All the news that s fit to print: a question of what, how and why!

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1 NEWSLETTER Newsletter No. 2, December 2006 National Center of Competence in Research Challenges to Democracy in the 21st Century CONTENTS Focus: All the news that s fit to print Editorial... 2 Workshop on democratic theory Research colloquium kick-off... 6 Stepping Stone in Action...7 Calendar...7 News in brief...8 Imprint...8 All the news that s fit to print: a question of what, how and why! The slogan all the news that s fit to print first appeared on the editorial page of the New York Times in October 1896, and moved to page 1 in February Since then it is visible in a box right next to the newspaper s logo. It is the questions behind this slogan that are of interest to NCCR researchers: which news is published, how and why? Although nowadays people complain about the chosen headlines and stories, and the boring pundits on the editorial page, the news quality of the New York Times is not the main concern of this article. It is rather the question behind the slogan: the question of newsworthiness, or simply the question of what, how and why. The three projects of the NCCR research module Changing processes and strategies of political participation and representation are trying to get to the bottom of these questions when it comes to the coverage of political campaigns. As politics is becoming increasingly media-centered, political campaigning, mobilization and communication particularly through the media are gaining immensely in importance. The aim of the NCCR researchers is to study, for the first time, the reciprocal influences between the relevant actors in political campaigns in order to show how political actors and the media influence public opinion and vice versa: What influences the decisions of politicians, the media and the audience? How are these decisions reflected in the media content, and the media content reflected in the audience s decisions? And why do the actors act like they do? Members of the research module: Urs Dahinden, Patrick Rademacher, Gabriele Siegert, Mirko Marr and Werner Wirth (from left). The research is characterized by intense cooperation between political scientists, and media and communication scientists, in three highly interlinked projects. They analyze the various aspects and dynamics of political campaigns, each one focusing on a particular category of actors from an integrative perspective. A first empirical analysis is presently being carried out on the basis of data obtained during the referendum on a new asylum law in Switzerland, held in September First of all politicians, parties or committees have to define a position and choose their point of view. Thus the goal of Project 11, headed by Hanspeter Kriesi, is to get some knowledge about how political actors try to influence the public, >>

2 FOCUS Newsletter, No. 2, December 2006 >> A question of what, how and why! what kind of strategies they are using, and if they pay attention to media and public expectations. After the relevant actors were identified and the conceptual design of the research instrument was completed, interviews with campaign strategists and the actors themselves were held and finished by the end of November The analysis of the provided campaign materials is still in its starting blocks. E D I TO R I A L Dear Readers, NCCR Democracy has been in operation for one year now. A challenge encountered by the NCCR during this first year has been the integration of this large and growing research program of 20 projects; and this will continue in 2007, with the recent addition of four new projects, bringing the total to 24. The second issue of our newsletter focuses on the issue of integration, featuring the research module on Changing processes and strategies of political participation and representation a module in which cooperation between three projects, and between political and communication scientists, is already being achieved. Secondly, the media make their choices. On the one hand, they define and pick out the newsworthy news for their media product: the news that is originally considered fit to print. On the other hand, they select form, length and placing of articles concerning the campaign. Consequently Project 12, led by Gabriele Siegert, asks for the strategies of the media in dealing with political campaigns; if these strategies form a part of branding and reputation strategies; and, again, if the media take the expectations of the audience as citizens into account. Nearly 30 expert interviews were conducted before and after the referendum to find out the allocation of editorial resources, the reciprocal media influences, the image of the audience, and much more. On the content itself, the project started to collect media content concerning the referendum (the selection of 23 news- papers and TV-programs closely linked to the selection of media professionals) in June By the end of data collection, 1,300 articles and broadcasts were brought together and the content analysis started the final goal set for the end of this year. Thirdly, in Project 13, directed by Werner Wirth