Online news media as political agenda-setter?
A content analysis on the usage of Nu.nl in parliamentary
questions in the Netherlands
Eline Huisman, 10805265 Supervisor: Linda Bos
Master Thesis: Political Communication Graduate School of Communication Master’s program Communication Science
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2 Abstract
This study examines the impact of online news media on political agendas. It addresses the innovative question how the Dutch online news medium Nu.nl influences a symbolic political agenda, by looking at parliamentary questions in the Netherlands. A quantitative content analysis, existing of two studies, is done in order to examine the use of Nu.nl articles as sources in parliamentary questions and what characterizes these articles. The first study looks at Nu.nl in comparison with traditional media from 2001 until 2014. The second study examines 400 Nu.nl articles and their related parliamentary questions. The results show an increase in the use of Nu.nl as a source in parliamentary questions over time. Nu.nl is generally more used than television broadcasts and is even on the same level as some important newspapers. It appears that the Nu.nl articles that are used as sources are largely neutral of tone and exist mainly of governmental and endogenous issues. The present study concludes that online news media do matter in political agenda-setting. With online news media as innovative factor, this study contributes to the agenda-setting theory of politics and it wants to recommend other researchers to include online news media in studies about political agenda-setting.
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Introduction
Agenda-setting is a dominant paradigm in communication science as well as in political science (Van Aelst & Vliegenthart, 2013). Although both research fields make use of the same concept (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2011b), they use the theory of agenda-setting in a different way. In communication science agenda-setting is traditionally about the effect of the media on the public whereas in political science the approach focuses on the process of policy making (Van Aelst & Vliegenthart, 2013). There used to be hardly any collaboration between the two fields (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2011b), but from the mid-1980s scholars started to concentrate on media agendas as well as political agendas (Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2006). Studies then began to combine both traditions by examining whether media agendas (the focus of communication science) influence political agendas (the focus of political science). These first studies (summarized by Walgrave & van Aelst, 2006) explored the impact of media on the political agenda. Most of these works suggest that the media play a role in determining the political agenda (Walgrave, Soroka & Nuytemans, 2008). The studies showed that the media can influence which issues get attention of political actors (Van Dalen & Van Aelst, 2014). It became clear that the media had an impact on shaping the political agenda. But the question about which exact role they played in political agenda-setting remained unanswered. (Walgrave et al., 2008; Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2011b; Eissler, Russell & Jones, 2014). How are the media influencing the political agenda? What kind of media and under which circumstances are media influencing political agendas (Walgrave, 2008)? Why do the media matter more in some instances than in others (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2011b)?
The study of Walgrave and Van Aelst (2006) was one of the first in examining these questions. They argue that the type of media outlet is an aspect that could influence the media’s impact on political agendas. Media are often treated as a unified force (Van Aelst et al., 2008), but it appears that different types of media have different effects on political
4 agendas. Most of the time, these studies investigated and compared newspapers and television broadcasts (Walgrave et al., 2008; Van Aelst et al., 2008). But the relatively new actor of online news media gets very little attention in research. This study argues that online news media cannot be neglected in modern agenda-setting studies and should therefore be examined. Because of the digital age it is very well possible that the process of agenda formation has changed (Eissler et al., 2014). The appearance of online news media probably has not changed the dynamics of the agenda-setting process, but it has speeded up the imitative process (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2008). News cycles go much faster through the internet now. The potential of traditional media in setting the agenda is called into question, through the rise of new media (Sayre, Bode, Shah, Wilcox & Shah, 2010). The question is if and how this development of online news media influenced the process of policy formation? Eissler et al. (2014) argue that the changes in the agenda-setting process should be understood in light of the connected world through the internet. So, the internet appears to be a promising factor in research on traditional agenda-setting effects (McCombs, 2005).
Previous agenda-setting research that included the internet has focused on the intermedia relationship, meaning that they examined the relationship between traditional and new media (Lee, Lancendorfer & Lee, 2006; Lim, 2006), or which effect online media has on the public agenda (Althaus & Tewksbury, 2002). But there are hardly any studies that look at the effect on the political agenda. The present study wants to fill this gap by examining the impact of online news media on political agenda formation. It looks at the Dutch online news medium Nu.nl and their influence on parliamentary questions in the Netherlands. In this way, this study hopes to contribute to stronger evidence on how the media influence the political agenda, which is a key necessity for better understanding the agenda-setting process (Eissler et al., 2014). The research question is therefore as follows: To what extent are Nu.nl articles
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Theoretical background
Political agenda-setting
Agenda-setting is about “influencing the topics of discussion, the agenda, of others” (Van Noije, Kleinnijnehuis & Oegema, 2008, p. 456). By emphasizing particular issues and downplaying others, the media can influence the agenda of the public, as well as the agenda of politics (Tresch, Sciarini, & Varone, 2013). Here, agenda-setting is about the transfer of salience by the media (Wolfe, Jones & Baumgartner, 2013). Political agenda-setting differs from public agenda-setting in the way that it is a behavioral process instead of the cognitive process that characterizes public agenda-setting (Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2006). Public agenda-setting is mainly an unconscious process in which the agenda of the public is relatively empty. Political agenda-setting, on the other hand, is a very conscious process in which politicians decide where they devote attention to (Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2006). In this form, the political agenda is the list of issues those political actors pay attention to (Walgrave et al., 2008). However, it is said that there is no such thing as the political agenda, because politicians all have their own agenda (Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2006). A political agenda exists of many different, more or less independent agendas. Anyhow, a political agenda is too limited to cover every issue (Vliegenthart, Walgrave & Zicha, 2013) and therefore it is a precondition of political decision making when an issue is on the agenda (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2011b; Van Dalen & Van Aalst, 2014). If there is no attention for a certain topic, a political decision will simply stay out (Vliegenthart et al., 2013). A political agenda is in this way a competitive tool to influence policy making (Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2006).
Walgrave and Van Aelst (2006) explain in their study why politicians use media issues for their agendas. Political actors are, just like ordinary people, simply affected by news media. If it is in the news then it should be something important. Besides, politicians see media coverage as a reflection of public opinion. The issues that are put forward by television
6 and newspapers are considered to be indicators of what the public wants and needs. Thus, for political actors, the media function as information source about the priorities and preferences of citizens (Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2006).
