Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Department of Social Sciences - Berlin Graduate School of Social Science

Christoph Ivanusch

Foto
Name
Christoph Ivanusch
Cohort

BGSS Generation 2021

 

Title

Party Agenda-Setting across Communication Channels

 

Supervisor

Dr. Heiko Giebler

 

Abstract

Agenda-setting is one of the most important concepts with regard to the issue communication of political parties. Parties aim to increase or decrease the salience of certain issues in the political system as well as in the media. This way they try to control the political agenda. A rich literature has devoted attention to this process by focusing on various party communication channels (e.g. manifestos, press releases). However, it remains largely unclear how parties communicate across different channels, whether there are differences in party communication depending on the channel and why this might be the case. Hence, we lack in knowledge with regard to the effects of different communication channels on the issue communication of parties. Following from this, we also lack in understanding whether and to what extend different party communication channels interact with the issue agendas of other parties as well as with the media. The proposed dissertation aims to fill this research gap. Firstly, the influence of different communication channel characteristics on the issue communication of parties will be analysed. Secondly, the proposed dissertation analyses the interplay between different parties and their various communication channels. Thirdly, agenda-setting effects between parties and the media will be analysed. Methodologically, the proposed dissertation will apply tools from the area of quantitative computer-based text analysis.