and Heinz Bonfadelli, the focus is on the audience itself, and public-opinion polls are used to measure the impact of all the above mentioned strategies. The aim is to answer, for example, how citizens use traditional and new media for political knowledge, or what they know about the campaign issues and if there is a change during the campaigning process. Linking the media consumption of possible voters to their changing knowledge, attitudes and political choices will finally allow an analysis of the media s Integration of research in order to tackle the manifold problems and challenges democracies are facing today was also identified as an important objective by the Review Panel of the Swiss National Science Foundation, which evaluated the NCCR in September. In the coming year, the NCCR will focus even more on interdisciplinary cooperation and strengthening the links between individual projects. The NCCR conference held in Konolfingen in October, presented in this issue, was already an important step towards this. Jörg Matthes, Christian Schemer, Hanspeter Kriesi and Laurent Bernhard (from left) at a meeting of the research module Changing processes and strategies of political participation and representation. Sincerely, Yvonne Rosteck, Editor 2

3 FOCUS Newsletter, No. 2, December 2006 influence on the people s political opinion formation. Concerning the reciprocal processes among all relevant actors the survey also determines the effect of changing public opinion on political decision-makers, as well as on media strategies. The three panel waves were conducted in early July, the end of August and right after the referendum at the end of September Although the three projects focus on different aspects, they are complimentary and closely linked to one another by a shared theoretical perspective, their focus on the same political campaign, and by the common data pool based on the various expert interviews with politicians and media representatives, the content analysis and the survey. This data pool, which emerged through the participation of all project members within each re- search method, is jointly available to all of the projects. As each project incorporates the requirements of the others, the research questions of all three are covered within all the empirical instruments used; and the separately collected data can be interlinked. The interdisciplinary cooperation between the three projects within the module will continue; and the results of the first analyzed campaign will provide information about further needed coordination. The integration efforts will finally lead to answers for the what-, how- and why-questions, and will explain what can be considered to be all the news that s fit to print during political campaigns. Input - Output - Analysis Media Actors (Project 12) Decisions and processes within the media Political Actors (Project 11) Political decisions and processes Analysis of direct and indirect effects on decision makers Audience as actor (Project 13) Decisions and processes within the audience Analysis of media use and media effects Contact: Prof. Gabriele Siegert Module 4 leader g.siegert@ipmz.unizh.ch 3

4 WORKSHOP ON DEMOCRATIC THEORY Newsletter, No. 2, December 2006 The challenges to democracy and of integrating a large research program NCCR Democracy held its first annual conference last October to discuss key issues of democratic theory. This was an important step in further achieving coherence within the research program, which focuses on the problems and challenges Western democracies are facing today, and on the opportunities and limits to promote democracy to non-democratic countries and supra-national regimes like the EU. The NCCR research teams met over two days in Konolfingen, near Bern, to discuss common concepts of democracy. The purpose of the conference was to enhance integration between the different NCCR research projects and to identify overlapping themes, questions and problems linking them. In order to get a fresh, outside perspective on the issue, internationally renowned political scientists, Fritz Scharpf, Philippe Schmitter and David Beetham, supported the NCCR researchers as guest speakers and discussants. Integration is a task that has also been identified as essential by the Review Panel of the Swiss National Science Foundation, which evaluated NCCR Democracy last September. The panel emphasized that integration was an important means for achieving added value in research, and producing new qualities of knowledge concerning the challenges to democracy. Disciplinary integration between political science and communication science, and orienting the different projects toward general scientific objectives, therefore represent an ongoing challenge for the NCCR. The program of the conference focused on the discussion of key issues of democratic theory with the purpose of spelling out common concepts of democracy that the projects can assume for their research. NCCR Director Hanspeter Kriesi opened the conference by presenting his view of how democracy functions. He concentrated on the relationship between citizens with their right to vote in elections and their judgment