Explaining political coverage in the Netherlands; Why Dutch voters are less cynical Mark Boukes markboukes@hotmail.com

1. Explaining political coverage in the Netherlands
Why Dutch voters are less cynical
Literature synthesis
Mark Boukes
5616298
1st semester 2010/2011
Journalism and the Media
Lecturers: dr. S.K. Lecheler en dr. R.J.W. van der Wurff
November 25, 2010
Communication Science (Research MSc)
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences
University of Amsterdam

2. Table of contents
INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................................................1
METHOD........................................................................................................................................................1
FINDINGS.......................................................................................................................................................2
ECONOMIZATION.......................................................................................................................................................2
RATIONALIZATION.......................................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES..................................................................................................................................................5

3. Introduction
Many communication scientists seem to be convinced of the importance and impact of media
in causing political cynicism, which can be defined as “… a lack of faith or trust in politics,
governmental institutions, or politicians”. (Agger, Goldstein & Pearl, 1961, in: Schenk-
Hamlin, Procter & Rumsey, 2000, p. 55) Cappella and Jamieson (1996) present several causes
of political cynicism. One of those is disappointment in offered policy alternatives or
dissatisfaction with current leaders. However, because a large part of what most people know
about politics is learned via media coverage, they paid much attention to communication
studies. Two possible causes were found in the media: a rise of negative reporting and a shift
in framing from mainly issue-oriented coverage, to more strategic and game framed coverage.
Remarkable is that an increase of political cynicism seems to be assumed in many
studies, while the evidence for it is not presented. This is especially strange when studies
conducted in the United States are interpreted in an European context. Trust in support for
political institutions was found to decrease in the United States for a period over 40 years by
Dalton (2004), while Van der Burg and Van Praag (2007) found an overall increase in
satisfaction with the way democracy works in the Netherlands and a rather stable trust in
democratic institutions. Voter turnout is also rather stable in the Netherlands; both in the
seventies and in the 2000’s this was about 80% (Andeweg & Irwin, 2009). Why political
cynicism seems less the case in the Netherlands than in the American context might be
explained by differences in political news coverage. The research question for this literature
synthesis is therefore: What characterizes modern news coverage of politics in the
Netherlands compared to coverage in the United States? With answering this question I hope
to get more insight in Dutch journalistic culture and other factors that influence coverage.
Next to this, I hope to make clear results from media research should not be so easily
generalized to other countries.
Method
I conducted this research by means of a literature review. In the first place I searched for
scientific articles about coverage of politics and election campaigns in the Netherlands.
However, as there was not very much literature on this country, and many focused on effects
only, I broadened my search to countries that are comparable to the Dutch case according to
Hallin and Mancini (2004).
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4. The articles were found via the Digital Library of the University of Amsterdam and in
Google Scholar with diverse combinations of the following keywords: coverage, journalists,
elections, politics, election campaigns, Netherlands and political cynicism. The selection of
articles was based on titles and abstracts, also their references were looked through to see if
the authors used some more interesting articles.
Findings
Blumler and Kavanagh (1999) described various trends in the societal environment that
potentially change media coverage about politics. At least two of those seem important to
understand the differences between political coverage in the Netherlands and coverage in the
United States: economization and rationalization.
Economization
The trend of economization is seen in the increasing importance of economic factors on
decisions (Blumler & Kavanagh, 1999). This mainly stems from the drive to attract bigger
audiences to make (more) profit. Making profit became more difficult due to declines in
newspapers circulations (Lewis, Williams & Franklin, 2008) or fragmentation of the public
caused by an increasing number of broadcasters. Brants and Van Praag (2006) studied if there
is also a trend in news coverage about the Dutch elections towards more economic decisions,
a media logic. This was done by content analyses of newspapers in 1956 and television news
between 1986 and 2003. Tone and substantiveness of coverage were used as indicators of
commercial interest, moreover these are often related to causing political cynicism (Cappella
& Jamieson, 1996). An interesting pattern was found; whereas the proportion horse race news
increased in news of the commercial broadcaster RTL4, this stays stable in news of public
broadcasters NOS. Possibly commercial pressures caused this as that will be larger in
commercial than in public organizations. However, tone of the news did not change between
1986 and 2003 for both NOS and RTL news.
Another difference they found was the average time politicians were quoted; on the
NOS this was 29 seconds, while in RTL news this was only 13 seconds. Their commercial
drive might also have caused this, for making news more attractive by shortening and
simplifying. When the shorter length of sound bites was caused by commercial pressures, it
would be likely to find similar results in the United States where all large broadcasters are
commercial organizations. Hallin (1992) indeed found a decrease in the length of sound bites
between 1968 and 1988, possibly caused by increased commercial interests. Bucy and Grabe
(2007) found more recently, that sound bites are still getting shorter in the US.
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5. Coming back to the proportion of substantive news, Strömback and Dimitrova (2006)
compared election news coverage in Sweden (2002) with the United States (2004) with
content analyses of front-page news. Sweden is similar to the Netherlands on many areas; a
strong public broadcasting system, a proportional voting system that is party centred and high
voter turnout (80%). By contrast, the American voting system is based on majorities in
electoral districts, candidate centred and turnout is lower (61%), furthermore the US media
