Journal articles on the topic 'Elections – Press coverage – Zimbabwe'

The article involves three main topics. The first deals with the role of referendums in relation to constitutional processes, and how they have become increasingly common, with a focus on African developments. The second topic is a description of the referendums in relation to the media coverage of the rejected constitutional change in Zimbabwe in 2000 and in Kenya 2005, and with subsequent elections in both countries shortly after, and then the referendums that accepted constitutional change years later. The last part of the article is an analysis of coverage in the Tanzanian press of the constitutional debate before the aborted referendum in 2015, followed by some comparative reflections on the relationship between referendum and election reporting.

AbstractThis article investigates press coverage in Canada and the United States of the 1982 and 1984 Salvadoran elections employing the concept of the “demonstration election,” which posits that some elections occur not to select governments and solve problems but rather to confer international legitimacy on the government holding the election. The press plays a vital role in creating this aura of legitimacy. There is some evidence that the American press played a legitimizing role in the elections. While the elections received twice as much coverage in the American press as they did in the Canadian press, with the exception of some differences in leader evaluation and emphasis on issues, Canadians received essentially the same media portrayal of the elections as did Americans.

This article provides a unique content analysis of 100 years of national press coverage of UK General Elections and tests four claims about historical trends in election news reporting in democratic systems: (1) that coverage is becoming more focussed on political leaders at the expense of other political sources; (2) that reporting of the personalities and personal lives of politicians has expanded; (3) that editorial treatment of politicians has become increasingly negative and (4) that news coverage is increasingly obsessed with the conduct of politics rather than its substantive content. Through the detail of this analysis, we identify areas of historical continuity as well as change and challenge overly neat periodisations and simple histories of election news reporting.

This study uses newspapers and magazines to find some support for Alex Edelstein's theory of the problematic approach to media content. Although 55% of the 1988 U.S. election issues were defined as problematic — especially in terms of individual or social losses of value — about half the stories were not presented in any problem context. Three-fourths of the stories from the French sample presented stories in a problem context. About one-fourth of the stories from both U.S. and French samples emphasized the horse race aspect of elections.

Zimbabwe held its national elections on 30 July 2018. The electoral process was generally peaceful until 1 August 2018, when demonstrators took to the streets of Harare demanding the immediate release of the presidential election results. Arguably, the police failed to contain the situation and sought the assistance of the military which fired live ammunition to unarmed civilians. By end of 1 August 2018, at least six (6) people had been tragically killed; injury of thirty-five (35), and extensive damage and destruction of property had been caused. Following these incidents, on 12 September 2018, the President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, His Excellency Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, appointed a Commission of Inquiry in terms of Section 2(1) of the Commission of Inquiry Act [Chapter 10:07] through Proclamation 6of 2018 published in Statutory Instrument 181 of 2018, to investigate matters of public welfare arising out of the tragic events in Harare on 1 August 2018. This article argues that the Motlanthe Commission of Inquiry was biased against main opposition. The article concluded that the coverage of the public hearings was polarized and that Zimbabwe is a divided and polarized state. This article contributes towards policy and reform changes.

In many European countries, populist right-wing parties have been most noticeable representatives of Euroscepticism. In Finland, the Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset) has been a constant promoter of organisational Euroscepticism through its leader, Timo Soini. The party broke through in Finland’s ‘big bang elections’ of 2011, when the most debated issue was the European economic crisis, which was dominated by Eurosceptic Soini. Research concerning the relationship between the media, populism and Euroscepticism usually focus on national or European Parliament elections. This study analyses the media portrayal of the Eurosceptic Finns Party during times other than elections, focusing on the Finland’s overall Euro crisis press coverage in 2010–2012. The analysis shows that the populist Finns Party has been a minor player in that coverage, which was dominated by the Euro positive political and economic elites. Differences between newspapers indicate that journalistic routines and political context direct media coverage toward particular framings, even when the media proclaims itself politically independent and neutral.

Media shape public opinion. As a powerful tool of communication, it prioritizes issues and gives them coverage according through editorial judgment. Agendasetting theory explains how media influences the topics in public agenda. In 1968, McCombs and Donald Shaw studied presidential elections of the United States and established a strong relationship between election issue and media coverage. This study has used their theory of agenda setting to explain how two daily newspapers of Pakistan, Dawn and Jang has covered unemployment and energy crisis on their front and back pages during a time period of one year. Content analysis method is applied to investigate the treatment of news in both papers. Findings explain that Jang gave more coverage to these social issues as compared to Dawn. This study recommends more attention to social issues.

Text mining aims at constructing classification models and finding interesting patterns in large text collections. This paper investigates the utility of applying these techniques to media analysis, more specifically to support discourse analysis of news reports about the 2007 Kenyan elections and post-election crisis in local (Kenyan) and Western (British and US) newspapers. It illustrates how text mining methods can assist discourse analysis by finding contrast patterns which provide evidence for ideological differences between local and international press coverage. Our experiments indicate that most significant differences pertain to the interpretive frame of the news events: whereas the newspapers from the UK and the US focus on ethnicity in their coverage, the Kenyan press concentrates on sociopolitical aspects.