about the representatives who govern in their name and elected representatives and their agents who mobilize citizens in and between election campaigns. Their relationship is determined by two basic developments that also serve as the point of departure for the NCCR research program: the increasing role of the media in democratic politics and the increasing challenge of national decision-making processes by supranational and international cooperation. In what ways these developments reinforce or weaken the power of the vote, and what consequences this has, are central questions the research program addresses. Philippe Schmitter, Francis Cheneval and Fritz Scharpf (from left) discussed the discrimination of minorities by majority rule. Another key issue of democratic theory is the protection of minorities under majority rule. There is broad scholarly agreement that democratic institutions need to be inclusive, which means that all cultural groups should be adequately represented in the government, parliament and public administration. But how can this be achieved? This subject is of importance with regard to the question how democracy can be extended to regions that have never experienced a consolidated democracy. This is an issue that is researched in Lars-Erik Cederman s (ETH Zurich) project on democratizing divided societies in bad neighborhoods. 4

5 WORKSHOP ON DEMOCRATIC THEORY Newsletter, No. 2, December 2006 The subject was discussed by Fritz Scharpf and Philippe Schmitter on the basis of three empirical studies: Nenad Stojanovic (Zurich University) examined how linguistic minorities in four plurilingual Swiss cantons are represented; Jean-Marie Kagabo (Geneva University) compared the protection of minorities in Rwanda and Burundi; and Malcolm MacLaren (Zurich University) analyzed general mechanisms for the protection of minorities from an international law point of view. Fritz Scharpf pointed out that it is not diversity in representation that determines whether institutional devices such as human rights, checks and balances or decentralization can protect minorities. It is the kind of conflict that is decisive. In the case of a zero-sum conflict where there is no common interest among the groups involved, none of the mechanisms is likely to be fully effective. Philippe Schmitter insisted that democracy should not be modeled as merely a mechanism for counting votes. Democracy instead should be viewed as a complex weighting mechanism of intensities of interest. Even in elections, majorities are nothing else but alliances of minorities. Democratic systems presuppose an underlying consensus on policy among the groups involved. The second day of the conference was devoted to the presentation of work in progress by NCCR members: Marc Bühlmann (Zurich University) gave a summary of the state of research on the democracy barometer, a project that could substantially contribute to the overall integration of the NCCR. The research team is developing an instrument to measure the quality of established democracies. Measuring democracy has a long tradition in political science. However, the existing indices fail to measure the subtle but existing differences in the quality of established democracies, allowing them to be distinguished from each other: for example, Italian democracy under Berlusconi as compared to Swedish democracy under Persson. A major task for the team in the past year has been defining their notion of democracy. In the future, key questions will be what the prerequisites for the realization of democracy are, the meaning of quality and how to measure the prerequisites of democracy. The following two presentations by communication scientists from the University of Zurich emphasized interdisciplinary integration: PhD student Daniela Spranger proposed to study democratic legitimacy by combining the findings from both political and communication science; and Martina Vogel addressed the effects of structural changes in governmental communication on democracy a topic which is part of her PhD thesis. The presentations in the afternoon focused on the level of the nation state. Ioannis Papadopoulos (Lausanne University) gave an account of the crisis of long-established democracies, pointing out the declining role of representative democracy. PhD students Philippe Koch and Urs Scheuss (Zurich University) spoke on democratic decision making in Swiss metropolitan areas, drawing on the preliminary results of Daniel Kübler s project on assessing the trend towards new regionalism in Swiss metropolitan areas. The conference ended with a presentation by David Beetham on democracy in the EU and beyond the nation state, a topic of general interest for all NCCR members. Overall, the conference has shown that there is still a lot of theoretical work to be carried out a task that will be tackled now in the second year of research. The constructive criticism and helpful suggestions provided by the three distinguished guests (Fritz Scharpf, Philippe Schmitter and David Beetham) were crucial in order to achieve further clarification of the concept of democracy. David Beetham presented his views on democracy in the EU and beyond the nation state. Contact: Prof. Hanspeter Kriesi NCCR Director hanspeter.kriesi@pwi.unizh.ch

