Mass media’s parliamentary agenda setting power in Greece: A behavioral approach Angelos Seriatos 11107324 Master’s Thesis Words: 7491 University of Amsterdam Graduate School of Communication
Supervisor: Franziska Marquart 2018
AKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would first like to thank my thesis supervisor Franziska Marquart. She consistently allowed this paper to be my own work, but steered me in the right direction when needed it. I would also like to thank the experts, who were involved in this difficult but beautiful research journey: Fam te Poel, who gave me the opportunity to realize the importance of Statistics and get engaged with it and also dr.Andreas Schuck, whose office door was always open whenever I needed it. Finally, I would like to thank dr.Knut De Swert and dr.Alessandro Nai, who revealed the beauty of Political Communication to me.
My sincere appreciation, Angelos Seratos.
Abstract
The aim of this study was twofold: First, to investigate whether basic findings of previous studies, regarding the mass media’s parliamentary agenda setting power, can be generalized to countries belonging to the Mediterranean political and media system (such as Greece). The second goal was to examine the motivations that drive political actors to act upon media information, taking into account the role of
politicians’ political orientation. Two aspects of political ideology were discussed: Right wing conservatism and left wing populism, which have lately dominated the Greek ideological and political spectrum. In order to investigate the topic a behavioral approach was followed. 52 Members of the Greek parliament were surveyed. The results revealed that media do matter in shaping the political agenda in the country. Furthermore, the present study well established that some of the motivations that drive politicians to use media information in their work are associated with right conservatism and left populism, respectively, while others not.
Mass media’s parliamentary agenda setting power in Greece: A behavioral approach
On the one hand, media play a crucial role in shaping a healthy democracy; on the other hand, democracy is the only form of government that offers the minimum necessary conditions under which a healthy media system can operate (ref). In that sense, the relationship between democracy and media has been justifiably described as a mutually beneficial social contract (McQuail, 1992). Nevertheless, according to Strömbäck (2005), there is a plethora of different views regarding which criteria should be fulfilled in order journalism to be characterized as of high or low quality depending on the normative democratic model under discussion. Still, all the dominant democratic theories agree that media should inform citizens and make politicians more responsive and accountable to the citizens (Strömbäck, 2005). Hence, beyond the different democratic models and their normative implications upon journalism, a sophisticated understanding of whether and why politicians’ work is often driven by media information (Sevenans, 2017b) seems to be of high societal relevance.
Mass media’s political agenda setting power
Agenda-setting research was formally established when Combs and Shaw’s studies on the U.S. elections, Chapel Hill Street (1968) and Charlotte Study (1972), were published. Agenda-setting theory investigates whether and to what extent the media have the ability to set the priorities of the public. As Cohen (1963) stated “The press may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about” (p. 13). Since the time these studies were conducted, the agenda setting theory has been further
developed, and two assumptions became prevalent in the research field: First, the media do not accurately present what is going on in the real world, but rather filter and shape it (Weaver & Elliott, 1985). Second, the media’s focus on specific issues
and actors leads the public to highly prioritize them (McCombs, & Reynolds, 2002). In 1988, Rogers and Dearing argued that communication science has greatly
investigated the power of media to shape the importance placed on the issues of the public opinion (public agenda setting). Nevertheless, scholars did not systematically investigate how the agenda of the media (media agenda setting) and of decision-makers (political / policy agenda setting) are set. Especially the latter one was for a long time a sub-field under investigation exclusively exercised by political scientists (Rogers & Dearing, 1988). During the next two decades, scholars began to
investigate the power of the media to set the political agenda of the elites, but the results were contradictory. Some scholars found that media have very limited power on setting the political agenda (Kleinnijenhuis, 2003; Protess & McCombs, 1991), while others suggest that media indeed have a moderate or strong effect on
politicians’ priorities list and trigger political action (Edwards & Wood, 1999; Soroka, 2002a). Following up on Roger’s and Dearing’s suggestions, Van Aelst and Walgrave (2006) were the first who formally attempted to establish a preliminary theory of the mass media’s political agenda setting power. They argued that a real theory should be sketched, involving what triggers politicians’ attention, under which conditions media have the power to set the political agenda, and which factors play a crucial role in that process (Van Aelst & Walgrave 2006).
Media produce news that often prompt politicians’ attention. Political elites’ attention to an issue is socially important because it can inspire parliamentary initiatives (Midtbø, Walgrave, Van Aelst, & Christensen, 2014), which in turn can potentially influence populations at large. Undenably, politicians’ attention to an issue is the necessary condition for a political agenda to be set. Therefore, a preliminary question that should be investigated is “what triggers political elites’ attention”. Some scholars suggest that the different interests and ideas of political actors themselves can drive political attention (Peake & Eshbaugh-Soha, 2008) on specific issues, and others argue that the public opinion (Jacobs & Shapiro, 2000) or ongoing events
such as protests (Vliegenthart & Walgrave 2012) can also trigger attention by the elites.