In this study, I examine whether the effect of biased media can be reduced when voters have an alternative source of political information. Specifically, I investigate whether the introduction of television mitigated the effect of partisan press on U.S. presidential elections from 1944 to 1964. I first show that newspaper coverage of presidential campaigns during this period was affected by newspapers’ party affiliations and their readers’ political preferences. The main finding of this study is that television decreased the correlation between the circulation of partisan newspapers and parties’ vote share. The results suggest that the existence of centrist media can make voters less susceptible to partisan media.

This article explores ways of evaluating the performance of the press in an electoral public sphere and compares the output of newspapers in England and in Scotland during the 2001 and 2005 general election campaigns. It combines content analysis with critical discussion of examples of coverage and complements these with evidence from interviews with Scottish political editors. It argues that, even though Scottish newspapers gave less coverage to the two elections than titles sold in England, both sets of newspapers performed better in their role as providers of information and opinion to inform the electorate, than in that of presenting an inclusive, discursive and diverse electoral debate or encouraging forms of active citizenry.

Abstract This article focuses on the ways in which the Danish liberal mainstream press covered events related to the so-called Greek crisis. In particular, we examine the coverage of the different Greek national elections that took place during the Greek crisis years (2010–2019) by Jyllands-Posten (JP), a popular Danish daily newspaper. Qualitative content analysis is deployed to study a corpus of 70 news and editorial articles published by JP on the aforementioned topic. Our analysis highlights the existence of three main interrelated themes in JP's constructions of the Greek elections: a moralist, a culturalist, and a technocratic/anti-leftist theme. These themes are theorised through the use of relevant theory on class cultures and politics today.

This qualitative case study investigates dissent in the news discourse of a major pro-reform newspaper covering the Iranian presidential election debates that took place in June 2009. Drawing on appraisal theory as its analytical lens, the article examines the evaluation of the three major candidates in the paper’s coverage of the debates. The article begins with the broader sociopolitical context situating the watershed debates and a description of the legal framework within which the Iranian press operate. The analysis next details the function of attitudinal resources in the discursive representation of the political actors. As central to an ideologically invested strategy, evaluative linguistic resources are found to sharply dichotomize the political actors along a range of positive and negative value positions that dissent from those advanced in the narratives of the dominant power.

The authors examine the countervailing effects of two forces on external news coverage of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa during the 1970s. The first is purposeful government efforts at news management and information control undertaken by each of the two regimes. The second is the civil unrest which was present in the region during that period. They conclude that these effects and the policy consequences that flow from them are functions of the pre-existing image environment of each country in the foreign (US) press and of the character of its domestic unrest.

The media play an essential role of informing and mobilising voters as well as facilitating a two-way communication process between citizens and those vying for electoral offices during elections. This allows citizens to get information on various issues from the contenders, which largely informs their electoral decisions. In most less democratic societies however, this media function is increasingly becoming difficult to fulfil due to challenges journalists encounter during electoral processes. Using Uganda’s last general elections in 2016 as a case study, this article discusses the safety of journalists during elections basing on findings from a bigger study on the media coverage of the 2016 elections, supplemented by in-depth interviews with 10 journalists who covered the elections. In addition, the analysis makes reference to the 2016 Uganda Press Freedom Index. Findings of this research show that journalists face more safety and security risks during elections particularly perpetuated by state security agencies. Compared to previous elections, the 2016 elections also recorded the highest number of victims who were female journalists. This article highlights key challenges journalists face during elections, which include: state harassment and intimidation, arrest of those considered critical to the state, and denial of access to important information. Due to concerns of their own safety, journalists have responded to the insecure work environment by engaging in self-censorship, thereby giving biased or limited information to the public. The article identifies gaps that media development agencies can help to close if the media are to play their rightful role in a democratic society, especially during the electoral process.

Much research in the study of U.S. politics has argued that female candidates for elected office are treated differently—and often worse—than male candidates in the press and by the public. Although these patterns do not doom women to electoral failure, they raise a formidable series of obstacles that often complicate women’s path to elective office, slowing the move toward gender parity in representation. Broad changes to the American political landscape, as well as methodological limitations of previous work, however, suggest the need for an updated assessment. We rely on a detailed content analysis of local newspaper coverage from nearly 350 U.S. House districts and nationally representative survey data from the 2010 midterms to provide a comprehensive evaluation of whether women experience a more hostile campaign environment than do men. We find that candidate sex does not affect journalists’ coverage of, or voters’ attitudes toward, the women and men running for office in their districts. Rather, reporters’ portrayals and citizens’ assessments of candidates stem primarily from partisanship, ideology, and incumbency, not the sex of the candidate. Although our results differ from much of the existing literature, we regard them as a valuable point of departure for answering pressing questions about gender and representation in contemporary politics, both in an American and comparative context.

