Preliminary communication
Media Rhetoric in the 2007 Pre-Election Period. Analysis of Daily Newspapers
Ivan BALABANIĆ
; Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar; Zagreb
Marko MUSTAPIĆ
; Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar; Zagreb
Abstract
By means of content analysis in six daily newspapers during
the 2007 parliamentary election campaign there was an
attempt to determine the main characteristics of political
media coverage in the pre-election period and major forms
of political rhetoric in the election campaign. The results
indicate that a huge bipolarisation of the political scene with
an emphasis on the two political parties HDZ and SDP
occurred in the media. The election campaign passed
without accentuating particular social problems, and the
main topic of political media coverage as well as of political
communication was the election itself and the pre-election
party activities. As regards the rhetoric of political party
representatives an affirmative rhetoric was dominant, i.e.
reports containing statements in which party representatives
commented upon their work, gave various promises or
generally spoke positively about themselves or their party. In
approximately one third of the reports containing politicians’
statements, the party actors spoke in a negative context
about other parties (emphasised their faults or spoke
adversely towards another party in general). There was a
complete lack of solutions to particular problems and the
most frequent were statements in which politicians gave only
general promises. Such results indicate that in the current
state of political communication in Croatia trends can be
identified in accordance with theories of "packaging politics",
constructing "the political spectacle" and "colonisation of
politics by the media".
Keywords
content analysis; election campaign; daily newspapers; political communication; political parties
Hrčak ID:
29430
URI
Publication date:
31.10.2008.
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