6 EDUCATION Newsletter, No. 2, December 2006 Doctoral program: Research colloquium kick-off Last October, the doctoral program s research colloquium finally had its world premiere. The research colloquium is the core of the NCCR Democracy s interdisciplinary doctoral-level training. In the first bloc session on October 12, Nico van der Heiden, Philippe Koch and Urs Scheuss presented their PhD work in front of all their peers on the doctoral program, as well as in the presence of their supervisor, Prof. Daniel Kübler (Zurich University). All three presenters gave papers relating to local government. Two of them (Philippe and Urs) are part of the NCCR project Assessing the trend towards new regionalism in Swiss metropolitan areas ; while Nico is not involved in an NCCR project, but is financed by the State Secretariat for Education and Research under the auspices of the COST A26 action, an intergovernmental framework for European Co-operation in the field of scientific and technical research. At the close of the day, Dr. André Bächtiger (Bern University) gave a talk as a guest speaker, covering his extensive research on deliberative democracy as well as telling the NCCR doctoral students about some of the trials and tribulations he himself went through as a PhD student. The research colloquium can in many ways be seen as the backbone of the NCCR doctoral program. Not only is it an activity that stretches over several semesters, it is also the only formal activity besides the introductory course on democratic theory in which all program participants take part together. Their other program activities are à la carte, meaning that each PhD student selects a number of individual activities such as summer schools, conferences or English writing courses that s/he feels are most relevant to his/her needs. In the second semester of the doctoral program (i.e. the current semester) each participant presents his/her research design; before the focus shifts to methodological and data questions in the third and fourth semesters. Each of the three papers presented on October 12 was discussed by another program participant, not necessarily an expert in the same field but nevertheless able to ask incisive questions that caused the three presenters some food for thought. After each discussant was finished, the discussion was opened for all present to ask questions and comment on the papers. The debates that followed were lively and engaged, with no end of volunteers registering their wish to speak with the moderator. The second installment of the research colloquium took place on November 30, this time with only a half-day program. Charlotte Reinisch and Lutz Krebs were given the opportunity to present their research designs. Charlotte, who is supervised by Prof. Hanspeter Kriesi, does not work on an NCCR project, but spoke on the topic of A regional perspective on democracy: How do subnational-level institutions in France, Germany and Switzerland differ and what effects do these variations have?. Lutz (supervised by Prof. Lars-Erik Cederman in the project on Democratizing divided societies in bad neighborhoods ) gave a paper with the working title Identity Manipulation and Conflict. The colloquium continues with two full days in December, including guest speakers Alessia Neuroni (Communication Sciences, Zurich University) and Fabrizio Gilardi (Political Science, Lausanne University). Urs Scheuss (left) and Nico van der Heiden are happy to have their second semester research colloquium presentations behind them. Contact: Dr. Karin Gilland Lutz Scientific coordinator doctoral program gilland@nccr-democracy.unizh.ch 6

7 PEER-MENTORING Newsletter, No. 2, December 2006 Stepping Stone in Action The NCCR peer-mentoring group Stepping Stone has started off its activities with a number of workshops aimed at developing additional skills for advancing the group members careers and at creating networks. The group is a core measure through which NCCR Democracy is promoting its women researchers. In October 2006, the group organized a one-day workshop on project management for research. The workshop was designed to coach the group members on how to effectively plan their work on doctoral dissertations, and was held by Pamela Alean-Kirkpatrick (teaching skills expert at the University of Zurich). Stepping Stone members learned how to formulate short- and medium-term objectives, structure work in phases, set milestones, plan time and capacity needed for performing specific tasks; as well as how to control, assess and adjust their work schedule on a regular basis. During the workshop, each peer group member practiced performing the new techniques by devising her own plans for conducting different parts of a research project. When discussing each other s projects in groups, the members provided each other with helpful comments in the usual spirit of mutual encouragement and support. This December, the peer group will host a workshop on curriculum vitae writing. Peer group supervisors, Professors Simon Hug and Gabriele Siegert, will discuss the current