Extant findings show that voter fraud is extremely rare and difficult to prove in the United States. Voter’s knowledge about voter fraud allegations likely comes through the media, who tend to sensationalize the issue. In this study, we argue that the more voters are exposed to media coverage of voter fraud allegations, the more likely that they will perceive that voter fraud is a frequent problem. We merge the 2012 Survey of Performance of American Elections with state-level media coverage of voter fraud leading up to the 2012 election. Our results show that media coverage of voter fraud is associated with public beliefs about voter fraud. In states where fraud was more frequently featured in local media outlets, public concerns about voter fraud were heightened. In particular, we find that press attention to voter fraud has a larger influence on Republicans than Democrats and Independents. We further find that media coverage of voter fraud does not further polarize partisan perceptions of voter fraud. Rather, political interest moderates state media coverage on voter fraud beliefs only among Republicans. Last, our results provide no support that demographic changes, approval of election administration, or information concerning actual reported voting irregularities have any discernable effects on partisan perceptions.

Complaints about Africa’s media image have been voiced for years, and for long little seemed to change. Civil wars, famine, squalor and primitivity have continued to dominate the headlines and to paint a grim image of mankind’s ancestral home. The recent media fixation on Somalia is but one in a series of this one-dimensional coverage. In the early 1960s, the anarchy in Katanga (Zaire) dominated the news and defined Africa. In the late 1960s, it was the Nigerian civil war and the consequent misery in “Biafra.” In the 1970s, the real and conjured eccentricities of Uganda’s Idi Amin became the African news. Political conflict in Zimbabwe and South Africa dominated much of the 1980s, until the starvation of Ethiopians eclipsed everything else. Recently, the grim images were of Somalia. While these events warranted the press attention they received, their coverage to the near exclusion of non-crisis modem African life has left a severe knowledge gap and perpetuated a historical image problem.

This article explores the links between transnational media flows and social and political change in authoritarian regimes through a conjunctural study of Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), a Burmese exile media organization. Drawing on observation and interviews conducted at DVB’s Oslo studio during the 2010 elections in Burma as well as documentary research, the article explores how diasporic media may contribute to democratization in a military regime where press freedoms and political expression are severely curtailed. The first section draws on Appadurai’s theory of global flows to scrutinize transnational flows of people, capital, media, ideas and technology contributing to DVB’s operations from 1992 to 2010. The next section engages with theories of media and democracy in order to examine DVB’s innovative satellite television coverage of the 2010 elections. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the ongoing relevance of opposition media based outside of Burma amid liberalization measures undertaken by Thein Sein’s nominally civilian government in 2011.

We investigate the interplay between party communication and media coverage in putting EU issues on the agenda during the 2014 European Parliamentary election campaigns in Austria, Germany and the United Kingdom. A temporal pattern analysis focuses on the dynamic perspective of media–parties’ interactions based on a quantitative content analysis of (a) the press releases published by parties and (b) the coverage of two leading newspapers per country 12 weeks prior to the elections. We find that most public discourses are started by the media; however, political parties especially in Austria are also quite successful in initiating discussions about EU issues. Interestingly, once an issue has been placed on the agenda, only a few parties take the opportunity of exploiting their issue-ownership in response to the media agenda. On the other side, media react to publications of all party types, even radical parties.

This study offers the first systematic analysis of the impact of press-state relations, or media systems, on the HIV/AIDS news agenda in African news coverage. The premise is that media systems play a determining role in the degree to which journalists can independently advocate for social change when covering HIV/AIDS. Drawing on comparative research, four sub-Saharan countries were categorized into two media systems: Contained Democratic (South Africa, Nigeria) and Repressive Autocratic (Zimbabwe, Kenya). A sample of HIV/AIDS stories (n = 393) published from 2002–2007 in each country's leading Anglophone newspaper was content analyzed. Across all coverage, the topic of social costs was framed more for the responsibility borne by nongovernmental agents than governmental agents. In Contained Democratic media systems, however, story emphasis shifted toward government agents taking responsibility for addressing the social costs of HIV/AIDS. Prevention campaigns were framed more as progress than decline across all newspapers; however, campaigns were reported as being more efficacious in Contained Democratic systems than in Repressive Autocratic systems. No impact of media system on framing of medical developments was found. Results show the value of comparative analysis in understanding the agenda-setting process: with greater emphasis on positive efficacy and government initiative, the news agenda in Contained Democratic media systems can facilitate stronger positive societal-level responses than the news agenda in Repressive Autocratic media systems.

