AUTNES Manual Content Analysis of the Media Coverage 2013: Actors and Issues Add-on

It emphasizes political actors, issues, and their evaluation. 8,998 contributions from 14 print and TV media (selected according to various criteria in order to represent the Austrian media landscape as accurately as possible) were examined by means of manual content analysis. All contributions refer to either a political party or a political candidate of the Austrian national election 2013.

All contributions have been published between 18.8.2013 and election day (29.9.2013) and were supplied by the APA Data Archive. Important variables are occurrence of parties and candidates as well as their evaluation; occurrence and evaluation of the government; occurrence and evaluation of the economy and migration; occurrence of important issues in the election campaign; and frames. Topics: headline; byline; media outlet; date; time; page; tone towards political actors; how is the situation of the economy and of immigration evaluated in the news; occurrence of election campaign issues; game framing in a news report (focus on a game character of politics, politics is portrayed as sports competition or warfare); news report mobilizes readers to take part in political activities; news report focusses on the fate of ordinary (i.e. unknown) people (human interest); policy relevant information; coverage in an article is one-sided or it takes multiple perspectives and arguments into account (perspectives and argumentation); number of different sources with quote.