The political agenda
Looking at political agendas, a crucial distinction has been made between substantial and symbolic political agendas (Van Aelst & Vliegenthart, 2013; Van Aelst & Walgrave, 2011). This distinction is made because some agendas appear to be more reactive to media coverage than others (Walgrave et al., 2008). Substantial agendas include policy changes and legislation (Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2006). These agendas reflect the parliamentary work of political actors, such as lawmaking, promoting, sanctioning and budgetary allocations (Van Aelst & Vliegenthart, 2013; Walgrave et al., 2008). A symbolic agenda exists of those issues that are only mentioned with the purpose of getting them into the media (Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2006). Such agendas are reflected in parliamentary debates and hearings, where political actors can show that they care or worry about a certain issue (Walgrave et al., 2008). Of symbolic political agendas it is known that they have little direct impact on concrete policy making (Van Aelst & Vliegenthart, 2013), as they do not have the competence of initiating actual policy measures (Walgrave et al., 2008). Moreover, symbolic agendas are more dependent on the news of the day, while substantial agendas are more stable and difficult to change. It is therefore that the media can influence the symbolic agenda considerably more than the substantial agenda (Walgrave, 2008). For these reasons this study will look at the symbolic political agenda, because it assumes that the substantial agenda is less influenced by the media, like literature is claiming (Van Aelst & Vliegenthart, 2013; Walgrave et al., 2008). However, the two agendas are not totally separated, given that a symbolic agenda and substantial agenda can have some overlap (Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2006). There is the
7 possibility that a parliamentary question will in the end lead to a bill. The current study will examine the symbolic agenda by looking at parliamentary questions.
Parliamentary questions
Parliamentary work is reflected in daily activities of the individual members of parliament (MPs) (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2011a). Part of that parliamentary behavior is organizing hearings, passing legislation and asking questions. MPs only have limited time, effort and institutional opportunity to pay attention to issues and from an agenda-setting perspective this is interesting (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2011a). In parliament only a small amount of issues gets attention, which means that issue prioritization is necessary. Preferring one issue over another is a choice of a party or a MP, which shows the mechanism of parliamentary action (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2011a).
Parliamentary questions are important because it is the only truly activity in parliament and because such questions can determine the political agenda (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2011a). Parliamentary questions give MPs the opportunity to influence the political agenda by putting certain issues forward (Van Aelst & Vliegenthart, 2013). Parties can emphasize certain topics and can force other parties to respond to these issues. The political consequences of the questions are probably modest (Van Santen, Helfer & Van Aelst, 2015), but it can cause attention for issues. Debates about such issues can in a broader perspective influence the substantial political agenda (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2011a).
In most countries a question hour is organized once a week. Here, MPs have the right to ask any parliamentary questions they like on which the government has to respond immediately, such as with oral questions, or can respond with a short delay, like with written questions (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2011a). This study examines parliamentary questions in the Netherlands, a small parliamentary democracy, where the weekly question hour is on Tuesday afternoon and is live broadcasted on television. With organizing an oral question
8 hour a country can show the openness of the political process (Van Santen et al., 2015). However, since there is a limit in the number of oral questions that can be answered in this hour, written questions offer a good alternative for topics that have yet to be addressed (Van Aelst & Vliegenthart, 2013). The interest of this study lies in both oral and written questions, for which news media might be a source of inspiration (Van Aelst & Vliegenthart, 2013).
Traditional versus online news media
The comparison between traditional and online news media for political agenda-setting is innovative in this study. Previous studies did make a comparison between newspapers and television news (Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2006; Van Aelst et al. 2008; Walgrave, 2008; Walgrave et al., 2008; Van Aelst & Vliegenthart, 2013). Researchers who surveyed political actors found that politicians themselves considered television news to have more impact on political agenda-setting than newspapers (Van Aelst et al., 2008; Walgrave, 2008). But studies who content analyze both media found contrary results. Newspapers seem to have a larger effect on policy makers than television news, due to their complete and in-depth coverage (Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2006). The results of Walgrave et al. (2008) also indicate that newspapers have a larger political agenda-setting effect than television news. According to Van Aelst and Vliegenthart (2013), newspaper sources are more often used for parliamentary questions than television news. Walgrave et al. (2008) mentioned various reasons why political actors are more susceptible for newspaper sources, such as that they read newspapers more than they watch television news and that there is more attention for politics in newspapers. They also mention that newspapers are seen as a more reliable and trustworthy source for politicians than television news (Walgrave et al., 2008). Although these studies compared newspapers with television news and not with online news media, this study expects that for online news media there will be similar results.
9 Though, the concepts of newspapers and television broadcasts are familiar to us, the concept of online news media is somewhat less clear. Online news media are the online versions of magazines, newspapers and television broadcasts (McCombs, 2005), but also includes separate initiatives of news online. The Dutch Nu.nl is such an independent news site that is not a replication of a traditional news outlet (McCombs, 2005). Online news media characterize themselves by their interactivity, hypertextuality (the interconnections through hyperlinks) and multimediality (Deuze, 2003). For politicians the traditional news medium of newspapers will probably be seen as more credible than interactive online news media. This leads to the following hypothesis:
H1a: Newspapers will be used more often as a source in parliamentary questions
compared to online news.
Nevertheless, this study also expects that television broadcasts are more used than online news media. Politicians themselves consider television in general as an important medium, because of their audiovisual capabilities (Van Aelst & Walgrave, 2011). The traditional format of television news will therefore probably be more used than the new format of online media for parliamentary questions. Therefore the hypothesis is:
H1b: Television news will be used more often as a source in parliamentary questions
compared to online news.
Although online news media might not be as popular as traditional media for political agenda-setting, it is becoming more important and prominent. The popularity of the internet ensures that the number of online news readers has increased very rapidly (Chung, Nam & Stefanone, 2012). This might include politicians, who probably also receive their news more often online. So, a growth can be expected in the use of online news as a source in parliamentary questions through the years. This is visible in the following hypothesis:
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H2: The use of online news as a source in parliamentary questions will increase over
time (2001-2014).