This study focuses on the unprecedented ways in which newspaper journalism helped the cause of democratisation at the height of the economic and political governance crisis, also known as the Zimbabwe Crisis, from 1997 to 2010. The research is designed as a qualitative case study of The Daily News, an independent private newspaper. It was based on semi-structured interviews with respondents, who were mainly journalists and politicians living in Zimbabwe. The analytical lens of alternative media facilitates a construction of how The Daily News and its journalists experienced, reported, confronted and navigated state authoritarianism in a historical moment of political turmoil. The study discusses the complex relationships between the independent and privately owned press, the political opposition and civil society organisations. The research provides an original analysis of the operations of The Daily News and its journalists in the context of a highly undemocratic political moment. Some journalists crossed the floor to join civic and opposition forces in order to confront the state. The state responded through arrests and physical attacks against the journalists; however, journalists continued to work with opposition forces while the government enacted repressive media and security law to curtail coverage of the crisis.

A growing chorus of academics, journalists, and politicos alike bemoans the state of American democracy. The symptoms are well known. Public trust in government has declined over time, the stock of social capital has shrunk, and turnout remains low. Some observers even argue that politicians now are less responsive to public opinion on various issues. Perhaps understandably, there is increasing pressure for reform of the electoral process, including campaign finance, the conduct of campaigns, media coverage of campaigns, and election rules themselves. In By Popular Demand, John Gastil joins the call for reform, but in an original and provocative way.

The electoral process in Nigeria is now more dynamic than in earlier years because of the nature of competitions among politicians. In a bid to sell candidates and woo voters, political parties engage in election campaigns during which statements are made. Campaigns ought to address issues of public importance, but in some instances the comments are mere expressions of personal sentiments. The press is not just the fourth estate of the realm but also the voice of the people to report issues for voters’ enlightenment. This paper examined newspaper coverage of issue-based political statements and campaigns in Nigeria’s 2019 electoral process. Two theoretical frameworks for the study were Agenda Setting Theory and Development Media Theory. The study was both quantitative and qualitative, covering newspaper reports from two national dailies, Vanguard and The Punch. A total of 76 editions were studied using the content analysis research design, with quoted statements buttressing the argument. The data were presented with frequency tables and analysed through simple percentages. There were 116 reports on the subject in the dailies. The paper found out that while there were coverage over some national issues like restructuring, security, corruption, economy, and electricity, the greater volume of political statements were not issue-based. There is the need for the press to pay less attention on matters that would not serve to educate voters adequately. The study recommends that the press use the editorials to canvass for issue-based comments. The study also contributed to knowledge as the seminal analysis of political statements in 2019 general elections.

IntroductionPalliative care is a clinically and cost‐effective component of cancer services in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Despite the significant need for palliative cancer care in SSA, coverage remains inadequate. The exploration of digital health approaches could support increases in the quality and reach of palliative cancer care services in SSA. However, there is currently a lack of any theoretical underpinning or data to understand stakeholder drivers for digital health components in this context. This project addresses this gap through engaging with key stakeholders to determine data and information needs that could be supported through digital health interventions.Methods and analysisThis is a multicountry, cross-sectional, qualitative study conducted in Nigeria, Uganda and Zimbabwe. In-depth interviews will be conducted in patients with advanced cancer (n=20), caregivers (n=15), health professionals (n=20) and policy-makers (n=10) in each of the three participating countries. Data from a total of 195 interviews will transcribed verbatim and translated into English before being imported into NVivo software for deductive framework analysis. The analysis will seek to understand the acceptability and define mechanisms of patient-level data capture and usage via digital technologies.Ethics and disseminationEthics approvals have been obtained from the Institutional Review Boards of University of Leeds (Ref: MREC 18–032), Research Council of Zimbabwe (Ref: 03507), Medical Research Council of Zimbabwe (Ref: MRCZ/A/2421), Uganda Cancer Institute (Ref: 19–2018), Uganda National Council of Science and Technology (Ref: HS325ES) and College of Medicine University of Lagos (Ref: HREC/15/04/2015). The project seeks to determine optimal mechanisms for the design and development of subsequent digital health interventions to support development, access to, and delivery of palliative cancer care in SSA. Dissemination of these findings will occur through newsletters and press releases, conference presentations, peer-reviewed journals and social media.Trial registration numberISRCTN15727711

