge %C London %P 3-26 %8 2018 %G eng %U https://www.routledge.com/Doing-News-Framing-Analysis-II-Empirical-and-Theoretical-Perspectives/DAngelo/p/book/9781138188556 %0 Journal Article %J Media, War & Conflict %D 2018 %T The search for common ground in conflict news research: Comparing the coverage of six current conflicts in domestic and international media over time %A Baden, Christian %A Keren Tenenboim-Weinblatt %X

In its search for media influences in violent conflict, most existing scholarship has investigated the coverage of specific, salient conflict events. Media have been shown to focus on violence, sidelining concerns of reconciliation and disengaging rapidly as time proceeds. Studies have documented ethnocentric bias and self-reinforcing media hypes, which have been linked to escalation and radicalization. However, based on the existing studies, it remains hard to gauge if the unearthed patterns of media coverage are generally pervasive or limited to a few salient moments, specific conflicts or contexts. Likewise, we cannot say if different kinds of media apply similar styles of conflict coverage, or if their coverage is subject to specific contextual or outlet-specific factors. In this article, the authors compare the contents of both domestic and foreign opinion-leading media coverage across six selected conflicts over a time range of 4 to 10 years. They conduct a diachronic, comparative analysis of 3,700 semantic concepts raised in almost 900,000 news texts from 66 different news media. Based on this analysis, they trace when and to what extent each outlet focuses its attention on the conflict, highlights specific aspects (notably, violence and suffering, negotiations and peaceful solutions), and presents relevant in- and out-groups, applying different kinds of evaluation. The analysis generally corroborates the media’s tendency to cover conflict in an event-oriented, violence-focused and ethnocentric manner, both during routine periods and – exacerbated merely by degrees – during major escalation. At the same time, the analysis highlights important differences in the strength and appearance of these patterns, and points to recurrent contingencies that can be tied to the specific contextual factors and general journalistic logics shaping the coverage.

%B Media, War & Conflict %V 11 %P 22-45 %G eng %U http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1750635217702071 %N 1 %0 Journal Article %J Journalism %D 2018 %T Journalistic transformation: How source texts are turned into news stories %A Keren Tenenboim-Weinblatt %A Baden, Christian %X

In the scholarly debate, ideals of original reporting are commonly contrasted against the churnalistic reproduction of source content. However, most news making lies between these poles: Journalists rely on but transform the available source material, renegotiating its original meaning. In this article, we define journalistic transformation as those interventions journalists make in their use of third-party textual material in the pursuit of crafting a news story. Journalists (1) select contents from available source texts, (2) position these contents, (3) augment them with further information, and (4) arrange all to craft characteristic news narratives. To investigate journalistic transformation practices, we compare source materials used in the news (e.g. press releases, speeches) to the resulting Israeli, Palestinian, and international coverage of the abduction and murder of four youths in summer 2014. We identify five kinds of journalistic transformation – evaluative, political, cultural, emotive, and professional – each of which actualizes a different journalistic function and contributes to rendering the news relevant to the respective audiences in distinct ways.

%B Journalism %I SAGE Publications %V 19 %P 481-499 %G eng %U http://jou.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/09/03/1464884916667873 %N 4 %0 Journal Article %J Journalism Studies %D 2018 %T Viewpoint, Testimony, Action: How journalists reposition source frames within news frames %A Baden, Christian %A Keren Tenenboim-Weinblatt %X

In the production of news, the frames presented by selected sources play a critical role. However, to create coherent, authoritative, and relevant news stories from the selected input, journalists need to actively transform the available material and fit it within a journalistic news frame. In our study, we investigate how Israeli, Palestinian, and foreign (US, UK, German) newspapers made use of highly salient source statements in their coverage of the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli and one Palestinian teenager in summer 2014. Performing a qualitative analysis, we identify three characteristic ways in which journalists reposition selected sources’ frames within their coverage: journalists can rely on selected source frames to present specific, subjective viewpoints; they can present multiple source frames as testimonies about newsworthy events; and they can interpret them as communicative actions in sources’ struggle for recognition in the public arena. Each strategy contributes to the construction of a different, broad class of news frames, reflecting different journalistic styles and norms. We discuss implications for the study of news frames and the different roles of political sources within the news.