Within this archipelago of studies, a growing body of literature suggests that the media agenda’s impact is crucial in this process: Walgrave and Van Aelst (2016), reviewing studies that have been conducted in the field, concluded that media do indeed sometimes affect politicians’ political agendas. Agenda setting scholars have agreed on how media and public agenda should be measured, yet, political agenda-setting scholars are far from that: The measure of policy/political agenda as a
dependent variable varies significantly from study to study (Dearing & Rogers, 1996) because there is no such thing as one “political agenda”, but rather different political priorities lists, which entail the issues that receive political attention (Pritchard & Berkowitz, 1993) and trigger tangible political action (Jones & Baumgartner, 2005). More specifically, the distinction between symbolic and substantial agendas is crucial here. The symbolic agenda consists of the actions that do not reflect policy changes, while the substantial agenda consists of the actions with tangible consequences for the public (Soroka, 2002a; Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2006). Particularly, on the
parliamentary level, symbolic actions are the debates, hearings and interpellations, while substantial actions are the regulatory or legislative initiations. In that sense, “mass media’s political agenda-setting power” refers to media information that affect politicians’ different agendas. In this study, I will particularly focus on politicians’ symbolic and substantial parliamentary agendas.
Previous research on mass media’s parliamentary agenda setting power Numerous studies show how different media affect political agendas in different ways. The agenda setting power of mass media is still under debate, since many scholars suggest that TV, radio, newspapers, and online media do not have the same political agenda setting power (Bartels, 1996; Kleinnijenhuis, 2003; Van Aelst, 2006). Nevertheless, it is argued that mass media become powerful political agenda setters when many media outlets focus on the same issue (Eilders, 1997,
2000) and/or the issue has been portrayed by the media as a “crisis situation” (Paletz, 1998). Hence, the media type does not play an important political agenda setting role when a given issue is not prevalent and/or is not perceived as crucial. Moreover, research has shown that there is a good understanding of which news rank higher on the political agenda (Vliegenthart et al. 2016) and when during a policy cycle news can potentially play a significant role in shaping the political agenda (Melenhorst, 2015).
Regarding mass media’s parliamentary agenda setting power, scholars widely agree on two basic findings. First, symbolic political agendas, such as questions and interpellations, are more likely to be inspired by media agendas compared to
substantial political agendas, such as writing a bill or contributing to the budget (see Sevenans, 2017a; Soroka, 2002; Van Aelst & Walgrave, 2006). It is argued here that politicians react to media information mainly symbolically because in this way they can show that they care about an issue without taking the political risk to legislate a measure. Moreover, substantive policy (substantive actions) is a long-term process that typically needs to be also inspired by other sources (scientists, associates, social events etc.) beyond the media. Second, there is a great consensus among scholars (Soroka, 2002; Van Aelst & Walgrave, 2006; Green-Padersen & Stubager, 2010) that media have greater influence on the parliamentary activities taken by the opposition compared to those taken by the government members, especially regarding symbolic parliamentary actions. As it has been demonstrated by Green-Padersen & Stubager (2010), MPs from opposition parties, react more often to media information than their colleagues from the government. It is the collective and individual goal of the
opposition to control the government, using sometimes media information that match to this end (Sevenans, 2017b). These two findings have never been replicated in a country that shares the characteristics of Mediterranean political and media systems (Hallin & Mancini, 2004). Therefore, it would be useful to investigate whether these findings can be generalized beyond the Democratic Corporatist Model and the
Liberal Model to the case of Greece. I assume that these basic assumptions apply to the Mediterranean political and media systems as well. For this reason my
preliminary hypotheses go as follows:
H1: MPs have a larger chance of taking symbolic than substantial types of action upon news stories
H2: MPs from opposition parties have higher chances of taking action upon news stories than MPs from the government parties.
Motivations that drive politicians to use mass media information in their parliamentary work
There is extensive knowledge about the role of media in shaping the political agendas (Vliegenthart et al., 2016) but not much attention has been given on how media matter in politicians’ work (Sevenans, 2017a). In other words, beyond the consensus that media do indeed matter sometimes in inspiring politicians’ agendas, there is a need to investigate the motivations that drive political elites to use media information in their parliamentary work. In line with Walgrave and Van Aelst (2016, p. 20), I argue that “political actors do not react mechanically” to media information; instead, they are driven by motivations and match the given information with their goals. It is well established that institutions, such as a parliament with specific characteristics and parties, have their own reasons to act in a certain way (Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2016), yet much variation exists on the individual level. Nevertheless, motivations are cognitive processes and take place in politicians minds (Yanovitzky, 2002). I therefore argue that in order to understand how media cues affect the agendas of political actors, we need to focus on the individual level and investigate why politicians’ priorities are affected by mass media information (Simon 1985; Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2016).
The list of motivations that determine politicians’ decisions to use media information in their parliamentary work is potentially endless. In this study, I will discuss the four more prevalent ones (see also figure 1). The first motivation is linked
with the policy-making goal: Politicians tend to believe that news often encapsulate information that can be useful for the policy-making process (see for example Davis, 2010; Yanovitzki, 2002; Van Vonno, 2012). In other words, political actors might simply believe that news can provide them with information about problems that need to be solved, which is a task at the core of politicians’ work. The second motivation, according to Sevenans (2017b) is related to the representation task. Some politicians might believe that news often reflect the public opinion at large, including their voters’ opinion. In that sense, politicians may think that by incorporating media information in their parliamentary work, they can represent the public, promoting citizens’ priorities and concerns.
Figure 1. What drives politicians to take parliamentary action upon media agenda.