CVs of the group members, and provide Stepping Stone with useful tips and helpful advice on how to better present their experience to potential employers. In April 2007, the peer group will organize a two-day workshop on giving effective presentations. The workshop will combine an advisory and a practical part so that each of the peer group members gets an opportunity to improve her skills of presenting her work. The professional advice of tutors, and comments from peers, will help each member to achieve better results. For 2007, Stepping Stone plans to collaborate closer with other women s peer groups, both in Switzerland and abroad. To increase the positive effects of this collaboration the group is considering organizing a joint public event open to all NCCR members and the general public. More details will follow! Further information on Stepping Stone, and its past and forthcoming events, can be found at unizh.ch/nccr/peer_mentoring. Contact: Tatiana Skripka Peer group member skripka@nccr-democracy.unizh.ch Calendar Why there is a democratic deficit in the EU and how to fix it Prof. Simon Hix, London School of Economics and Political Science 12 December 2006, 18:15 19:45h University of Zurich, KOL E 18 The functioning of representative democracy in the European Union Prof. Jacques Thomassen, University of Twente 23 January 2007, 18:15 19:45h University of Zurich, KO2 F 150 Beyond e-voting: assessing the impact of ICTs on modern democracy Prof. Alexander Trechsel, European University Institute Florence 30 January 2007, 18:15 19:45h University of Zurich, KO2 F 150 7

8 News in brief and imprint Newsletter, No. 2, December 2006 News in brief Call for proposals: four new NCCR projects approved In order to extend its research network and impact, NCCR Democracy has decided to make available a budget for new research projects starting in The call was launched in September inviting scientists in Switzerland to submit proposals falling within the NCCR s research areas. Eighteen proposals were received and then evaluated by the NCCR s international scientific council. Besides scientific criteria, the projects were also selected according to their potential to complement the NCCR and enhance its integration. The following four projects were recently approved by the NCCR Board of Directors: Project leader Prof. Daniele Caramani, Institute of Political Science, University of St. Gallen Project From national to supranational democracy in the EU Duration January December 2008 Prof. Francis Cheneval, Institute of Philosophy, University of Zurich Prof. Frank Esser, Institute of Mass Communication and Media Research, University of Zurich Dr. Josef Trappel, Institute of Mass Communication and Media Research, University of Zurich Legitimacy and democracy in multilateral integration Explaining differences in political news: A comparative analysis across four Western democracies and four decades Media performance for democracy: media and democracy monitor January December 2009 March November 2008 March August 2008 Working Paper series launched In October, the new NCCR Democracy Working Paper series was launched with a paper by Ioannis Papadopoulos on Europeanisation? Two logics of change of policy-making processes in Switzerland. The series will publish interim research results, conference papers, data collection reports, etc. by NCCR members and guest researchers. The working papers are available online at First evaluation of NCCR Democracy by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) At the end of September, the first annual site visit took place with the purpose of evaluating the first year s work and of giving recommendations and advice on the future development of the research program. The two-day site visit was conducted by the SNSF Review Panel, consisting of distinguished political scientists and communication scientists: Wolf Linder (University of Bern), Arthur Benz (FernUniversität Hagen), Dietmar Braun (University of Lausanne), Yves Mény (European University Institute Florence), Paul Messerli (University of Bern), Robert Entman (George Washington University), Adrienne Héritier (European University Institute Florence), Max Kaase (International University Bremen), Adrian Leftwich (University of York), and Gianpietro Mazzoleni (University of Milan). In its final report, the Review Panel referred to NCCR Democracy as an important undertaking with a very ambitious research program, emphasizing that its combination of political science and communication science is most appropriate to address the fundamental challenges to democracy. The Panel encouraged NCCR researchers to strengthen the links between their individual projects. Further disciplinary and scientific integration therefore continues to be an important task in the second year, and the results of these efforts will be assessed again at the Members next site of the visit NCCR taking peer mentoring place in group September IMPRINT Publisher NCCR Democracy University of Zurich Stampfenbachstr. 63 CH-8006 Zurich info@nccr-democracy.unizh.ch Editor: Yvonne Rosteck Contributors to this issue: Karin Gilland Lutz, Hanspeter Kriesi, Karin Pühringer, Tatiana Skripka. 8