As eleições presidenciais brasileiras de 2018 suscitaram uma grande curiosidade em Portugal e a cobertura jornalística da imprensa e das televisões, abertas e generalistas, refletem esse interesse. Este artigo procura, na introdução, contextualizar os elementos históricos, culturais, políticos e económicos que subjazem à interrelação Portugal-Brasil, pautada por movimentos pendulares humanos contínuos. Em seguida, enquadra-se as eleições brasileiras em tendências macro-políticas mundiais, tendo em consideração a crise das democracias no Ocidente, a emergência de governos populistas, autocráticos e autoritários, assim como a utilização/manipulação dos Media e das redes sociais. Segue-se o estudo empírico sobre a cobertura jornalística das Eleições Presidenciais Brasileiras de 2018, na imprensa (2 diários; 2 semanários e 2 revistas) e na televisão (3 telejornais de canais abertos). Os resultados apontam para uma cobertura intensa tanto na imprensa como na televisão, com um número de notícias significativo, as quais envolvem correspondentes especiais enviados ao Brasil, comentadores de televisão e colunistas de imprensa, para além de testemunhos de personalidades e de cidadãos comuns portugueses e brasileiros. O clima de estupefacção e de incredulidade face ao candidato vencedor prevalece não só nas matérias jornalísticas, como nos comentários e artigos de opinião, até ao final da análise realizada, que decorreu de 1 de Setembro a 1 de Dezembro de 2018. AbstractThe Brazilian presidential elections of 2018 aroused a great curiosity in Portugal and the press and television coverage reflect this interest. This article seeks to contextualize the historical, cultural, political and economic elements that underlie the interrelationship between Portugal and Brazil, guided by continuous human movements. Then, the Brazilian elections are framed in global macro-political trends, taking into account the crisis of democracies in the West, the emergence of populist, autocratic and authoritarian governments, as well as the use / manipulation of the Media and social networks. Next we presented the empirical study on the journalistic coverage of the Brazilian Presidential Elections of 2018, in the press (2 daily newspapers, 2 weekly and 2 magazines) and in television (3 open channels of news programs). The results point to intense coverage in both the press and television, with a significant number of news items, which include special correspondents sent to Brazil, television commentators and press columnists, as well as testimonies of personalities and ordinary Portuguese and Brazilians citizens. The atmosphere of stupefaction and disbelief towards the winning candidate prevails not only in journalistic matters, but also in comments and opinion articles, until the end of the review, which took place from 1 September to 1 December 2018.ResumenLas elecciones presidenciales brasileñas de 2018 motivaron una considerable curiosidad en Portugal y la cobertura de noticias en la prensa y en la televisión, abierta y general, reflejan este interés. En la introducción de este articulo se pretende hacer la contextualización de los elementos históricos, culturales, políticas y económicas que subyacen en la interrelación Portugal-Brasil, enmarcada por los desplazamientos humanos pendulares. A continuación, se encuadra las elecciones brasileñas en tendencias macro-políticas mundiales, teniendo en cuenta la crisis de las democracias en el Occidente, la emergencia de gobiernos populistas, autocráticos y autoritarios, así como la utilización / manipulación de los medios y de las redes sociales. Seguidamente se presenta un estudio empírico sobre la cobertura periodística de las Elecciones Presidenciales Brasileñas de 2018, en la prensa (2 diarios, 2 semanales y 2 revistas) y en la televisión (3 telediarios de canales abiertos). Los resultados apuntan a una fuerte cobertura tanto en la prensa como en la televisión, con una cantidad importante de noticias, cuya producción implicó corresponsales especiales enviados a Brasil, comentaristas de televisión y columnistas de la prensa, bien como testimonios tanto de personalidades como de ciudadanos comunes portugueses y brasileños. El clima de estupefacción y de incredulidad frente al candidato vencedor prevalece no sólo en las materias periodísticas, como en los comentarios y artículos de opinión, hasta el final del análisis realizado, que tuvo lugar entre el 1 de septiembre e el 1 de diciembre de 2018.

Polska Ludowa, published since April 1, 1945 in Poznañ, was among the most important periodicals of the Polish People’s Party (PSL), presided over by Stanis³aw Miko³ajczyk. The periodical consistently tried to present an image of reality that diverged from the model followed by the press coverage of other political parties, therefore it suffered from large scale censorship. The Regional Authority for the Control of Press, Publications and Performances did not permit the publication of news that could disturb the image of political life created by government propaganda. Therefore, articles prepared in the periodical from Wielkopolska were systematically purged of any references to the high social support enjoyed by the PSL or the party being discriminated against by state institutions. All releases describing cases of political terrorism were also blocked. All mentions of the Polish Workers’ Party (PPR) and its representatives in state authorities were particularly investigated. Censors would delete expressions that evidenced the privileged status of this party or its methods of political competition that defied the principles of democracy. This is indicated by the numerous steps censors took in the periods running up to parliamentary elections. Censors made frequent interventions in articles on social and economic topics as well. Significant restrictions also concerned articles discussing living conditions, security and economic crimes and abuses. The issues of international relations were touched on by Polska Ludowa to a smaller extent, which made censors pay particular attention to articles concerning the Soviet Union.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's troubles in 2018 owe much to Japan's resilient liberal media. Between 2011 and 2017, the media was mostly on its back foot, losing credibility over its initial coverage about the Fukushima nuclear accident and withstanding heavy-handed efforts by Abe's government to pressure and intimidate the media into self-censorship (Kingston 2018a). Since early 2017, however, the liberal Asahi newspaper led the way in exposing two cronyism scandals involving private-school projects linked to Abe. It also exposed a series of cases revolving around information disclosure practices that revealed a culture of deception aimed at avoiding government accountability. These included a cover-up at the Defense Ministry regarding a Peace Keeping Operation (PKO) in South Sudan that violated legal constraints imposed by the Diet, and revelations about doctored data used to support Abe's proposed labor reforms. In these and other cases, the government's lack of transparency and mishandling of documents drew sharp public criticism. The press played its role of informing the public about these apparent transgressions while highlighting the arrogance of power that has undermined public trust in Abe; 80 percent do not believe his self-exonerating explanations about the cronyism scandals (Bloomberg 2018). Nonetheless, in September 2018 he won reelection to a third term as Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) president and is set to become Japan's longest serving prime minister. Popular support, however, is tepid, as monthly polls since 2013 by Japan's national broadcasting organization (NHK) indicate that about 50 percent of the public supports him due to a lack of alternatives rather than his virtues as a leader (about 15 percent) or the appeal of his policies (about 15 percent). Despite mixed reviews in the press, he has won a series of elections, and in politics that is what counts (Kingston 2018b).