Other contingent factors
The type of media outlet is not the only aspect that might influence the media’s impact on the political agenda. Walgrave and Van Aelst (2006) argue that “political agenda-setting by the media is contingent upon a number of conditions” (p. 103). Aside from a specific media outlet, they mention that the sort of coverage (such as positive versus negative) and the kind of issues that are covered, may be of influence on political agenda-setting (Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2006). In sum, the tone of a news message and the type of issues are interesting aspects to examine in political agenda-setting.
Tone of the news
Sheafer (2007) found evidence that agenda-setting is not only determined by issue salience, but also by the tone of news messages. The study of Thesen (2013b) showed that “parties care more about the tone of news stories, and the type of attention they might produce, rather than what type of issues they might serve to politicise” (p. 365). In examining the influence of news media on the political agenda, it is thus important to take into account the tone of a news article. The agenda-setting theory has an affective component, in which news tone can contribute to the strength and the direction of a message (Sheafer, 2007). Studies that investigate the tone of news make a distinction between positive, negative or neutral news tones (Thesen, 2013a, 2013b; Sheafer, 2007). A news tone can be of great influence on how a news message is received (Sheafer, 2007). A positive tone can lead in this way to a different reaction than a negative tone and that is why the tone of a news message matters for agenda-setting.
11 In modern journalism negativity is often the dominant tone in news coverage (Thesen, 2013a), because negative information is getting more attention than positive information (Sheafer, 2007). In their study Schoenbach and Semetko (1992) found that if there is a positive tone in news coverage, the news item is perceived as less important. The study of Sheafer (2007) showed that with a negative tone the opposite is true. The tone of news thus determines how a news item is evaluated on its importance. Although the study of Sheafer (2007) examined news messages in newspapers, this study expects the same results for online news messages. In this way, online news with a negative tone will be seen as more important than the news messages with a positive tone. This will not only be the case for the public but also for politicians, which are affected by the media just like ordinary citizens (Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2006). Therefore it can be expected that online news articles that are used for parliamentary questions are largely negative of tone, because politicians experience such articles as more important. This leads to the following hypothesis:
H3: The online news articles that are used for parliamentary questions will mainly
exist of a negative tone instead of a positive or neutral tone.
Issue type
Another aspect that may influence the media’s impact on the political agenda is the type of issue (Soroka, 2002; Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2006). How much impact the media has, might differ across issue types. In public agenda-setting a classic distinction, made by Zucker (1978, as cited in Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2006), is between obtrusive and unobtrusive issues. This implies that issues directly perceived by people are considered to be obtrusive, such as unemployment, whereas those who cannot directly be perceived are unobtrusive, such as a foreign war (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2011b). Soroka (2002) uses these terms in his issue typology, in which he differentiates between prominent, sensational, and governmental issues.
12 Prominent issues are obtrusive and have strong real-world cues and a concrete effect for people (Walgrave et al., 2008). Sensational issues are unobtrusive and are characterized by getting a lot of media attention through its dramatic events (Walgrave et al., 2008). Governmental issues are also unobtrusive, but without drama and without concrete effects for people (Walgrave et al., 2008). The research of Walgrave et al. (2008) showed that governmental issues have the lowest effect on political agendas, that prominent issues have a medium effect and that sensational issues have the highest influence on a political agenda. However, the study of Walgrave et al. (2008) examined traditional media. This study expects that for online news media there will probably be the same results. Therefore the fourth hypothesis is as follows:
H4a: The online news articles that are used for parliamentary questions will mainly
exist of sensational issues, less of prominent issues and the least of governmental issues.
In the literature there is yet another distinction made, that of exogenous or endogenous issues (Vliegenthart & Walgrave 2011b; Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2008). Exogenous issues are defined as “those that directly come out of society; they are non-routine issues that are not produced by the main institutions, but are mainly driven by external events, beyond the direct control of elites” (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2011b, p. 6). Endogenous issues are defined as those that “are typically produced by institutions; they are predictable and their incidence and framing are controlled by elites” (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2011b, p. 6). In other words, exogenous issues are typically unexpected and unpredictable, whereas endogenous issues are more routinized and predictable (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2008). Following Vliegenthart and Walgrave (2011b), it is expected that endogenous issues have more impact on the political agenda because it is the function of parliament to monitor institutions. Issues that are coming from the political system will thus have more influence in political agenda-setting.
13 For endogenous issues a larger agenda-setting effect is found than for exogenous issues (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2008). Although these studies work with traditional media, for online news media no difference is expected. Therefore the following hypothesis is:
H4b: The online news articles that are used for parliamentary questions will mainly
exist of endogenous issues instead of exogenous issues.
Method
To test the research question and the hypotheses, this study uses a quantitative content analysis. This content analysis exists of two studies, in order to see whether the online news media agenda has influenced the political agenda. The first study examines parliamentary questions over a longer time period and the second study focuses on the online news medium Nu.nl as a source in parliamentary questions.
Study 1: Analysis of parliamentary questions over time
Like the study of Van Aelst and Vliegenthart (2013), parliamentary questions are collected over time, to examine the use of newspapers, television broadcasts and online news media as sources in parliamentary questions. Van Aelst and Vliegenthart (2013) looked at the main national newspapers (Trouw, NRC Handelsblad, de Telegraaf, de Volkskrant and Algemeen Dagblad) and television broadcasts (NOS journaal and RTL Nieuws) of the Netherlands. This study uses these same seven news sources, but also includes the online news medium Nu.nl. This website was already founded in 1999, but since 2007 it is the most visited news website in the Netherlands. It has an average reach of 2,7 million people every day and both men (51%) and women (49%) visit the news website. Although Nu.nl is represented by all ages, the category of 35-50 years is most strongly presented. Over 85% of their users visit the website on a daily basis and on average a visit has a duration of 5 minutes. Nu.nl belongs to
14 the Finnish mediagroup Sanoma Media and it was the first news site that published news 24 hours a day in the Netherlands (www.sanoma.nl).
