The deliberative quality of referendum coverage in direct democracy : findings from a longitudinal analysis of Swiss media

english

2012

volume 19, issue 4

Direct democracy    Referendum    Switzerland    Journalism    democracy    mass media    printing 

Evropski inštitut za komuniciranje in kulturo - EURICOM
(Obvezni izvod spletne publikacije)

The article presents a systematic and standardised content analysis of 4,559 newspaper articles; it covers nine popular votes in Switzerland between 1983 and 2004 and measures the deliberativeness of the mediated public debate. In the last decade, a growing number of studies employ a deliberative framework in analysing mass media contents. However, these studies followed a sceptical perspective and found evidence that mediated deliberation inevitably falls short of the demanding criteria provided by normative theory. Nevertheless, the article demonstrates that there are examples of deliberative journalism inSwiss direct democratic campaigns. We argue that a political system of a mature direct democracy, such as the Swiss democracy is, together with a journalistic culture which is ŽeducatedŽ by initiative and referendum, might provide an appropriate environment for mediated-public deliberation.

26.04.2017