%B Journalism Studies %I Routledge %V 19 %P 143-161 %G eng %U http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1461670X.2016.1161495 %N 1 %0 Book Section %B The International Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods %D 2017 %T Description and Explanation %A Baden, Christian %E Matthes, Jörg %X

Scientific description is a systematic effort to selectively represent a complex reality in order to highlight patterns and specific phenomena that can be subjected to scientific explanation. Specific representations enable different kinds of explanations. An explanation consists of a demonstration that a set of conditions is present for which there is a rule predicting that the explained phenomenon should follow, and a theoretical account that elucidates why these conditions are sufficient. The conditions and rules sustaining the explanation can themselves be described and explained, resulting in substantial overlap between description and explanation.

%B The International Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods %I Wiley %G eng %U http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118901731.iecrm0065/abstract %0 Book Section %B The International Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods %D 2017 %T Frame Analysis %A David, Clarissa C. %A Baden, Christian %E Matthes, Jörg %X

 

Frames are “central organizing ideas” that provide context, structure, and meaning to information, facilitating a specific interpretation of an issue. Counting among the most popular ideas in communication study in recent years, variants of frame analysis have developed within a variety of disciplines inside and outside of communication. Methodologically, qualitative as well as quantitative approaches to frame analysis can be organized along three dimensions: their capture of latent versus manifest meanings, their adherence to inductive versus deductive processes, and their focus on generic or issue-specific frames. Increasing numbers of studies using frame analytic techniques have resulted in a contested and fragmented set of methods, the most influential of which are discussed in this entry.

 

%B The International Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods %I Wiley %G eng %U http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118901731.iecrm0109/abstract %0 Journal Article %J Journalism %D 2017 %T Conceptualizing viewpoint diversity in news discourse %A Baden, Christian %A Springer, Nina %X

Journalistic news coverage plays an essential role for providing an audience with a diverse, multifaceted perspective upon public affairs. However, in the scholarly debate, most measures of viewpoint diversity do not distinguish between statements raising commensurable interpretations, and contributions that construct different meaning in a consequential sense. We provide an operationalization of viewpoint diversity that builds upon a tradition of identifying distinct interpretations through framing analysis. Going beyond frame diversity, we then distinguish between equivalent, complementary and competing, diverse interpretations: we consider as commensurable those frames that derive from the same ‘interpretative repertoire’, a notion borrowed from discourse studies. We propose a strategy for operationalization and the measurement of viewpoint diversity. Our focus on meaningfully different interpretations contributes to advancing research into journalism, political opinion formation, audience elaboration, and other important fields of study.

%B Journalism %I SAGE Publications %V 18 %P 176-194 %8 2017 %G eng %U http://jou.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/09/18/1464884915605028.abstract %N 2 %0 Journal Article %J Journal of Communication %D 2017 %T Convergent news? A longitudinal study of similarity and dissimilarity in the domestic and global coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. %A Baden, Christian %A Keren Tenenboim-Weinblatt %X

News coverage of the same events is simultaneously driven by homogenizing and heterogenizing influences. In this paper, we assess whether and when conflict news in different media become more similar or dissimilar by analyzing the coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 13 leading Israeli, Palestinian, and international media over almost 10 years. We distinguish between drivers of enduring similarity, gradual convergence and temporary (dis-)alignments in the news, and relate them to the detected concept association patterns in over 200,000 news texts. We find a slow, context-dependent convergence trend in the news, and temporary alignments and dis-alignments in interpretation in response to major conflict events. Discussing the underlying, interacting influences, the study highlights implications for investigating current transformations in global journalism.