The first parliamentary question that used Nu.nl as a source dates back from 2001. Therefore the parliamentary years¹ 2001-2002 until 2013-2014 are of interest in this study. In this period all parliamentary questions are collected, which results in a total of 31.066 questions. This amount of parliamentary questions, which is the dependent variable in this study, exists of both oral and written questions. The questions are gained from the website: www.officielebekendmakingen.nl². This website is a collection of official announcements published by Dutch governmental institutions. For each parliamentary year the questions are selected, which are the units of analysis in this study. The same process is done for the independent variable that exists of the eight different news media³. Thus, the content analysis for the first study mainly exists of counting the parliamentary questions for the different sources in the different years (see appendix 1). The obtained numbers of questions are necessary to examine the use of the eight news media as sources in parliamentary questions and to examine how this usage developed over time. This is in line with the method Van Aelst and Vliegenthart (2013) used to conduct their research. Comparisons are made between the different numbers of parliamentary questions, in order to test the hypotheses. Thus, testing the hypotheses in this first study is done without statistical analysis. This is because the whole population of parliamentary questions is presented in this study.
Study 2: Analysis of Nu.nl articles
The second study focuses only on Nu.nl articles that are used as sources in parliamentary questions. The interest lies in the parliamentary years from 2006-2007 until 2013-2014, as Nu.nl is the most visited news site since the year 2007 and because it starts to be more used as a source in 2006-2007 (as found in study 1). All parliamentary questions in these eight years
15 with Nu.nl as a source are collected by using the search term “Nu.nl”. This resulted in a total of 738 parliamentary questions, 80 oral questions and 658 written questions. All oral questions are selected and of the written parliamentary questions every second question is selected for the sample. After this selection, the articles of Nu.nl where the questions are referring to are searched on the internet and collected. Not every article was still available, which finally led to an amount of 400 Nu.nl articles (80 articles belonging to oral questions and 320 belonging to written questions), that are the units of analysis in this research4. The Nu.nl articles are coded with the use of a codebook5 (see appendix 2). The codebook starts with several general items, such as the title of the Nu.nl article, the date of publishing, the parliamentary question it belongs to and what type of question it is. Thereafter, the codebook is about the tone and the issue type of the Nu.nl articles. Before the procedure of coding started, a few random articles of Nu.nl were coded to test the working of the codebook. Some shortcomings that were found were improved before the real coding started. The coding is mainly executed by one person, but in order to increase the coding reliability of this study, a second coder was assigned. This second person has coded 10% of the total amount of articles in order to calculate the Krippendorff’s alpha. To test the codebook before starting and to use another coder for the intercoder reliability ensures that the validity and reliability are improved in this study.
The tone of the news and the type of issue are the dependent variables in this second the study. The tone of a news article is measured, like in the studies of Sheafer (2007) and Thesen (2013a, 2013b), by making a choice between a negative (-1), neutral (0) or positive (1) tone (M= -.23, SD= .46). It is important that not the subject of an article is evaluated, but really the tone itself on the basis of the used words. Articles with a dominance in words as angry, be frightened, heavy losses, great displeasure, be terrified of, risky etc. are for example categorized as a negative tone. A positive tone includes opposite words, such as successful,
16 stimulating the economy, wide support etc. If there is no clear negative or positive tone available in the message, a tone is assessed as neutral. The coding for tone is only moderate reliable (K= .63).
Issue type is, according to the study of Walgrave and Van Aelst (2006), first coded by making a distinction between obtrusive (0) and unobtrusive (1) issues (M= .54, SD= .50). Obtrusive issues are the ones that can be experienced and observed by the government, like issues about policies, the economy and social welfare. Often it is about issues that are happening or counting for the Netherlands itself. Unobtrusive issues are not noticed by the government, but derive from the media. Issues of crime, accidents and happenings in other countries are categorized as unobtrusive. The codebook for this first issue type is reliable (K= .75). Another distinction, made in the studies of Soroka (2002) and Walgrave et al. (2008), on which is coded is between prominent (0), sensational (1) and governmental (2) issues6 (M= 1.32, SD= .70). Prominent issues are obtrusive and examples are an increase in the rental prices, the high debts of people and a rise in unemployment. Sensational issues are unobtrusive and examples are violence, fraud, a bomb hoax, sexual offence, cybercrime etc. It also includes happenings abroad, like a power failure in Bonaire, a suspension in Iran or the rise of refugees in Syria for example. Governmental issues are unobtrusive for citizens, but obtrusive for the government. Examples of this issue type are articles about decisions or choices by ministers, faults by the government, regulations etc. The codebook for this issue type appears to be reliable (K= .76). Issue type can also be measured, like in the studies of Vliegenthart and Walgrave (2008) and Viegenthart and Walgrave (2011b), by exogenous (0) and endogenous (1) issues (M= .57, SD= .50). Exogenous issues are external happenings, outside the control of the government, while endogenous issues can or could be controlled by the government. In other words, issues about crime, the environment and disasters are exogenous and issues where governmental institutions are responsible for are seen as
17 endogenous. The codebook for this final issue type is strongly reliable (K= .90).
The variables of tone and issue are nominal variables, because of their unordered set of categories. It is therefore that one can speak about associations (Krippendorff, 2004). The statistical analysis of tone and issue type exists of chi-square tests using SPSS. This test compares the frequencies of nominal variables and examines the relationship between two variables. When the relationship is examined between two variables that both have two options, Fisher’s exact test is done (Field, 2009).
Results
Study 1: Analysis of parliamentary questions over time
Figure 1 gives an overview of the total amount of parliamentary questions in the previous thirteen years. A slight growth is discernable from 2001 until now, with 2010-2011 as the parliamentary year with the most questions. After this year, the amount of parliamentary questions is somewhat declining until now. The number of parliamentary questions that uses any of the eight news sources (newspapers, television and online news media) seems to be roughly a third of the total amount of parliamentary questions. This is in line with the research of Van Aelst and Vliegenthart (2013), even when Nu.nl articles are included in this study. Thus, it seems also in this study that news coverage can inspire politicians in asking parliamentary questions.
18 Figure 1. Number of parliamentary questions and the number that uses any of the 8 news sources An overview of the eight separate news media is given in figure 2. First of all, comparing these results with the study of Van Aelst and Vliegenthart (2013), it appears that newspapers are still more important as a source in parliamentary questions than television broadcasts. The Telegraaf is also still the newspaper that functions as main source in parliamentary questions. The final four years that are included in this study and that in the study of Van Aelst and Vliegenthart (2013) are missing, do not change the situation.
