Framing the 2009 Presidential Elections. Electoral Campaign Coverage in Opinion Articles
Framing the 2009 Presidential Elections. Electoral Campaign Coverage in Opinion Articles

Summary/Abstract: The 2009 presidential elections from Romania were preceded by an electoral campaign with a strong conflicting character. The characteristics of the campaign produced numerous controversies regarding the practices and strategies used both by the mass media and the political actors. Generally speaking, the discussions about political programs passed into the background while huge spaces were conferred to the conflicts and misunderstandings which often degenerated in ad-hominem attacks between candidates. Another characteristic of the 2009 presidential campaign was related to the role assumed by the mass media, which, in most cases, seemed to disregard the requisite of impartiality while presenting the political actors and events. This research assumes as purposes to substantiate that the electoral campaign received a high visibility in the written press and to investigate which were the coverage strategies used in framing the electoral event. My study starts from a content analysis of the opinion articles written during the entire campaign in three of the most important (both as printed version circulation, and as number of online visitors) generalist newspapers, namely Evenimentul Zilei (Daily Event), Gândul (The Thought) and Jurnalul Naţional (The National Journal). Using an approach related to agenda setting, framing and priming studies, the research assumes as purpose to prove that mass media offered mainly a negative interpretation – attack/conflict type – to the electoral campaign and focused mainly on secondary themes, related rather to the candidates’ moral conducts and characters than to their political programs.

• Details
• Contents