Third, incorporating media cues in parliamentary agendas can be useful for party competition, which takes place among the political actors. Media frame the news in a way that sometimes is advantageous for certain political actors’ views, giving them a good opportunity to use given information in order to achieve their political goals in the parliament (Green-Pedersen & Stubager, 2010; Thesen, 2013). For instance, as Green-Pedersen and Stubager (2013) underline, parties and individual MPs react to
Motivations Why politicians use media information
Parliamentary
activities
Media access Representation Policy-making Party competition Substantial action Symbolic actionmedia information when they are “issue owner” of the topic (e.g., an ecological disaster is an advantageous topic for Green parties). Lastly, political actors compete to make it into the news (Vos, 2016) because gaining media access is considered a necessary condition to participate in the political game. Hence, political elites sometimes use media information in their parliamentary work simply in order to get further access to the news themselves (Wolfsfeld & Sheafer, 2006).
The role of individual political orientation in the Greek context
The existing literature on the motivations that drive politicians to use media information in their daily work is very limited (Sevenans, 2017b). I argue that
politicians are not driven by the different motivations to the same extent, and that this can be at least partly explained by their political orientation. The idea that “ideology may play a role” on that process is in line with Vlliegenthart et al. (2016, p. 296) that speculate that “something more is going on”. Hence, this is a gap that my study aims to fill:
RQ: To what extent conservatism and left populism are associated with motivations that drive politicians to take parliamentary action upon media stories?
Therefore, I argue that some politicians are not driven more than others regarding two out of the four motivations discussed above because of their political ideology. First, given that media access is considered as valuable per se (Stromback and Van Aelst, 2013), I suggest that sometimes it leads political elites to use media information, despite of other factors, such as their political orientation. Hence, this goal is a free-standing motivation and cannot be assumed that drives some
politicians’ work more than others’. Second, I argue that political orientation does not play a role regarding the political competition motivation. As it has been argued above, this motivation is mostly related to the specific role of some politicians in the parliament, as “party warriors” (Van Vonno, 2012), than to their particular political orientation. These politicians’ main task is to generate negative attention towards
other parties and to focus their activities on fighting the party competition. Hence the next hypotheses go as follows:
H3: When left wing MPs use media information in their parliamentary activities, they are not more likely to be driven by the media access motivation compared to right wing MPs.
H4: When left wing MPs use media information in their parliamentary activities, they are not more likely to be driven by the party competition motivation compared to right wing MPs.
Nevertheless, there are two motivations that, due to political orientation in the Greek context, seem to drive in greater extent some politicians than others (see also figure 1): policy-making and representation. There is no consensus on what political ideology is (for an overview see Geoghegan, 2003; Jost, Federico, & Napier, 2009; Steger & James, 2013) and how it should be accurately defined. According to Heywood (2003, p 11) it can be defined as a “coherent set of ideas that provides the basis for organized political action, whether this is intended to preserve, modify or overthrow the existing system of power”.
Historically the terms “left” and “right”’ appeared during the French revolution in 1978 and implied egalitarian or monarchist sympathies (Geoghegan, 2003), while in the early twentieth century, continued to be strongly connected with modern
political ideologies (Caramani, 2004). Many scholars suggest that modern politics are far more complicated and cannot be reduced to such a single-dimension scale (see for example Giddens, 1994; Kriesi et al., 2006). Yet, others (Heywood, 2002; Lipset, 1991) believe that even though the “left-right” political spectrum does not sufficiently capture the complicated world of contemporary politics, there is a broad agreement about where different ideologies are located along this spectrum. Furthermore, the placement in the “left-right” spectrum is associated with ideas on how democracy should be organized in order to achieve its goal (Leach, 2015).
Particularly in Greece, the placement of political parties on the typical ideological / political spectrum (left-right) has been characterized as relatively clear (Stavrakakis, Andreadis & Katsambakis, 2017). On the left side are the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and SYRIZA (ΣΥΡΙΖΑ) hat have been characterized as typical inclusive left wing populist parties (Pappas & Aslanidis, 2015; Stavrakakis, Andreadis & Katsambakis, 2017). The positions of the two parliamentary left parties are largely indistinguishable, yet scholars have found difference in terms of policy dimensions (Dinas & Germenis, 2010). To the centre of the political spectrum The River (Το Ποτάμι), the Union of Centrists (Ένωση Κεντρώων), and the Movement of Change (Κίνημα Αλλαγής) are located. Again, the placement of the centre parties in the spectrum is almost indistinguishable. To the right of the spectrum we find the historically dominant right party, New Democracy (Νέα Δημοκρατία), with observed conservative ideological positions (Gemenis & Nezi, 2012). Lastly, there is a debate on whether Golden Dawn (Χρυσή Αυγή) should be placed in that continuum, given its neo-Nazi political character (Dalakoglou, 2013; Vasilopoulou & Halikiopoulou, 2015), which is clearly distinguishable from typical right wing populist parties of xenophobic nature in Europe. In that sense, many scholars argue that the party should always be analyzed separately, given its antidemocratic nature (Figgou, 2016).
