Our research highlights patterns of media bias and raises questions about fairness and independence in journalism. Read more about how political and financial pressures can undermine democracy. Full story and links to our paper and press release here!
23 October 2024
I'm excited to share the results of a study I did with other researchers. It was published in The International Journal of Press/Politics. The study looks at a controversial case in Austria where a former chancellor was accused of exchanging government-funded ads for favorable media coverage.
We looked at more than 222,000 news articles from 17 Austrian news sites, covering almost 10 years (2012 to 2021).
More media coverage for the Chancellor: The tabloid gave the Chancellor a lot more attention.
Less positive coverage for rivals: Candidates who were against the Chancellor in the election got less positive coverage in the same news sites.
We don't say if they are guilty or not, but the patterns we found show important questions about fairness and independence in media reporting. This case is an example of how financial and political pressures can affect journalism. When politicians influence media coverage, it undermines public trust and democracy. Our study uses a combination of automated content analysis with a statistical difference in difference approach—to identify these patterns and could help investigate similar cases elsewhere. The study reminds us how important independent journalism is. Protecting the media from undue influence makes sure people can access fair and unbiased information. I'm grateful to my co-authors for working with me on this important project, and I hope it helps people talk about how honest the media is and how important democracy is.
Here is our press release: https://medienportal.univie.ac.at/media/aktuelle-pressemeldungen/detailansicht/artikel/studie-zur-inseratenaffaere-hinweise-auf-auffaellig-abweichende-berichterstattung/
and you can find the full paper here:
Balluff, P., Eberl, J.-M., Oberhänsli, S. J., Bernhard-Harrer, J., Boomgaarden, H. G., Fahr, A., & Huber, M. (2024). The Austrian political advertising scandal: Patterns of "Journalism for Sale". The International Journal of Press/Politics. https://doi.org/10.1177/19401612241285672
Excited to analyze text data and help advance innovative tools for studying democracies across Europe. More details here!
1 September 2024
I'm delighted to tell you that I've started a new position as a research associate with the Monitoring Electoral Democracy (MEDem) project. MEDem is a cutting-edge European research initiative dedicated to advancing the study of electoral democracies. By integrating and innovating data collection and analysis methods, this project is designed to provide deeper insights into how democracies function across Europe.
My role involves analysing text data, which is really interesting, and I get to contribute to the development of tools and standards for examining democratic processes. This is a great fit for MEDem's mission to create a comprehensive, comparative framework for understanding democracy in action. I'm excited to get started and to collaborate with the talented team at MEDem and contribute to its goal of fostering better, data-driven approaches to comparative democracy research. I'm looking forward to engaging with this important work and sharing insights from this infrastructure in the future.