%B Journal of Communication %V 67 %P 1-25 %8 2017 %G eng %U http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcom.12272/abstract %N 1 %0 Journal Article %J Journal of Media Psychology %D 2017 %T Everybody follows the crowd?Effects of opinion polls and past election results on electoral preferences. %A Obermaier, Magdalena %A Koch, Thomas %A Baden, Christian %X

Opinion polls are a well-established part of political news coverage, especially during election campaigns. At the same time, there has been controversial debate over the possible influences of such polls on voters’ electoral choices. The most prominent influence discussed is the bandwagon effect: It states that voters tend to support the expected winner of an upcoming election, and use polls to determine who the likely winner will be. This study investigated the mechanisms underlying the effect. In addition, we inquired into the role of past electoral performances of a candidate and analyzed how these (as well as polls) are used as heuristic cues for the assessment of a candidate’s personal characteristics. Using an experimental design, we found that both polls and past election results influence participants’ expectations regarding which candidate will succeed. Moreover, higher competence was attributed to a candidate, if recipients believe that the majority of voters favor that candidate. Through this attribution of competence, both information about prior elections and current polls shaped voters’ electoral preferences.

%B Journal of Media Psychology %I Hogrefe Publishing %V 29 %P 1-12 %8 2017 %G eng %U http://econtent.hogrefe.com/doi/abs/10.1027/1864-1105/a000160 %0 Book Section %B The International Encyclopedia of Political Communication %D 2016 %T Collective Memory %A Keren Tenenboim-Weinblatt %A Baden, Christian %E Mazzoleni, Gianpietro %X

Collective memory is a current interpretation of the past that members of a group recognize as commonly shared. The study of collective memory has developed in fields as diverse as sociology, anthropology, social psychology, history, cultural studies, and communication. Collective memory concerns a group's recollections of the past, construed through the perspective of the present, and interpreted to serve present purposes. It emerges from active constructions of the past, typically achieved through the interplay of a wide range of actors. To become manifested as a shared narrative, resulting constructions must be widely disseminated and appropriated by individuals in a group to ensure mutual awareness. As a consequence, collective memory exists in the shared and private imagination of people, and is represented in the texts, practices, and artifacts of a group. The construction, dissemination, appropriation, and discursive mobilization of collective memory play significant roles in political processes.

%B The International Encyclopedia of Political Communication %I Wiley %G eng %U http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118541555.wbiepc138/abstract %0 Book Section %B Politik-PR-Persuasion %D 2015 %T Personalisierung und Entertainisierung als Strategien der politischen Kommunikation auf kommunaler Ebene. Eine quantitative Befragung bayerischer Kommunalpolitiker %A Baden, Christian %A Koch, Thomas %A Steinle, Theresa %A Wieland, Alisa %B Politik-PR-Persuasion %I Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden %P 193–218 %G eng %U http://www.springer.com/de/book/9783658016821 %0 Journal Article %J Communication Theory %D 2015 %T Putting the image back into the frame: Modeling the linkage between visual communication and frame-processing theory %A Geise, Stephanie %A Baden, Christian %X

Given the rising use of visual and multimodal information, text-oriented framing research is at risk of losing traction with current media reality. We propose applying frame processing theory as a general framework for understanding how coherent meaning is constructed from complex stimuli, regardless of their modality: Both visual and textual information processing follow a recursive sequence of (a) selective perception/structuring, (b) decoding, (c) the construction of relations, and (d) their integration into coherent meaning. The specifics of visual and textual modalities provide varying degrees of structuring and salience within a fundamentally unified information processing process. Integrating advances from framing and visual communication research, we discuss implications for the empirical analysis of multimodal news contents, and sketch an agenda for research.

%B Communication Theory %I Wiley Subscription Services, Inc. %V 25 %P 46–69 %G eng %U http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/comt.12048/abstract %0 Journal Article %J European Journal of Communication %D 2014 %T Com(ple)menting the news on the financial crisis: The contribution of news users’ commentary to the diversity of viewpoints in the public debate %A Baden, Christian %A Springer, Nina %X

Does news users’ commentary contribute to widening the diversity of viewpoints represented in the news? This article comparatively analyses the interpretations of the current financial crisis in the online coverage of five German newspapers and the subsequent commentary of news users. Using an innovative strategy to identify the interpretative repertoires constructed by news and user frames, it assesses how user commentary deviates from those viewpoints represented in the news. Findings show that user accounts mostly remain within the wider interpretative repertoires offered by the media. However, they utilize media frame fragments rather freely to construct their own views, shifting focus and elaborating upon new aspects. While no consistent alternative repertoires were constructed, users thus valuably complemented the diversity of concerns discussed on news websites.

