Competing Actors and the Construction of Political News: The Contest Over Waves in Israel

Abstract

The study is meant to provide a more actor-oriented approach to the construction of political news by looking at the competition over news exposure during political waves in Israel. Political waves are sudden and significant changes in the political environment that are characterized by a substantial increase in the amount of public attention centered on a political issue or event. A theoretical model is presented that attempts to explain who initiates political waves, which types of waves provide the most opportunities for the participation of different types of political actors, and which actors are in the best position to be included when different types of waves are covered in the news media. Four major hypotheses are developed that focus on both the nature of the wave and the individual characteristics of the political actors who are competing for exposure. Among the most important individual traits are charismatic communication skills, political standing, and the extent to which the individual can be thematically linked to the wave topic.

The research employed two primary sets of data. The first set of data came from a content analysis of news articles that appeared in two major Israeli newspapers over one full year. Thirty-nine separate waves emerged from this analysis. The second set of data contains individual assessments of 91 legislators who were elected to 14th Knesset. All of the major hypotheses were confirmed.

Keywords:

• political waves
• charisma
• political news
• political contest model
• news construction

We would like to thank the Israel Science Foundation for its generous support of this study.

Notes

Gadi Wolfsfeld is a Professor in the Political Science and Communication Departments, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Tamir Sheafer is an Assistant Professor in the Political Science and Communication Departments, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

1. A more comprehensive discussion of the theoretical and methodological development of this variable can be found in Sheafer (2001).

2. Given the large number of waves, it is not surprising that some of the waves overlapped with one another. Indeed, 14 of the 39 waves overlapped, meaning that there was at least some coverage of 2 waves appearing at the same time. This raises certain questions about the independence of these waves. Theoretically, for example, exposure in one wave could have allowed actors the opportunity to use their exposure in one wave as an opportunity to start or react to a different wave. The evidence suggests, however, that this was not a problem. First, only 2 of the 14 overlapping waves dealt with a similar topic. Second, none of the overlapping waves started on the same day. Third, 12 of these 14 overlapping waves were restricted waves dealing with very narrow topics in which there were relatively few opportunities for Knesset members to compete.

3. We make no claims concerning the extent to which the Knesset was reacting to the news coverage or journalists were reacting to the Knesset discussions. The interaction between the legislature and the media during political waves is certainly worth studying but is beyond the scope of the present research.

4. The number of news items for each group is as follows: for restricted waves, M = 40.4, SD = 18.76; for open waves, M = 71.53, SD = 35.62. The decision to use the median as a dividing line is based on the assumption that the transition from restricted to open wave is gradual rather than distinct. One sees this gradual transition by looking at the frequencies of news opportunities associated with restricted and open waves. This is then an arbritrary decision intended to divide the waves into “low” and “high” groups.

5. For a further specification of the development of this measure, refer to Sheafer (2001).

6. On the other hand, this might not be true about other years in Israel. In a year plagued with terrorism, for example, the percentage of waves initiated by external challengers would rise considerably.

7. A test was carried out to ensure that the differences in the competion over restricted and open waves were significant. The difference between the amount of waves caught by each Knesset members in open and restricted waves was regressed on each of the independent variables. The results of that regression analysis (not shown here) indicate that all of the independent variables had a significant influence (p < .05) on this difference. In other words, the gaps between all of the restricted and open “slopes” in Table 4 are significantly different from zero.