Hypothesis 1a expects that newspapers will be more often used for parliamentary questions than Nu.nl. Looking at figure 2, newspapers are more used than Nu.nl, because Nu.nl is a single source which is compared with five newspapers. Comparing Nu.nl with the single newspapers gives another perspective. For two of the five newspapers, namely the Telegraaf and the Volkskrant, hypothesis 1a can be supported. They are more used than Nu.nl as a source in the whole research period (see figure 2). However, Nu.nl as a source is more comparable with the other three newspapers. As of 2008-2009, the online news medium is used as a source more often than Algemeen Dagblad. Additionally, as of 2010-2011 this also accounts for Trouw and NRC. Therefore, the hypothesis cannot be supported for these newspapers. In other words, hypothesis 1a is only partially supported.
0 500 1.000 1.500 2.000 2.500 3.000 3.500
Number of parliamentary questions
19 Hypothesis 1b states that television broadcasts will be more often used for parliamentary questions than Nu.nl. As figure 2 shows, in the first five years of the research period television broadcasts are on the same level as Nu.nl. The number of parliamentary questions referring to those sources is very limited. Since the parliamentary year 2006-2007 there is an increase in the number of parliamentary questions that use Nu.nl as a source, which rises above the number of television broadcasts that are used as sources. Therefore hypothesis 1b needs to be rejected, television broadcasts are not more used as a source than Nu.nl for parliamentary questions in the research period of this study.
Figure 2. Number of parliamentary questions using a particular news source
Apparent from the above findings is that Nu.nl as a source in parliamentary questions undergoes a development. Until the parliamentary year 2006-2007 there are hardly any parliamentary questions with Nu.nl as a source, but after this year an instant growth is visible. Due to the fact that Nu.nl is from 2007 the most visited news site in the Netherlands. The site is growing in popularity, plausibly also amongst politicians. In the parliamentary year
2011-0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
Nu.nl NRC Telegraaf Volkskrant
20 2012, Nu.nl is even, after the newspapers the Telegraaf and the Volkskrant, the news source most parliamentary questions refer to. This could provide evidence for hypothesis 2, which states that the use of Nu.nl as a source in parliamentary questions will increase over time. However, after this peak in 2011-2012 a moderate decline is visible in the final two years of the research period of this study. This means some doubtful evidence for hypothesis 2. Figure 3 shows the number of Nu.nl articles that are used as sources in parliamentary questions in percentages. This way it is possible to see whether the same trend is still visible. Figure 3 indeed demonstrates a comparable image of an increase in Nu.nl articles until 2011-2012 and a decrease in the final two years. Hypothesis 2 is therefore only partially supported. So, the number of parliamentary questions that use Nu.nl as a source increased over time, but only until the year 2011-2012. Afterwards, a decline is seen in the final two years until now.
Figure 3. Number of parliamentary questions with Nu.nl as a source in percentages.
Study 2: Analysis of Nu.nl articles
The second study exists of the analysis of 400 Nu.nl articles and the parliamentary questions they belong to. First, the parliamentary questions are examined to see whether they use Nu.nl as a single source in a question or if there are more media sources used. It appears that 14.8% of the parliamentary questions use one or more sources next to Nu.nl. These are all written questions, which seems to get more foundation by other news sources than oral questions that
0,00% 5,00% 10,00% 15,00% 20,00%
Percentage of Nu.nl articles of the total amount of parliamentary questions
Percentage of Nu.nl articles of the total amount of parliamentary questions using any of the news sources
21 never have other sources than Nu.nl in this study. Out of the news sources that are used in study 1, it appears that the NOS and the Telegraaf are most often used in their media category, as other sources besides Nu.nl (see figure 4). This relates to the findings in study 1, in which NOS and the Telegraaf also dominate their media category as the most common source in parliamentary questions.
Figure 4. Number of parliamentary questions that use besides Nu.nl articles also other media sources
Remarkable was that in 8.5% of the Nu.nl articles the politician who asked the parliamentary question was already mentioned in the article. In these cases it was written in the Nu.nl articles that the concerning politician was going to ask parliamentary questions. Apparently, Nu.nl was already informed about this.
Analysis of news tone
Figure 5 gives an overview of the tone of the Nu.nl articles. In this figure it becomes clear that there is variance between the different tones, with the neutral tone as the prevailing tone in the Nu.nl articles of this study. A chi-square test reveals that the frequencies are significantly unequal, X² (2) = 320.78, p < .05. The negative tone is far less present than expected, while the contrary is true for the neutral tone, which is more often used in Nu.nl articles than expected. This leads to a rejection of hypothesis 3, which predicted that Nu.nl articles that are used for parliamentary questions would mainly exist of a negative tone. However, it is true
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
22 that the negative tone is more used in the articles compared to the positive tone. A positive tone is only rarely present in the Nu.nl articles of this study. Another chi-square test is done, to examine if there is a certain difference between oral and written questions and the tone that is used in their corresponding Nu.nl articles. It appears that there is no difference between the tone of Nu.nl articles for oral questions and the tone of Nu.nl articles for written questions, X² (2) = 1.85, p > .05. Both oral and written questions are statistically equal using negative, neutral or positive news tones. Next, figure 6 presents an overview of the tone over time. In the first two years the contrast between negative and neutral articles is higher compared to the six years following. However, it is not possible to conduct an analysis to reveal whether there is a relationship between the tone of an article and the time, as the conditions of doing a chi-square test are not accomplished7. Looking at figure 6, it can be seen that the tone of Nu.nl articles remain mostly stable over time since the parliamentary year 2008-20098.
Figure 5. Tone of the Nu.nl articles that are used for oral and written parliamentary questions
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Negative Neutral Positive
Oral Written
23 Figure 6. Tone of the Nu.nl articles over time in percentages
Analysis of issue type
Figure 7 shows an overview of the different items that measure the type of issue of the Nu.nl articles. First, by focusing on whether an issue is obtrusive or unobtrusive, the figure shows that Nu.nl articles are slightly more unobtrusive than obtrusive. However, this difference is not significant, X² (1) = 2.89, p > .05. This means that a Nu.nl article in this study can be obtrusive as well as unobtrusive. Analyzing if there is a distinction between the two types of parliamentary questions and their use of issue type, it appears that no significant difference is found between oral or written questions and whether a question is obtrusive or unobtrusive (Fisher-exact, p = 0.80). Figure 8 presents an overview of the issue types of Nu.nl articles over time. For the issue type of obtrusive or unobtrusive issues it seems that there is a significant association with time, X² (7) = 16.17, p < .05. However, this association is very weak (tau = 0.006) and figure 8 does not make clear in which direction (an increase or decrease) this association can be seen.