Right wing political orientation and policy-making task
Right wing political orientation is strongly associated with political
conservatism, which is the philosophy of human imperfection (O’Sullivan, 1976; Quinton, 1978) and entails specific implications on how conservative people see the society, the specific tasks and goals that everyone should have based on his/her role, as an “ordinary” person, as a leader etc. Nevertheless, political philosophy cannot provide sufficient insights into the mechanisms that exist at the individual level of conservative minds, such as motivations. Therefore, many studies in the field of psychology and sociology have shown that right wing political orientation highly correlates with various individual psychological needs, establishing a strong
motivational basis of political conservatism (Duckitt, 2001; Dunning, 1999; Jost, Federico, & Napier, 2009). In psychology, political conservatism is avoidance based; “it is focused to prevent from negative outcomes and seeks to regulate society via inhibition (restraints) in the interests of social order” (Janoff-Bulman, 2009, p. 120). Many variables that lead to specific personal goals moderately or highly correlate with conservative points of view. These include intolerance of ambiguity (Sidanius, 1978), uncertainty avoidance (Jost et al., 2007), and a psychological need for structure (Smith & Gordon, 1998). Conservatism also relates to social dominance (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999), authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1981; Asbrock et. al, 2010), and a desire for order and stability and idealization of authority figures (Janoff-Bulman, 2009).
The underlying basis of the aforementioned concepts is the idea of “human imperfection” that leads conservative politicians to highly prioritize the policy-making task. The belief that individuals desire security has led conservatives to emphasize the importance of social order (Altemeyer, 1981). Hence, they tend to believe that the only effective measure in order to maintain social order is the law, which in turn explains the conservative preference for strong governments that bear the weight of law-making (O’Sullivan, 1976), setting the rules and limits, and also preventing irresponsible behavior (Tomkins, 1995). Therefore, they generally prioritize the policy-making task compared to other political goals. Conservatives have historically believed that society is hierarchically structured because of human imperfection, characterized by specific roles and that inequality is natural: some of us are born with talents and skills and some of us not. Therefore, social equality is rejected as
unachievable.
This is why conservatives believe that political elites are the ones who should take the responsibility to make policies for the benefit of the citizens. There must be leaders and there must be followers; there must be politicians who make laws, there must be citizens who follow laws (Bobbio, 1996). Right wing orientated people also
believe that authority is natural and can be imposed by the government because citizens do sometimes not know what is good for them. This is why right wing thinkers typically base their views on an idea that political leaders are established to primarily make beneficial for the public laws. Their main task as conservative leading citizens is the policy-making task. Furthermore, according to the social dominance theory (SDO), there are people who believe that dominant groups are needed to lead and take care of the rest, who are incapable of leading and taking care of themselves (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). It is revealing that those who score high in SDO scale tend to self-place themselves to the right side of the “left-right” political spectrum too (Whitley & Lee, 2000).
Finally, according to Zavala et al. (2010), the need for cognitive closure strongly correlates with right wing conservatism, especially when scoring high on political expertise, where we assume to find politicians. Hence, policy making task also seems to match with the need for cognitive closure, since it is considered as a “final” solution to a given problem.
In sum, I argue that the task of policy-making is highly prioritized among politicians who self-place themselves to the right side of the Greek political spectrum. Therefore, regardless of the specific news content, when conservative politicians use media cues in their parliamentary work, they do so thinking that their primary role is to make policies. This is why my next hypothesis goes as follows:
H3: When right wing MPs use media information in their parliamentary
activities, they are more likely to be driven by the policy-making motivation compared to left wing MPs.
Left wing political orientation and representation task
Left wing political orientation is strongly associated with the traditions of Liberalism and Marxism, while both share a core idea: the ideal of equalitarianism or egalitarianism (Scheffler, 2003; Sypnowich, 2017). The two traditions have specific implications regarding the motivations that drive individual actions, yet they differ
drastically in terms of how equalitarianism can and should be achieved (Reiman, 2012). The core idea of equalitarianism in Liberalism and Marxist tradition is that equality reflects the nature of humanity (Erdal & Whiten 1994). In this logic, the most important idea is that citizens are skillful enough to make the laws and participate in their execution (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2013). Sidanius and Pratto (1999) showed that left wing orientated people are not associated with the idea of Social Dominance since the score very low in SD orientation measures (SDO), a socio-psychological scale that predicts political attitudes and particularly preference for social domination and hierarchy. They also concluded that a low score in SDO is a predisposition towards equalitarianism and anti-authoritarianism. Therefore, a core aspect of left wing orientation seems to be the rejection of inequality: The “political left tends to yearn for equality while the right sees society as inevitably and often appropriately hierarchical” (Thorisdottir et al., 2007, p. 178). Similarly, “openness” to different opinions and experiences has been found to predict left wing orientation (Van Hiel, Kossowska & Merviede, 2000). These findings imply that left wing politicians are skeptical towards closeness and hierarchical roles in society because they do not believe in human imperfection by nature. Hence, I suggest that left wing politicians tend to seek for opinions that are marginalized and mass media often offer the opportunity for these voices to be captured by politicians. In this study, I will
particularly focus on the Marxist left wing tradition because it accurately reflects the left side of the political spectrum in Greece due to the historical domination of Marxist left wing tradition over Liberalism in the country (Pappas, 2013).
Many scholars (see for example De La Torre, 2016; Manin, 1997 & Zolo, 1992) agree that due to the bureaucratic organization of modern societies, democracies tend to marginalize large social groups, periodically asking them to confirm or slightly change their preferences via electoral processes. This is why some participatory and deliberative democratic theorists (Habermas, 1994; Urbinati, 2006) highlight that in pluralistic democracies, representation channels are mostly
filled by those who have the economic or the educational resources to do so. As a response to this alleged development, more and more modern left wing parties and leaders persistently bring the idea of social representation in their discourse. In that sense, their main task is to bring “the people” -and their opinions- in the spotlight, which is an idea that it is also shared by parties that have been characterized as populist (Stanley, 2008; Laclau & Mouffe, 2005).