%B European Journal of Communication %I Sage Publications %V 29 %P 529–548 %G eng %U http://ejc.sagepub.com/content/29/5/529 %N 5 %0 Journal Article %J SC|M Studies in Communication | Media %D 2013 %T Bedingt professionell. Eine Untersuchung zur Professionalität der Kommunikations- und Medienarbeit bayerischer Kommunalpolitiker %A Koch, Thomas %A Baden, Christian %A Klötzer, Hannah %A Müller, Elisabeth %X

Politische Akteure nehmen die Massenmedien als zunehmend mächtig wahr und orientieren sich daher vermehrt an der Medienlogik. Dies führt u. a. zu einer Professionalisierung des politischen Kommunikationshandelns. Wie professionell die Kommunikation politischer Akteure ist, wurde bislang nur auf Bundes- und Landesebene untersucht, nicht jedoch im kommunalen Kontext. Die vorliegende Studie widmet sich dieser Forschungslücke und untersucht die Professionalität der kommunalpolitischen Kommunikation. Wir befragten 372 Angehörige bayerischer Stadt- und Kreistage zu ihren politischen Kommunikationsaktivitäten, mit besonderem Fokus auf deren Routinekommunikation. Die Ergebnisse belegen eine auch auf kommunaler Ebene wahrgenommene zunehmende Relevanz politischer Kommunikation, welche mit einer hohen Bedeutungszuschreibung an medienspezifische Kommunikationskompetenzen einhergeht. Aus dieser Wahrnehmung folgen allerdings kaum bedeutende Professionalisierungsanstrengungen – und das, obwohl sich die Befragten der Diskrepanz zwischen Anspruch und Wirklichkeit durchaus bewusst sind. Der Artikel schließt mit einer Diskussion möglicher Ursachen dieser Diskrepanz und formuliert Implikationen für die Medialisierungs- und Professionalisierungsforschung.

Not quite professional. Assessing the professionalism of Bavarian local politicians‘ communication activities

The influence of media upon social communication is pervasive: The need to adapt to specific media logics drives the increasing professionalization of political communication practices. Specifically, much attention has been given to media-related changes in the representation and professionalized conduct of political campaigns. However, surprisingly little is known about the influence of mediatization beyond the electoral race, and virtually no research exists that investigates mediatization on a local level. This study investigates whether mediatization is felt also among local politicians, and triggers a similar dynamic of increasing professionalization. Focusing on routine communication practices in local politics, it conducts a survey among 372 members of Bavarian regional parliaments. It assesses the perceived role of media, as well as respondents’ professionalization strategies developed to communicate effectively in public. The study finds that the perception of media influence and the ascribed importance of media-related competences is high also in a local context. However, this perception is not accompanied by major professionalization efforts. Moreover, politicians are generally aware of this discrepancy. The paper concludes by discussing possible reasons for the detected gap between aspiration and reality, and highlights implications for professionalization and mediatization theory.

%B SC|M Studies in Communication | Media %I Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG %V 3 %P 275–299 %G eng %U http://www.scm.nomos.de/archiv/2013/heft-3/ %0 Journal Article %J Communication Methods and Measures %D 2013 %T Evolutionary factor analysis of the dynamics of frames: Introducing a method for analyzing high-dimensional semantic data with time-changing structure %A Motta, Giovanni %A Baden, Christian %X