Looking at whether an issue is prominent, sensational or governmental, it turns out that there are significant differences between the frequencies of the three categories, X² (2) = 70.73, p < .05. Hypothesis 4a expects that Nu.nl articles mainly exist of sensational issues, but
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% 2006-2007 2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010 2010-2011 2011-2012 2012-2013 2013-2014 Negative Neutral Positive
24 it appears that this type of issue is less present than was expected and this is also the case for prominent issues. Governmental issues, on the other hand, are more present than was expected. This means that this hypothesis needs to be rejected. The results also showed that there is no difference between this type of issue and oral and written questions, X² (2) = 2.91, p > .05. Both types of parliamentary questions have the same chance of using prominent, sensational or governmental issues. Another analysis reveals that these categories of issue type and the time of the eight parliamentary years are statistically independent, X² (14) = 13.32, p > .05. Thus, there is no development seen in those eight years, concerning this issue type. The results point to a relatively stable use of prominent, sensational or governmental issues in the Nu.nl articles.
The final item of issue type is exogenous and endogenous issues. Looking at figure 7 one can see some difference in that there are more endogenous issues in the Nu.nl articles than exogenous issues. It appears that this difference is significant, X² (1) = 7.84, p < .05. The final hypothesis, hypothesis 4b, is expecting that endogenous issues are more present in Nu.nl articles than exogenous issues. The analyses show support for this expectation, so therefore hypothesis 4b can be accepted. Looking at oral and written questions, it appears that there is no difference between those type of questions and whether they use Nu.nl articles with exogenous or endogenous issue types (Fisher-exact, p = 0.21). This is also the case for the analysis over time, the type of exogenous and endogenous issues and the eight parliamentary years are not related, X² (7) = 11.86, p > .05. This result indicates the relatively stability of issue type over time9.
25 Figure 7. Issue type of the Nu.nl articles that are used for oral and written parliamentary questions
Figure 8. Issue type of the Nu.nl articles over time in percentages.
Discussion and conclusion
The present study examined the development of parliamentary questions over time and more specifically examined the articles of Nu.nl that are used as a source in parliamentary questions. It concludes first of all, that the online news medium Nu.nl is a serious actor between traditional media for political agenda-setting. Nu.nl as a source in parliamentary
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 Oral Written 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 2006-2007 2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010 2010-2011 2011-2012 2012-2013 2013-2014 obtrusive unobtrusive prominent sensational
26 questions undergoes a rapid growth, from a source hardly mentioned to a source that is on the same level as some newspapers. The online news medium is more used than television broadcasts, but it does not win from the popular newspapers de Telegraaf and the quality newspaper de Volkskrant, which both stay ahead in their number of articles that are used every year for questions (Van Aelst & Vliegenthart, 2013). Although in the final two years of the research period a decline is seen in the number of Nu.nl articles, this study still concludes that the use of Nu.nl as sources in parliamentary questions has increased over time.
Focusing more specific on articles of Nu.nl, the results showed that a negative tone is more often used than a positive tone in the articles. Thus, negative information gets more attention than positive information (Sheafer, 2007). But Nu.nl articles mainly exist of a neutral tone, instead of the expected negative tone. This probably has to do with the fact that Nu.nl articles are most of the time very short and stay on the surface. The subjects of those articles are not very in-depth or discussed. This leads to messages where the news is just announced without any evaluation in it. It is therefore likely that the Nu.nl articles exists more of a neutral tone than a negative or a positive tone. It is remarkable that Nu.nl with its neutral messages has quite some influence on parliamentary questions. However, it is argued that the Telegraaf is the most influential medium, because of its popularity which resembles the Dutch population in the eyes of politicians (Van Aelst & Vliegenthart, 2013). An interpretation is that this possibly also happened with Nu.nl, which is nowadays a popular news medium. Politicians see media as a reflection of the public opinion (Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2006). This might be a reason why Nu.nl is used by politicians, despite their neutral tone.
With regard to issue type, a remarkable result is that governmental issues were most present in the Nu.nl articles, while it was expected as the least common issue. Often the news articles were about policies of municipalities or the government, about the faults that were made or the things that went wrong in those policies. This has probably resulted in
27 governmental issues as the most frequent category, which contradicts with Walgrave et al. (2008). Further research should indicate if this is because of online news media or if it is just the case with Nu.nl. The finding that there were more endogenous issues than exogenous issues falls in line with this result. A high number in governmental issues also means that most of the subjects of the Nu.nl articles were under the control of the government. This characterizes endogenous issues (Vliegenthart & Walgrave 2011b).
This study is not without limitations. First of all, the intercoder reliability of tone was very minimal. Whereas issue type could be measured more easily because of the clearer instructions in the codebook, this was much harder for tone. Through the evaluative aspect of tone (Sheafer, 2007) multiple interpretations were possible, which makes is more difficult to get a high score on the intercoder reliability. Future research that wants to work with tone in news messages is advised to use more items that measure this variable or to make clearer instructions for a codebook.
Another shortcoming is the use of the database officielebekendmakingen.nl. Although this database is already better and more complete than that of the tweedekamer.nl, there are still a few difficulties in its usage. First, both written and oral questions are belonging to the category parliamentary questions and cannot be found separately. That is why study 1 examined parliamentary questions in general, like Van Aelst and Vliegenthart (2013) did, instead of making different figures for oral and written questions. Second, the used database is not very precise with its searching terms. For example with the searching term nu.nl, articles with europe-nu.nl were also selected and with the newspaper Trouw there is the chance that articles were selected that use the Dutch word in another context. Therefore there is a chance that there is a margin of error in the amounts of articles. However, the results are still quite comparable with the research of Van Aelst and Vliegenthart (2013).