have a higher degree of commercialization than in Sweden with public service broadcasting
and subsidized newspapers. Those differences in political and media systems are related to
differences in election coverage, which are largely in line with Brants and Van Praag’s
findings (2006). US coverage contained much less issue-focused reporting and more horse
race and strategy framing. Those differences can, just as differences in sound bites length, be
explained by commercial pressures. Swedish newspapers, as they are subsidized, have less
necessity to write thrilling and entertaining stories, but can focus more on substantive issues.
Curran, Iyengar, Brink Lund and Salovaara-Moring (2009) found in a comparative research
that in countries belonging to the democratic corporatist model (Denmark and Finland) news
broadcasts paid more attention to public affairs and international news than media in market
model countries (the US). Furthermore, next to the differences in content, commercial
pressures also led American media to broadcast news only in early and late evenings, while in
countries with a public broadcaster news is being broadcast several times during prime time,
just as is in the Netherlands.
The relative lack of commercial pressure in the Netherlands or similar countries, thus
led to more substantive coverage, by having less horse race coverage and longer soundbites,
which is being broadcast on times that it is likely to reach larger audiences.
Rationalization
It seems that all kinds of organizations are more elaborating on their actions; in politics for
example by advertising and public relations with as goal letting journalists report on the issues
they would like the electorate to think about (Blumler & Kavanagh, 1999). However
journalists are nowadays not as cooperative as they were fifty years ago (Brants & Van Praag,
2006). An effect called the spiral of cynicism was described by Brants, De Vreese, Möller,
and Van Praag (2010). Journalists became more cynical as they felt that politicians do
everything to get in the news. Journalists therefore will write in more strategic terms about
politics, due to this growing media salacity and the feeling that politicians attempt to manage
them. Although this journalist-politician relationship might seem bad, it seems relatively good
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6. compared it to other countries. Van Dalen and Van Aelst (n.d.) show that Dutch journalists
have lunch more often with politicians than journalists in most other countries, and give them
more often advice on their job. Though this relationship seems to be relatively good, in the
United Kingdom, which is on many areas comparable to the United States, this relation seems
even better. Less negative and strategically framed coverage in The Netherlands seems thus
not to be caused by the quality of the journalist-politician relation. However, because British
journalists have such extraordinary good relationships with politicians, this might explain
more negatively and strategically writing about opponents of politicians they like. This might
also explain the higher proportion of metacoverage (writing about the interaction between
political PR and journalism) in the United States and the United Kingdom compared to
Germany (Esser, Reinemann & Fan, 2001), which is relatively similar to the Netherlands.
However, De Vreese (2001) found in interviews with people of the NOS that they also wanted
to report more “about the campaign, rather than reporting the campaign” (p. 166) during the
election of 1998, probably leading to an increase in metacoverage. The findings of Brants et
al. (2010) and De Vreese (2001) make clear that the relationship between journalists and
politicians in the Netherlands also became one of mutual distrust, which predicts an increase
in strategically framed news.
Acknowledging an increase in strategically framed articles, it is remarkable that Brants
and Van Praag (2006) did not find an increase in negative coverage, while this could be
expected in times of increased economic interests. Walter and Vliegenthart (2010) focused on
this last element in relation to Dutch election campaigns in 2006, by content analyzing three
outlets. In public election broadcasts, Zendtijd voor Politieke Partijen, few negative appeals
towards other parties are found compared to debates and newspapers. However it seems
reasonable that public election broadcasts determine the tone for other outlets; this explains
the limited amount of negative coverage. The main reason for the relatively low proportion of
negative campaigning (p. 16) is the multiparty context of the Netherlands, which forces
political parties to cooperate with other parties when they want to govern the country, and this
becomes difficult when potential partners are offended too much in campaigns. Another
reason to avoid getting too negative is potential backfire, by creating a weak and desperate
image (Lau & Rovner, 2009). Nevertheless, Walter (2009) found a steep increase in negative
campaigning in the Netherlands; in public election broadcasts and debates the proportion
doubled between 2002 and 2006.
Rationalization thus might have a two-way effect on political coverage. On the one
hand, increased use of public relations and spin doctors can cause cynicism of journalists,
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7. who as a consequence write more in strategically frames about politics. On the other hand,
negative coverage about politics seems to be limited as parties would decrease their chances
to govern by being too negative about other parties. This rational consideration, however
seem to become less important recently as an increase in negative appeals is found.
Conclusion
When news coverage of politics in the Netherlands is compared to that in the United States
the literature indicate that coverage is more substantive with longer soundbites and less
negatively framed. Though the increasing commercial pressures in the Netherlands and a
more cynical attitude of journalists are also found in the Netherlands, the effects of it on news
coverage are partly limited for two reasons. The first is the strong public broadcasting system
in the Netherlands, which is largely financed by the state and therefore feel journalists
probably less pressure to produce commercially attractive news. Another moderating
influence seems to be the absence of a majoritarian political system, which makes it
unattractive to treat opponents (but also potential partners) too negative. More substantive and
less negative coverage might be an explanation for the relative absence of political cynicism
in the Dutch context.
One gap in the literature that can be filled with future research is the question why
journalists, who normally seem resistant to change (Ryfe, 2009), did and still seem to
painlessly cooperate with the trend towards commercialization and with this in the eyes of at
least some the devaluation of their job. However, for now seems it clear that the relative
absence of negatively and strategically framed news has to do with the importance of public
broadcasting and the respective environment of Dutch politics.
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