As Mudde and Kaltwasser (2012) suggest, populism, as a political logic, is a set of ideas that underline the division of the society in two antagonistic blocks. In the case of left wing populism, this antagonism is between the elites and the people. This ideological position is almost identical to the Marxist idea of antagonism between the oppressed social majority and the capitalists. Some scholars argue that different types of populism need a host ideology: In the case of right wing exclusive populism this is conservatism and nativism, while for inclusive left wing populism it is Marxism (Pauwels, 2014).
Laclau and Mouffe (2005) suggest that in modern societies there is a need for the oppressed social majority to find opportunities to be heard. For this reason, they suggest that left wing politicians should promote ideas and activities that reflect problems and opinions of different oppressed social sub-groups (such ecological and LGBTQ movements etc.), articulating them as a mobilized social subject. The driving idea for populist left wing politicians is that their main duty is to represent the general will. This is why Laclau (2005) stated that inclusive populism can be seen as a democratizing force, since it has the capacity to give voice to social groups that do not feel that they are represented and included in the decision-making process. While all mainstream democratic parties claim their intentions to govern for (the good of) the people, populists claim their intentions to govern with and in the name of the people. Regardless of whether this claim articulates an ideological position or a political communication style (Rooduijn, Lange, & Van der Brug, 2014), it enables us to empirically investigate whether a party is of left wing populist nature, under the
precondition that the suggested antagonism is socio-centric and not ethnocentric (exclusive right wing populism).
The idea of bringing the will of the people in the spotlight has practical implications (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2013): Left wing populist politicians promote strategies that help “the will of the people” to be heard, to be taken into account. This is why according to Mudde and Kaltwasser (2013) left populist politicians emphasize their intentions to deal with the real problems and concerns of the people.
Particularly, one can see the ideas of the so called inclusive left populism in play in Latin America, where the idea of popular inclusion and representation was highly prioritized from the beginning by some left wing governments; in Venezuelan, Bolivian and Ecuadorian constitutions, contributions and proposals of social movements and “common” citizens were approved in referenda and frequent elections, technically establishing a type of democracy, with special focus on the elements of participation and representation (Weyland, 2013).
In Europe, the idea of social representation, as a political priority that characterizes mostly the neo-Marxist populist parties and politicians, is also detectable. The most prevalent one is the Greek case. In June 2015, SYRIZA (Coalition of the Radical Left), a previously marginalized left wing party, won the national elections. Among SYRIZA’s politicians, the goal of representing “the people” is even more highly prioritized not only because of the specific ideological (left wing populism) commitment but also because the party was voted to represent the public demand to end the austerity policies that were implied to the country. Consequently, the party was from the very beginning accountable towards citizens for a very concise and totally opposed to the European institutions’ political position. As
Stavrakakis and Katsabekis (2014, p. 127) stated, a few months before the party won the national elections in 2015 “what allowed SYRIZA to jump from a marginal
coalition of the left to a party close to seizing power seems to be precisely the
considered to be of very high risk in terms of voters’ representation, which is in line with Heinisch’s opinion (2003, p. 102) that an adaption of mainstream ways of
exercising politics is a risky strategy for populist parties and it can cause high political unreliability, and consequently, a loose of the electorate. This is probably why the Greek government chose to declare a referendum on the creditors’ proposal on the 25t of June 2015: SYRIZA’s decision-makers might have thought that they would not represent ‘the people’ and its priorities anymore, if they would accept the proposals by the European Institutions without having first taken into account the public opinion.
In sum, I argue that the task of representation is highly prioritized among politicians who self-place themselves to the left side of the Greek political spectrum. Therefore, regardless of the specific content and frame of media information, when left wing politicians use media information in their parliamentary work, they do so, thinking that they should take into account citizens’ problems and concerns, representing the society. This is why the last hypothesis goes as follows:
H6: When left wing MPs use media information in their parliamentary activities, the latter are more likely to be driven by the representation motivation compared to right wing MPs.
Methodology - Procedure
To test my hypotheses I relied on data from online and face-to-face interviews with political elites in Greece. 52 members of the Greek parliament from five parties were interviewed. First, politicians received an invitation via email, including a brief introduction to the topic. They were asked to participate in the study by either filling out the online questionnaire or sending me back an email to arrange a face-to-face interview. In both cases, politicians had at first to sign an informed consent, which had been previously approved by the Ethical Review Board of Graduate School of Communication of UvA. From the 300 members of the parliament, 45 answered the online survey, 7 chose to be interviewed face to face, while 32 did not complete the online survey. The sample is highly representative of the parliamentary population
regarding age (range 51-56 years in the sample, while the mean of the real population is approximately 57 years old) and relatively representative concerning gender (28.8% females, 63.5% males, and 7.7% did not answer the question; the actual percentage of females in the parliament is 18%). The sample is also
representative of the political parties and their seats. The only parties that they were not represented in the study were Golden Dawn (Χρυση Αυγή) and Enosi Kentroon (Ένωση Κεντρώων).
