It takes three to tango - the interplay of political press releases, social media and newspapers.

Abstract

The aim of our study is thus twofold: In a first step, we determine whether the press release is still a widely used form of party communication and whether signs of substitution by social media activity can be seen over time, indicating a change in the channels used by political parties to communicate to media and public (RQ1). This analysis can also give further insights into whether at certain stages in the election cycle different amounts of press releases have been issued – a question that can only be answered when looking at trends over longer time periods compared to specific events such as election periods. Second, we take a closer look at the influence of press releases on press coverage to determine to which extent the former can still exhibit influence on the latter (RQ2). This sheds the light on the development of press releases’ agenda setting function over time and their power to influence the public discourse via media outlets.

Felicia Loecherbach

Assistant Professor Political Communication and Journalism

My research interests include understanding news consumption online making use of theories from political communication and journalism. I use computational methods to study digital trace data. Only publishing research and tools open source.