Resumo: O presente artigo procurou analisar a eleição para a prefeitura de São Paulo em 1953 sob a ótica do jornal O Estado de S. Paulo, periódico de maior tiragem e o mais influente na política paulista dessa época. Devido a uma lei federal, desde os anos 1920 não havia sufrágio para o Executivo paulistano; quando a lei foi revogada em 1952, surgiram duas campanhas que polarizaram a disputa, a do secretário estadual de Saúde, Francisco Cardoso, representando a situação e a do deputado estadual Jânio Quadros, representando a oposição. Apoiando a primeira campanha, o jornal estruturou suas notícias com base nessa perspectiva, e seus desdobramentos foram analisados e refletidos nesse breve espaço.Palavras-chave: História da Imprensa; O Estado de S. Paulo; Eleições Municipais. Abstract: This article analyses the election for the city of S. Paulo in 1953 by the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, the highest circulation and the most influential periodic. Because of a federal law, a 30 years ago don’t have election for São Paulo mayoral; when the law ended in 1952, there were two campaigns that polarized, the State Secretary of Health Francisco Cardoso and the state representative Jânio Quadros. Supporting the first campaign, the newspaper has structured your news based on this perspective and its consequences will be analyzed here.Key-word: Press History; O Estado de S. Paulo; Municipal Elections.

Conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria over the past fifteen years have produced the largest waves of displaced people and refugees since World War II. As European Union (EU) leaders braced for an influx of thousands of people fleeing from these conflicts, they faced pressures to revisit and modify legal rules that left countries in Southeastern Europe and the Mediterranean unable to cope with a crisis of unprecedented proportions in the twenty-first century. While the logistical challenges of this humanitarian disaster threatened to undermine Southeastern and Mediterranean states’ capacity, multiple terrorist attacks across Europe magnified the security concerns of EU leaders. This paper compares how two of the European Union’s newest member states – Bulgaria and Hungary – have tackled the migrant crisis and assesses the impact of security concerns on their refugee policies. Some of the responses of these countries’ governments were similar – both governments mandated the erection or extension of physical barriers to impede migrants’ entry on their countries’ territory. While the Bulgarian government took cues from the rhetoric and actions of key EU leaders such as Angela Merkel, the Hungarian government continuously antagonized EU leaders and declined to cooperate with their proposed multi-lateral strategies of handling the migrant crisis. Decisions taken by the two governments were, to some extent, dictated by security concerns. The rhetoric of the Hungarian government, however, contained stronger nationalist overtones than that of the Bulgarian government. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his right-wing government led an anti-migrant and anti-refugee campaign that sought to exclude foreign nationals due to the patent incompatibility of their cultural values with those of Hungary’s nationals. On the other hand, the rhetoric of Bulgaria’s Prime Minister – Boiko Borisov – was more dualistic and contradictory. His policy statements to the foreign press or at EU summits reflected the general sentiment of the top EU brass, whereas statements made to the Bulgarian media focused more specifically on security concerns and were far more critical of the foreign nationals attempting to enter Bulgaria’s territory. Moreover, the security-focused rhetoric and actions of the government became more strident immediately before and after the Bulgarian presidential elections of November 2016, which led to the resignation of Borisov’s cabinet. Political parties in Bulgaria, including Borisov’s GERB party have increasingly become critical of refugees living in Bulgaria’s admission centers. Borisov’s government even extradited a group of Afghan asylum seekers due to their involvement in a riot at one of the refugee admission centers. This study is based on a content analysis of statements made by Bulgarian and Hungarian government officials and media coverage in several Bulgarian and Hungarian news publications between 2015 and 2017.