28 country. Therefore a nuanced perspective of the results is necessary. Of symbolic agendas it is known that they have less influence on policy-making (Walgrave, 2008; Van Aelst & Vliegenthart, 2013). Although the results of this study show that news media are used for parliamentary questions, it is the question if this lead to real policy-making (Walgrave et al. 2008). Further research could examine this and specific look at the role of online news media. Moreover, the focus of this study was solely on one country. The conclusions are therefore only valid for the Netherlands. Therefore this study suggests, such as previous studies (Van Aelst & Vliegenthart, 2013; Vliegenthart et al., 2013; Walgrave, 2008), to take more or other countries into consideration while examining parliamentary questions over time. Because of the innovative aspect of online news media, it particularly wants to advise future research to examine the usage of online news media in parliamentary questions in other countries10.
There are also some other possibilities for future research. First, it is interesting to take the tone and issue type of newspapers and television broadcasts also into consideration, like Walgrave and Van Aelst (2006) in first instance argue for. In this way, a good comparison can be made between what kind of traditional and online news media are used for parliamentary questions. By taking a sample of the articles of newspapers and items of television broadcasts in the same time period, the results could be compared with the outcome of this study. A second option for research is to make a comparison with regular Nu.nl articles, consisting of articles that are not used for parliamentary questions. A sample of these Nu.nl articles in the same period could be interesting to investigate whether there are differences between Nu.nl articles that are used for questions compared with those that are not used for parliamentary questions. Another interesting aspect is to look at the reciprocal relationship of media and politics (Van Aelst & Vliegenthart, 2013; Van Noije et al., 2008). In some cases the politicians who ask the parliamentary question were already mentioned in the Nu.nl article. So it seems that politics can already inspire the media. A final idea is to examine Nu.nl articles
29 that are used for parliamentary questions over a longer period or to look at months or even weeks instead of years, such as studies using time-series analyses do (Van Aelst & Vliegenthart, 2011). In this way regression analyses are possible, which can examine the actual relationship between variables. These options were unfortunately not doable for this study because of a lack of time, but could be interesting for further research.
To conclude, in this study it becomes clear that online news media can be interesting players in the field of agenda-setting. In the previous thirteen years, the online news medium of this study, developed from a source that was hardly mentioned to a source that matters for parliamentary questions and is on the same level as particular important newspapers in the Netherlands. However, there are questions that remain unanswered. In the final two years of the research period a decline is seen in the use of Nu.nl as a source. Coming years will reveal how Nu.nl as a source in parliamentary questions will develop. Further research is also necessary to investigate what kinds of online news messages are used for questions. In this explorative study the articles mainly have a neutral tone and exist of governmental and endogenous issues. It is interesting to see if this is still the case with other online media and in other countries. The present study has hopefully contributed to the framework of political agenda-setting by investigating the medium of online news. It wants to inspire other researchers to include online news media in studies about political agenda-setting. This will contribute to, like Walgrave and Van Aelst (2006) asked for, a more complete and tested theory on the media’s role in political agenda-setting. Online news media are part of modern life and this study is a first attempt in examining their role in the process of agendaformation.
Notes
1. A parliamentary year starts in the Netherlands on the third Tuesday in September (called ‘Prinsjesdag’).
30 documents and only Second Chamber.
3. In the selection criteria the name of the news media was included, which meant that there was searched for this medium in the full text of parliamentary questions. 4. The exact amount of different Nu.nl articles is 398, because one article was used for two written questions and another article was used for a written and an oral question.
5. The codebook is implemented in the online survey program Qualtrics, to make the data easy accessible for SPSS.
6. These categories elaborate from the distinction between obtrusive and unobtrusive and are therefore overlapping.
7. The assumption for chi-square tests is that 80% of the expected values of the cells are at least 5 and that no expected value is less than 1.
8. In appendix 2, figure 9 is presented which shows the tone of Nu.nl articles over time with the real number of articles instead of percentages.
9. In appendix 2, figure 10 gives an overview of the issue type of Nu.nl articles over time with the real number of articles instead of percentages.
10. The online news medium Nu.nl is very specific for the Netherlands and only exists in this country. Other countries like Belgium or the United States have probably comparable online news media, these could be interesting for further research.
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33 Appendix 1: Codebook for study 1