Politicians (N = 52) were provided with four of the most prominent news stories in Greek mass media from the four weeks before the start of the data collection. Hence, the cases (news stories) that could trigger parliamentary action was in total 208. Since data collection took place over a period of 40 days, the research design had a ‘rolling’ structure: The two oldest news stories were replaced by two newer ones in order to reduce recall bias (see Sevenans, 2017a, for a similar procedure). Beyond the selection of news stories, one more consideration was taken into account following Sevenans (2017a) work: news stories’ relevance. The news stories that were selected were political news and included at least one name of a political figure or a political party. If the news stories were prominent but not of political nature they were excluded from the final news stories sample.
Next, a set of questions were asked about each news story. First, politicians were asked whether they had noticed the news story. If not, the next news story appeared in their screen. If yes, politicians were asked to recall whether mass media or other sources were the initial source of information. If the answer was that mass media were the initial source of information, a series of questions regarding whether the news story triggered parliamentary action was asked: “Did you undertake action, inspired by the news story by a) asking a parliamentary question, interpellation or participating in a parliamentary debate or by b) writing, co-sponsoring or amending a bill?” The resulting variables were treated as dependent. The politicians had to choose between the following answers: a) I did take action inspired by the news story
and b) I did not take an action inspired by the news story. Their answers resulted in two dummy variables about symbolic type of action and substantial type of action, respectively. A second independent variable, member of the opposition, was included in the questionnaire operationalized as follows: “Do you belong to a parliamentary party that belongs to the opposition or the government?”
Next, MPs were asked which of the following motivations (representation, policy-making, media access and party competition) and to what extent played a role to act upon the given news story (for an extensive sample of the questionnaire, see also Appendix). Lastly, politicians were asked to place themselves on a classic left-right political orientation scale, from 0 (left) to 10 (left-right), with the note that “many people associate the left side of the political spectrum with equalitarian and progressive ideas, while the right side of the political spectrum with traditional and conservatives ideas”. 35 MPs placed themselves in the lower half of the scale (0-4), five in the middle of the scale (5), while 12 placed themselves in the highest half of the scale (6-10). The mean of the sample (M) was 3.40 (SD = 2.72).
Results
H1 assumed that parliamentary members are more likely to take symbolic than substantive action upon news stories. From the 208 times (four news stories each of the 52 politicians) that the MPs were exposed to media stories, 64 led to parliamentary action. Theses 64 parliamentary actions taken upon the news stories were merged into a single variable (0 = symbolic action, 1 = substantial action). A dependent sample t-test was conducted, revealing that symbolic actions were triggered approximately by 25% of the news stories (M = .25, SD = .26), while substantial types of action were triggered by 7% of the news stories (M = .07, SD = .14), t (51) = 4.96, p < .001, d = 0.87, 95% CI [0.11, 0.25]. Hence, H1 can be confirmed.
Next, H2 assumed that parliamentary members from opposition parties are more likely to take action upon news stories than parliamentary members from the
government parties. To test this hypothesis, I used an independent samples t-test, merging the two types of parliamentary activity (symbolic and substantial) into one, resulting a dummy variable (0 = I did not take action, 1 = I did take action). Four MPs did not want to answer whether they belong to the government or the opposition so their actions were excluded from the analysis. Hence, only 48 politicians were
included in this analysis. A Levene’s test for equality of variances was not significant, F = 0.49, p = .83. Results revealed that MPs from opposition did not take significantly more parliamentary actions upon news stories (M = .23, SD = .19) than their
colleagues from the government (M = .14, SD = .15), t (46) = -1.78, p = .072, d = .53, 95% CI [-.18, .01]. Therefore, H2 cannot be confirmed. Nevertheless, the results should be interpreted with caution: There is a certain trend toward significance, given also the relatively small sample and the medium effect size (d = 0.53).
Next, H3 and H4 assumed that left and right wing politicians do not significantly differ on whether are driven by media access and party competition motivations when they use media information in their parliamentary work. In contrast, it was expected that (H5) when right wing politicians use media information in their parliamentary activities are more likely to be driven by the policy-making motivation compared to left wing politicians. Furthermore, it was expected that (H6) left wing politicians are more likely to be driven by the representation motivation compared to right wing politicians.
In total, five politicians that either did not want to reveal their political orientation or belong to centre parties (Κίνημα Αλλαγής and Το Ποτάμι), were excluded from the particular analysis, since the latter do not fall into the populist left or the conservative right side of the Greek political spectrum. Lastly, the answers regarding motivations that drove politicians to take parliamentary action upon the different news stories were merged into one variable for each motivation. To test the hypotheses, I merged all politicians that placed themselves from 0-4 into one
category (left wing, n = 35) and those who place themselves from 6-10 into a second category (right wing, n = 12), resulting in a dichotomous categorical variable.
To test H3, I used independent samples t-test. A Levene’s test for equality of variances was not significant, F = 0.13, p = .72. The results revealed that
parliamentary activities of left wing politicians inspired by the media were not driven significantly more by the media access motivation (M = 3.68, SD = 2.84) than those of right wing politicians (M = 4.43, SD = 2.92), t (28) = -0.65, p = .52, 95% CI [-3.08, 1.60]. Therefore, H3 can be confirmed.
Similarly, for H4 an independent samples t-test was conducted. A Levene’s test for equality of variances was not significant, F = 0.04, p = .95. The results revealed that parliamentary activities of left wing politicians inspired by the media were not driven significantly more by the party competition motivation (M = 2.76, SD = 2.72) than those of right wing politicians (M = 4.43, SD = 2.88), t (28) = -1.51, p =.14, 95% CI [-3.92, 0.59]. Therefore, H4 can be confirmed.