In public discourse, meaning is constantly renegotiated. Frames and other semantic structures are co-constructed in the public debate based on the contributions of many discourse participants. Over time, they incorporate new information and interpretations. As a result, time-dependent changes occur both on the level of manifest contributions and on the level of latent structures organizing discourse into meaningful frames. This article introduces a technique capable of analyzing the changing patterns of meaning in a genuinely dynamic fashion. It applies Evolutionary Factor Analysis (EFA), a recently developed technique for treating high-dimensional data with time-changing latent structure. Using EFA, we uncover evolving patterns on different levels of abstraction within our data, which represent discourse as a detailed semantic network. We investigate specific dynamics expected within dynamic discourse (e.g., emergence, evolution, consolidation, crisis) and analyze the time-changing structure and content of meaning. The methodological innovation presented in this paper allows a detailed analysis of micro-level changes organized by latent higher-level structures: It can be transferred to a variety of social phenomena organized by structures that evolve over time (e.g., public opinion, social interaction). Rendering their dynamic behavior accessible to statistical analysis, it offers new theoretical insights into their mechanics and underlying structure.

%B Communication Methods and Measures %I Taylor & Francis %V 7 %P 48–82 %G eng %U http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19312458.2012.760730 %0 Journal Article %J Communication Theory %D 2012 %T Fleeting, Fading, or Far-Reaching? A Knowledge-Based Model of the Persistence of Framing Effects %A Baden, Christian %A Lecheler, Sophie %X

The social relevance of framing effects hinges upon their ability to persist. This article develops a theoretical account of the conditions under which framing effects should vanish quickly, fade slowly, or cause permanent changes. It argues that the cognitive processes involved in mediating frame effect need to leave durable traces in a person's knowledge to raise a persistent effect. This paper distinguishes temporary changes in the accessibility of knowledge from durable changes in the applicability structure and belief content. It discusses under which conditions these memory traces will likely affect judgment formation also after the stimulus is gone. We argue that the durability of framing effects can be modeled based on the chronic accessibility of frame-relevant knowledge and the familiarity of the frame.

%B Communication Theory %I Wiley Online Library %V 22 %P 359–382 %G eng %U http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2012.01413.x/abstract %0 Book %D 2010 %T Communication, contextualization & cognition: Patterns & processes of frames' influence on people's interpretations of the EU constitution %A Baden, Christian %X