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> How many maps can you make using a single thematic dataset? One? Ten? A hundred? More…? It turns out there’s not really an answer and yet the answer you may have provided will be determined by many different influences. You may be a trained cartographer and, so your immediate reaction will have likely been ‘quite a few’ but without fixating on a specific number. You may be new to map-making and simply don’t know, even, if it’s a trick question. Is there a finite number? You may use a particular software product and are guided by the number of options available to you out-of-thebox. Or, perhaps you have a very clear map in mind for a given dataset.</p><p> So let’s expand the question a bit. How many maps can you make of the results of the 2016 United States Presidential election contested by Donald J. Trump and Hillary R. Clinton? Does that make the choice any clearer? Well that’s the task of this presentation. And the answer, while not being infinite, is that there are likely as many choices you can make in selecting a map type and then designing it as you can imagine. And that’s the job of a cartographer whose specialist expertise is to assess a dataset and then deliberate over how to map it to convey some aspect of its character to an audience. And all of those decisions are mediated by various contexts. Who is the map for? (general audience or partisan readership?) What type of medium will be used (digital or print? for a cellphone or a newspaper?). How big should the map be? Will it be constrained in any way by that? And do you want a map that shows incredible detail or an overview? Or is it designed to relay the results empirically or, perhaps be used simply to grab attention? More questions!</p><p> President Trump used the map in Figure 1 to report on his own victory. During one of his first press conferences, Reuters quotes Trump as saying “Here, you can take that, that’s the final map of the numbers. It’s pretty good, right? The red is obviously us.”</p><p> Yet Trump’s map was roundly criticized (mostly by non-Republicans) as being a fake map. It presented a somewhat biased view of the results with huge swathes of red being used to promote the idea that victory was garnered from far and wide. More red gives the impression. Yet the map focuses very much on the geography of the United States which has a hugely dispersed population with large areas very sparsely populated and many highly populated places being seen relatively smaller on the map. Red naturally dominates this particular view yet it speaks to Trump’s truth and is exactly the map to use to deliver his view. Had Clinton won, there would have been a very different looking map built from the same data yet persuading us of how blue victory was. Trump’s victory was marginal. Clinton won the popular vote but that’s irrelevant because that’s not how the result of the American democratic voting system is counted.</p><p> Quoting former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson: “a week is a long time in politics”. The same might be said about electoral cartography. For many, elections provide a fascinating sideshow in seeing how the results are handled cartographically. In framing the presentation, I’ll use recent United Kingdom elections to briefly review shifts in cartographic style and the emergence of a fascinating consensus in terms of map type, style and functionality. I’ll also explore some of the maps from the 2016 Presidential election that we saw across the media. The geographies of two massively different countries account for some differences in approach but consumer preference also creates different demands in the map reader. Approaches range from the purely functional to beautifully imaginative and innovative artistic representations. I finish by sharing my own attempts to map recent political events, both artistically and to challenge and extend the palette of political thematic cartography.</p><p> I’ll then present some original work that uses the 2016 Presidential election data to provide a way of looking at thematic mapping. The benefit of using a single dataset is that it gives an immediate visual comparison across the many different maps. It gives a baseline for understanding how the maps differ and provides an accessible catalogue of design choices for people to use as a guide to mapping in different, interesting and compelling ways. Throughout, I’ll explore many of the small decisions that a cartographer might consider in their choices because each map type brings with it a range of benefits, drawbacks and aspects to consider, and these all play a major role in what your map will end up looking like and how it will be read and interpreted.</p><p> I provide a catalogue of options showcasing the 2016 Presidential election results (Figure 2). Election data provide an extremely rich source of opportunities to underpin the maps to be made and a great way to demonstrate how cartography plays a critical role in the different truths that can be told. Very few, if any, maps are ‘right or wrong’ but they all tell shades of a different truth and speak to different agendas.</p><p> This aspect is critical to understanding how to match your maps to your story. With that in mind, of course, some maps will speak more to a Republican agenda, some more to a Democrat agenda and some would be seen as more neutral. That’s inevitable as there are as many ways to make a persuasive, partisan map as there are an objective map. And what of a map’s objectivity anyway? Maps are rarely made outside of a system that involves human input and while we might like to think that our maps are objective, our very involvement brings subjectivity to the party. Learning how to control subjective tendencies, manage our personal influences and make clear judgements can help you not only tell a better story through your map, but also limit the potential for your map to be seen as politically charged or partisan. Unless, of course, that is what you set out to do in the first place.</p><p> Maps, then, are tangible objects that add stature to debates, poll results, and the reporting of results which give them a sense of realism where perhaps one should not be presumed to yet exist. They report some aspect. That’s as much as they can ever do. And they can be portrayed in different ways so the map reader has to be aware of the possible biases or uncertainties inherent in any map, not just political ones.</p><p> Maps also give newspapers, web and broadcast media (as well as political commentators) a way to flex their technological and design muscles in a game of carto-one-up-manship. We often see some fascinating and innovative cartography used in reporting election results. People’s fascination with the picture of the results is experienced through the cartographies used and, often, the more dramatic the image, the more attention it gets. Maps are a battleground in their own right and used as a way to lure viewers to their coverage, to support their version of the truth as opposed to a competitor’s truth, as much as they are simply a vehicle to report the results. What is truth anyway though? As far as electoral cartography goes, there are many different shades of the truth.</p>