Deze eerste studie van de inhoudsanalyse bestaat uit het tellen van het aantal Kamervragen in de periode 2001 tot en met 2014. Het gaat daarbij om de ontwikkelingen door de jaren heen, wat de unit of analysis is in dit deel van het onderzoek. Een parlementsjaar in Nederland start op de derde dinsdag in september (Prinsjesdag), wanneer de beleidsplannen van de regering voor het komende jaar worden gepresenteerd in de troonrede van het staatshoofd van het land. De parlementsjaren zijn als volgt:
2001-2002 18-09-2001 t/m 16-09-2002 2002-2003 17-09-2002 t/m 15-09-2003 2003-2004 16-09-2003 t/m 20-09-2004 2004-2005 21-09-2004 t/m 19-09-2005 2005-2006 20-09-2005 t/m 18-09-2006 2006-2007 19-09-2006 t/m 17-09-2007 2007-2008 18-09-2007 t/m 15-09-2008 2008-2009 16-09-2008 t/m 14-09-2009 2009-2010 15-09-2009 t/m 20-09-2010 2010-2011 21-09-2010 t/m 19-09-2011 2011-2012 20-09-2011 t/m 17-09-2012 2012-2013 18-09-2012 t/m 16-09-2013 2013-2014 17-09-2013 t/m 15-09-2014
De website officielebekendmakingen.nl is gebruikt als database voor de schriftelijke vragen. De volgende criteria zijn gebruikt: parlementaire documenten, Kamervragen zonder
antwoorden, toon alleen opgemaakte stukken, als er een zoekterm is gebruikt dan is er
gezocht in de gehele tekst, Tweede Kamer en de datum is geselecteerd per parlementsjaar. 1. Totaal aantal Kamervragen voor de parlementsjaren:
Parlementsjaar Schriftelijke vragen
1 2001-2002 1.440 2 2002-2003 1.602 3 2003-2004 2.001 4 2004-2005 2.012 5 2005-2006 1.788 6 2006-2007 2.400
34 7 2007-2008 2.833 8 2008-2009 3.055 9 2009-2010 2.612 10 2010-2011 3.243 11 2011-2012 2.864 12 2012-2013 2.711 13 2013-2014 2.506 Totaal 2001-2014 31.066
In onderstaande tabellen is het medium (wat dik gedrukt is) als zoekterm gebruikt. 2. Totaal aantal Kamervragen waarin Nu.nl wordt gebruikt als bron:
Parlementsjaar Schriftelijke vragen
1 2001-2002 1 2 2002-2003 4 3 2003-2004 2 4 2004-2005 10 5 2005-2006 11 6 2006-2007 28 7 2007-2008 63 8 2008-2009 82 9 2009-2010 73 10 2010-2011 126 11 2011-2012 161 12 2012-2013 121 13 2013-2014 96 Totaal 2001-2014 778
3. Totaal aantal Kamervragen waarin NRC Handelsblad wordt gebruikt als bron: Parlementsjaar Schriftelijke vragen
1 2001-2002 88
2 2002-2003 103
3 2003-2004 113
35 5 2005-2006 89 6 2006-2007 126 7 2007-2008 149 8 2008-2009 138 9 2009-2010 98 10 2010-2011 117 11 2011-2012 105 12 2012-2013 118 13 2013-2014 93 Totaal 2001-2014 1.452
4. Totaal aantal Kamervragen waarin de Telegraaf wordt gebruikt als bron: Parlementsjaar Schriftelijke vragen
1 2001-2002 84 2 2002-2003 89 3 2003-2004 180 4 2004-2005 184 5 2005-2006 163 6 2006-2007 268 7 2007-2008 316 8 2008-2009 348 9 2009-2010 287 10 2010-2011 321 11 2011-2012 280 12 2012-2013 241 13 2013-2014 264 Totaal 2001-2014 3.025
5. Totaal aantal Kamervragen waarin de Volkskrant wordt gebruikt als bron: Parlementsjaar Schriftelijke vragen
1 2001-2002 138
2 2002-2003 169
36 4 2004-2005 172 5 2005-2006 123 6 2006-2007 211 7 2007-2008 198 8 2008-2009 188 9 2009-2010 163 10 2010-2011 241 11 2011-2012 208 12 2012-2013 182 13 2013-2014 157 Totaal 2001-2014 2.346
6. Totaal aantal Kamervragen waarin Trouw wordt gebruikt als bron: Parlementsjaar Schriftelijke vragen
1 2001-2002 99 2 2002-2003 108 3 2003-2004 111 4 2004-2005 101 5 2005-2006 95 6 2006-2007 121 7 2007-2008 130 8 2008-2009 142 9 2009-2010 142 10 2010-2011 136 11 2011-2012 103 12 2012-2013 81 13 2013-2014 66 Totaal 2001-2014 1.435
7. Totaal aantal Kamervragen waarin het Algemeen Dagblad wordt gebruikt als bron: Parlementsjaar Schriftelijke vragen
37 2 2002-2003 79 3 2003-2004 107 4 2004-2005 86 5 2005-2006 70 6 2006-2007 108 7 2007-2008 100 8 2008-2009 77 9 2009-2010 33 10 2010-2011 59 11 2011-2012 34 12 2012-2013 31 13 2013-2014 29 Totaal 2001-2014 873
8. Totaal aantal Kamervragen waarin NOS journaal wordt gebruikt als bron: Parlementsjaar Schriftelijke vragen
1 2001-2002 10 2 2002-2003 4 3 2003-2004 21 4 2004-2005 12 5 2005-2006 21 6 2006-2007 17 7 2007-2008 19 8 2008-2009 28 9 2009-2010 13 10 2010-2011 7 11 2011-2012 12 12 2012-2013 5 13 2013-2014 4 Totaal 2001-2014 173
38 9. Totaal aantal Kamervragen waarin RTL Nieuws wordt gebruikt als bron:
Parlementsjaar Schriftelijke vragen
1 2001-2002 2 2 2002-2003 2 3 2003-2004 7 4 2004-2005 3 5 2005-2006 9 6 2006-2007 19 7 2007-2008 24 8 2008-2009 29 9 2009-2010 22 10 2010-2011 18 11 2011-2012 22 12 2012-2013 27 13 2013-2014 28 Totaal 2001-2014 212
39
Appendix 2: Codebook for study 2
De tweede studie kijkt meer inhoudelijk naar de Nu.nl artikelen die gebruikt zijn bij Kamervragen in de periode 2006 tot en met 2014. Hierbij is coderen nodig volgens onderstaande vragen.
Algemene Informatie
ID1. Een nummer om het item te identificeren (vb. Nu1, voor het eerste Nu.nl artikel) ID2. Naam van de codeur (vb. EH voor Eline Huisman)
V01. De titel van het Nu.nl artikel (vb. Bereikbaarheid huisarts moet beter) V02a. Dag dat het artikel is gepubliceerd (vb. 10 in 10-09-2008)
V02b. Maand dat het artikel is gepubliceerd (vb. 9 in 10-09-2008) V02c. Jaar dat het artikel is gepubliceerd (vb. 2008 in 10-09-2008)
V03. De titel van de Kamervraag waar het Nu.nl artikel gebruikt is als bron (vb. Bereikbaarheid van huisartsen)
V04a. Dag waarop de Kamervraag gesteld is (vb. 15 in 15-09-2008) V04b. Maand waarin de Kamervraag gesteld is (vb. 9 in 15-09-2008) V04c. Jaar waarin de Kamervraag gesteld is (vb. 2008 in 15-09-2008) V05. De soort Kamervraag waar het Nu.nl artikel gebruikt is als bron 1. Mondelinge vraag
2. Schriftelijke vraag
V06a. Bevat de Kamervraag ook andere media bronnen? 0. Nee
1. Ja
V06b. Zo ja, bevat de Kamervraag dan 1 of meer van de 7 media bronnen uit studie 1 (NRC Handelsblad, Trouw, de Telegraaf, de Volkskrant, Algemeen Dagblad, NOS Journaal of RTL Nieuws)?
V07. Wordt er in het Nu.nl artikel al gerefereerd naar de politicus/politici die de Kamervraag stelt/stellen?
0. Nee 1. Ja