Frames affect the meaning of information by embedding it within selective, coherent, and purposefully chosen context. Over the last decades, researchers have ventured to explore how the provision of specific frames affects and alters people's interpretations and evaluations. They have derived a wide variety of approaches to the study of frames, and have advanced complementary as well as competing theories of how the well-known framing effect can be explained. A related aspect that has largely eluded scientific attention so far, however, is how frame-induced variations of derived meaning relate to the discursive construction, as well as the cognitive acquisition and elaboration of meaning required to make sense of a complex reality. This thesis addresses this question. It develops and empirically tests a perspective on framing that views frames as embedded within larger semantic networks. In the theoretical second chapter, frames are conceptualized as locally coherent patterns within the propositional structure of discourse on the one hand, and cognition on the other. Linking this view to the dominant perspectives on framing in scientific discourse, this approach achieves four main objectives: First, it provides a conceptualization of frames that relates to both linguistic and psychological (notably: schema-based) theories of meaning. It hence allows reformulating past theorizing and findings about frames within a common conceptual framework – the semantic network. Second, as a consequence, it provides a platform upon which the competing process models advanced within the study of framing effects can be integrated into a single, multi-stage cognitive process. Third, based on this integrated model, predictions can be made about the cognitive reconstruction of frames from communication, enabling people to embed information meaningfully into coherent context. Frames are thus understood as structures facilitating and directing the acquisition of complex knowledge. Finally, the developed conceptualization allows a much more detailed and precise operationalization of frames than common holistic approaches, and enables an inductive identification of frames. The various propositions and predictions derived from the theoretical model are empirically tested in the subsequent chapters. Chapter III introduces the case chosen for data collection: This study captures the propositions and frames advanced in relation to the EU Constitution during the referendum campaign in the Netherlands, and juxtaposes these with the beliefs and cognitive frames formed by Dutch voters. The EU Constitution has been selected as a salient but novel concern which related to scarce but well-organized prior knowledge among the Dutch electorate. It therefore provides a suitable case for studying the acquisition and integration of knowledge from public communication. In chapter IV, the core theoretical propositions regarding the cognitive mechanisms of frame processing are tested experimentally. For this purpose, subjects were exposed to framed messages varying with regard to their semantic context, focal issue, and evaluative drift. Subsequently, participants‘ spontaneous associations with the focal concept were recorded. In line with the theoretical model, results indicate that framing is best understood as a predominantly semantic effect, wherein contextual cues raise different schematic knowledge for information processing. The evaluative shifts often noted in the study of framing effects derive from the knowledge tapped for processing and are not directly affected by the provided frame itself. Chapter V focuses on the structure of frames rendered available to Dutch voters, analyzing the contents of mass media discourse and the political parties' referendum campaigns. Based on the recorded propositional structures, several expectations about the composition and alignment of frames within discourse are tested. Results show that frames relate to one another within the narrative and argumentative structure of persuasive accounts, while the frames used in news reporting do not necessarily form coherent patterns. However, consonance between different sources' news frames was markedly higher than within political discourse. Turning toward cognitive representations, chapter VI assesses the belief structures formed by Dutch voters with regard to the EU Constitution. While the importance of frame structures in crafting coherence within accounts is further corroborated, the identified cognitive frames deviate in systematic ways from those provided in public discourse. Notably, people show considerable discretion of which available frames they accept and include into their accounts. Voters‘ narratives rarely followed those templates advocated in public, but combined considerations taken from various sources, using frames to weave connections between the selected shards of knowledge. In order to further substantiate the differences and similarities detected between communicated and acquired frames, chapter VII performs a comparative analysis of the semantic networks constructed from either source. It finds that television and political sources were most influential for the formation of people's understandings, followed by broadsheet newspapers. Moreover, results show that people combined and reconciled frames with opposing evaluative drift, advanced by rival campaigning actors. People were notably more reliant on communicated frames regarding novel, unobtrusive, and current issues, while prior knowledge mostly overrode provided frames on familiar, long standing issues. In summary, this thesis argues that frames are integral to the formation of coherent accounts in discourse and cognition. It advocates a wide view that focuses not so much on isolated, single frames and their effects, but on the interplay of various interrelated frames in both communication and cognition. This study provides a theoretical framework for investigating how frames create coherent meaning from disparate propositions. Simultaneously, it considers how multiple frames relate to one another within narrative and persuasive communication. Thus addressing structures both beyond and within the frame, it provides a methodological approach that is well-tailored to translate the theoretical concerns into discernible measures. The semantic network based view on frames advanced in this study hence furthers our understanding of frames in at least three respects: First, it helps disentangling several concepts that have been confounded in the literature, adding precision to the theoretical debate. Second, it supports a methodological framework capable of translating the gain in theoretical precision into well-differentiated measures. Finally, it contextualizes frames, relating these to other important concepts in the study of communication and information processing. The present dissertation thus underscores the relevance of frames, which rests to a large degree in their contribution to the creation of meaning from information.

%I Eburon %G eng %U http://dare.uva.nl/record/1/331376 %0 Journal Article %J Communications %D 2008 %T Making sense: A reconstruction of people's understandings of the European constitutional referendum in the Netherlands %A Baden, Christian %A de Vreese, Claes H. %X

This article investigates how voters made sense of the Dutch EU constitutional referendum. Based on a series of focus group interviews, it identifies what information people based their understandings on, and traces the relations they draw between concepts in their own accounts of their vote choices. Applying a cognitive connectionist perspective on the construction of meaning, it models people's considerations as paths across semantic networks. It finds that people shared considerable parts of the knowledge underlying their constructions, but used this information quite differently. They strategically selected frames from their information environment, and reframed contrary arguments to fit their constructions. Yes- and No-voters drew in systematically different additional information, while simultaneously engaging idiosyncratic concerns to personalize their accounts. People's understandings are thus informed and constrained, but by no means determined, by public discourse. Highlighting people's activity and creativity, this paper calls for a stronger audience perspective in political communication research.

%B Communications %V 33 %P 117–145 %G eng %U https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/comm.2008.33.issue-2/commun.2008.008/commun.2008.008.xml