To test H5 an independent samples t-test was also used. A Levene’s test for equality of variances was not significant, F = 6.16, p = .02. The results revealed that parliamentary activities of left wing politicians were driven significantly less by the policy making goal (M = 5.49, SD = 3.21) than those of right wing politicians (M = 7.92, SD = 1.67, t (28) = -2.72, d = .95, p =.011, 95% CI [-4.27, -0.59]. Hence, H5 can be confirmed.
Finally, H6 assumed that left politicians are driven by the representation goal to a greater extent than their right wing counterparts. To test this hypothesis an independent t-test was also used. A Levene’s test for equality of variances was not significant, F = 0.07, p = .80. The results revealed that parliamentary activities of left wing politicians were driven significantly more by the representation motivation (M = 7.55, SD = 2.81) than those of right wing politicians (M = 4.46, SD = 2.63), t (28) = 2.81, d = 1.14, p = 0.01, 95% CI [0.83, 5.33]. Therefore, H6 can be also confirmed.
Conclusion and Discussion
The aim of this study was twofold: First, to investigate whether findings of previous studies concerning the mass media’s parliamentary agenda setting power can be generalized to countries belonging to the Mediterranean political and media system (such as Greece). The second goal was to examine the motivations that drive political actors to act upon media information, taking into account the role of
politicians’ political orientation. Two aspects of political ideology were discussed: Conservatism and left wing populism, which have lately dominated the Greek political spectrum, but are relevant in other contexts too.
With regard to the first goal, the findings are revealing: Mass media’s agenda, at least sometimes, influences parliamentary agendas in Greece. In other words, the mass media very often inspire political elites to take parliamentary action. Mass media’s agenda setting power regarding symbolic parliamentary action seems to be particularly noteworthy, especially when compared to substantial parliamentary actions. The present study shows that politicians are more likely to act upon media information in a symbolic (e.g., ask questions, interpellations etc.) than in a
substantial way (writing or proposing a bill etc.).
However, contrary to the second hypothesis (H2) parliamentary members from opposition parties are not more likely to take action upon media cues compared to members of government parties. Having followed up Vliegenthart et al.’s (2016) call for investigation in countries of lower freedom, such as Greece, I cannot conclude that mass media matter more for the opposition than for the government MPs. Yet the results should be interpreted with caution: The p-value (p = .072) revealed that there is a certain trend toward significance, given the relatively small sample and the medium effect size (d = 0.53).
Regarding the second goal, the results show that individual political
orientation plays a role in whether politicians (when acting upon media information in their parliamentary work) are driven by some motivations to a greater extent than by
others. Several scholars (Sevenans, 2017b; Van Aelst & Walgrave, 2006) have argued that media information encapsulate elements that match with specific tasks that different politicians have. In this study, as Vliegenthart et al. (2016) speculated, I showed that ideology is also a crucial determinant in this process: It seems as if right and left politicians are driven by some motivations because of their ideology (left populism and right conservatism), and not because of the specific news’ content. More specifically, the representation task (Sevenans, 2017b) drives left wing
politicians’ activities to a greater extent, while the policy making task (also Sevenans, 2017b) is a stronger motivator for right wing politicians. In contrast, this is not the case for other motivations: Both media access and party competition are equally important motivations for left populist or right conservative MPs.
Limitations
Nevertheless, the findings should be interpreted with caution: In this study, I only showed that left (populist) and right (conservative) political ideologies are associated with representation and policy making motivations, respectively, which in turn have been suggested that drive politicians to take parliamentary action upon media news. This does not mean that political orientation is always the key factor: One limitation of this study is that the internal function (or political role) of each MP has not been taken into account. In that sense, it can be argued that while in general, left wing politicians use media cues mainly when they believe that the given
information matches with their representation task, this may not be the case for left wing ministers who are responsible for policy-making. In that case, I speculate that the politician’s role constitutes a more important determinant. However, it is
remarkable that the representation task it was higher prioritized compared to the policy making task amongst government MPs, whose natural role is to govern.
Second, it should be taken into account that the sample size (N = 52) is relatively small for statistical analyses, especially when it comes to the motivations hypotheses (H3-H6). Politicians from the centre of the political spectrum and news
stories that did not trigger parliamentary action were excluded from these particular analyses. Nevertheless, the sample size for the first two hypotheses (n = 208; i.e., the number of news stories politicians were exposed to) was sufficiently large.
Third, the self-report nature of the study (survey) in combination with the nature of the sample (political elites) might have led to social desirability bias, since participants might have answered in a way that portrays themselves in a good light. For instance, participants might have pretended that they know or that they
remember some news stories in order to seem informed about what is going on in society. Nevertheless, seven face-to-face interviews revealed that politicians indeed tended to answer without hesitation on whether they knew the story and/or took parliamentary action.
Lastly, it is should be noted that it was very challenging to interview political elites. Politicians cannot be reached in an ordinary way. Some politicians needed extra guarantees regarding their anonymity, while others (because of their busy schedule) preferred to arrange a face-to-face interview almost a month after they received the invitation. In most of the cases, it was necessary to discuss in depth with many intercessors (MPs’ associates, parties’ press offices, etc.) and exchange a great amount of emails in order to ensure political elites’ participation. Therefore, designs such as this one require a lot of time and allow us to explore what motivates political actors to react to the mass media agenda. Hence, I argue, in line with Sevenans (2017b), that methods that focus on individual political actors’ level can improve our understanding of the “tango” that takes place between media and politics. Yet the importance of other macro level variables should not be underrated: Following up Sevenans’ (2017b) call, the present study took into account a macro level factor (political ideologies) that also plays an important role in determining what motivates politicians to take parliamentary action.
Nevertheless, the discussion about the role of ideology should not be limited to the Greek case and its relevant ideologies. The role of ideological factors (on both
the individual and party level) should be taken into account, especially given the rise of politicians and parties that cannot be classified along the classic left-right political spectrum (see Kriesi et al., 2006). For instance, it would be interesting to explore whether the representation goal is also associated with the right side of the political spectrum, when exclusive populism is in play. In that case, the representation task might be proved that is not exclusively associated with the left side of the political spectrum.
According to Strömbäck (2005) all the models of democracy – beyond their normative differences – suggest that journalists should link citizens with politicians: Mass media should hold politicians responsive and accountable to the citizens. This research suggests that in the Greek context, journalists have the power to affect what politicians think and do in their parliamentary work, which can potentially be a very strong indicator of a healthy democratic system. Nevertheless, this is only one side of the story. The other side concerns the quality of the “power” that journalism in
Greece has, and this a topic that should be further investigated.
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Appendix
Sample of the questionnaire (English translation)
Q1. Are you aware of the following news story published as follows? “The European Institutions reject the idea of the Greek government, to increase the estate taxes whose value are estimated more than 200.000 euros.”
No (2)
Q1a. Often, political parties divide the domains that the MPs are engaged with. Regardless of being aware of the following news story, in what extent do you believe that the topic of the news story is related to the domain that you are specialized in? Is not at all related to my domain (1)
Is not related to my domain (2) It is related to my domain (3) Is totally related to my domain (4)
Q1b. Can you recall which was the initial source, by which you heard about the aforementioned news story?
Newspapers (1) TV (2)
Radio (3) Internet (4)
It was definitely the mass media, but I cannot recall the specific medium (5) Personal office associates (6)
Personal friends (7) My family (8) Other MPs (9)
Other (10)______________________________________________ I am not sure (11)
Q1c. Inspired by the aforementioned news story, did you use the process of parliamentary scrutiny to take parliamentary action (question, interpellation, participation in debate etc)?
Yes, I did take action of this type inspired by the news story (2)
Q1d. Inspired by the aforementioned news story, did you use the legislative process to take parliamentary action (writing, co-sponsoring or amending a bill etc)?
No, I did not take any action of this type inspired by the news story (1) Yes, I did take action of this type inspired by the news story (2)
Q1e. Concerning the aforementioned news story, please indicate in what extent one or more of the motivations presented below, drove your decision to take
parliamentary action:
It could contribute to realize or draw conclusions about my policy goals (1) It could contribute to fight rival parties (2)
It could contribute to communicate with / react to the public opinion or its priorities (3) It could contributed to get media publicity (4)
Other reason (5) ________________________________________
Q2. Are you aware of the following news story published as follows? “The city of Thessaloniki will remain without out drinkable water for couple of days due to problems related with the municipal water distribution system.”
Yes (1) No (2)
Q2a. Often, political parties divide the domains that the MPs are engaged with. Regardless of being aware of the following news story, in what extent do you believe that the topic of the news story is related to the domain that you are specialized in? Is not at all related to my domain (1)
Is not related to my domain (2) It is related to my domain (3)
Is totally related to my domain (4)
Q2b. Can you recall which was the initial source, by which you heard about the aforementioned news story?
Newspapers (1) TV (2)
Radio (3) Internet (4)
It was definitely the mass media, but I cannot recall the specific medium (5) Personal office associates (6)
Personal friends (7) My family (8) Other MPs (9)
Other (10)______________________________________________
It was definitely not the mass media, but I cannot recall the specific medium (11)
Q2c. Inspired by the aforementioned news story, did you use the process of parliamentary scrutiny to take parliamentary action (question, interpellation, participation in debate etc)?
No, I did not take any action of this type inspired by the news story (1) Yes, I did take action of this type inspired by the news story (2)
Q2d. Inspired by the aforementioned news story, did you use the legislative process to take parliamentary action (writing, co-sponsoring or amending a bill etc)?
No, I did not take any action of this type inspired by the news story (1) Yes, I did take action of this type inspired by the news story (2)
Q2e. Concerning the aforementioned news story, please indicate in what extent one or more of the motivations presented below, drove your decision to take
parliamentary action:
It could contribute to realize or draw conclusions about my policy goals (1) It could contribute to fight rival parties (2)
It could contribute to communicate with / react to the public opinion or its priorities (3) It could contributed to get media publicity (4)
Other reason (5) ________________________________________
Q12. Very often, people talk about “left and right”, associating the left side of the political spectrum with equalitarian and progressive ideas, while the right side of the political spectrum with traditional and conservatives ideas” From 0 (left) to 10 (right) where you would place yourself?
Q13. How often do you get informed by international mass media? Please also mention some newspapers that are part of your daily informational routine. Daily (1)
4-6 times per week (2) 2-3 times per week (3) Once per week (4) 2-3 times per month (5) Never (6)
The international newspapers which are essential part of my informational process are: (7) ________________________________________________
Q14. Between international and domestic press, which one would you trust more? The international press (1)