ResumenEsta investigación presenta resultados acerca de los protagonistas políticos más relevantes de la cobertura informativa en prensa durante la campaña previa a las elecciones al Parlamento Europeo del 7 de junio de 2009. El método utilizado es un análisis de contenido cuantitativo aplicado a los dos principales rotativos nacionales, El País y El Mundo, durante los 15 días de duración de la campaña. Además de aportar datos sobre algunos aspectos formales de la cobertura, este artículo muestra la presencia de los líderes de los principales partidos en comparación con otros protagonistas políticos. Asimismo este estudio demuestra, a través del estudio de la aparición de los líderes políticos en la cobertura, que los comicios europeos no suscitaron interés por sí mismos, sino que, por el contrario, fueron abordados por los citados periódicos en clave nacional.Abstract This article shows results of the press coverage of the most prominent political figures during the 2009 European Elections campaign. A content analysis was applied to the whole coverage of the two most influential and important national Spanish dailies, El País and El Mundo, during the fifteen days of the campaign. This piece of research also aims to identify if the European Elections were considered interesting in themselves by the press or, on the contrary, if the coverage was focussed on national elections, as some other studies have shown.Palabras claveLíderes políticos; elecciones; Europa; prensa española.KeywordsPolitical leaders; elections; Europe; Spanish Press.

After seventy years of an almost complete hegemony, in 2000 the Institutional Revolutionary Party lost the presidency of the Republic to the oppositional National Action Party. That moment was considered the hallmark of the political transition that started in certain regions two decades ago. According to a group of American scholars, the transformation of the political system involved the modernisation of the media system as well, as the Mexican press as a whole was moving towards its professionalization. Nonetheless, diverse case studies focused on specific regions have found empirical evidence that prove otherwise: that local and regional journalism is still determined by the customs of the authoritarian model. Based upon a content analysis of the coverage of the 2015 parliamentary elections in both national and state newspapers, we found that although national media showed a more professional performance than those located in other regions, both groups shared a similar political bias and a limited coverage of those elections. Therefore, the main conclusion is that instead of a general transformation or stagnation, Mexican press develops an asynchronous modernisation process in which there are simultaneously liberal and authoritarian features.

Abstract The effects of news coverage on political attitudes in election campaigns have been widely studied in academic research. In particular, a fertile branch of the literature investigated the impact of news media negativity on turnout. To date, however, findings are mixed, precluding to state a clear relationship. This paper aims to shed a light on this topic by testing whether negative coverage may affect voters' turnout and to what extent. It approaches this research question by accounting for two different dimensions, controlling whether the interplay of media negativity (press and TV coverage) with the type of election (first- vs. second-order elections) has an impact on citizens' propensity to turnout. We test our hypotheses by taking Italy as a case study because it offers a combination of systemic and media characteristics that allows addressing properly the topic. We rely on four datasets covering the 2018 Italian general elections and the 2019 European Parliament Elections in Italy, respectively, with opinion data (2018 ITANES survey and 2019 ITANES-University of Milan survey) and two datasets measuring media negativity by means of a human content analysis carried out on media coverage during the 7 weeks before the election days (2018 and 2019 ITEM data). Our findings show that individual exposure to negative coverage leads to an increase in turnout mainly to the detriment of indecision. This pattern holds both in first- and second-order elections.

This paper presents preliminary findings from a wider study into the form that political debate takes in Scottish and English/UK newspapers’ reporting of the 2001 and the 2005 UK Elections. The research project aims to contribute to the discussion regarding the role played by the Scottish press in political deliberation after devolution and compares its contribution to the electoral debate with that of newspapers bought in England. This paper explores the results of a content analysis of articles from daily Scottish and UK newspapers during the four weeks of each election campaign period. This reveals that, despite some differences, the overall picture of the coverage of major election issues is consistent. A selection of the coverage of taxation, the most mentioned reserved issue in the 2001 campaign, is subsequently analysed using critical discourse analysis, and the results suggest more distinction between the two sets of newspapers.

During each of the five elections held in post-apartheid South Africa, from 1994 to 2014, the African National Congress (ANC) accused the mainstream media of being racially biased against the predominantly black political party. The newspapers and the other media were condemned for being privately owned and monopolised by white capital and dominated by white editorial staff, who allegedly reported negatively and critically on the party’s electoral policies—thus alienating it from the voters. Despite such criticism, the ANC gained a majority of votes at each election. This article examines: i) the presumed powerful influence of the press on electoral support for the ANC; ii) the extent that newspaper reporting on elections were racially biased against, and hostile to the ANC; and iii) the racial composition of the editorial staff. Five influential South African newspapers were analysed: three daily newspapers, Beeld, The Star, and Sowetan; and two weekly publications, The City Press and The Sunday Times. A total of 111 170 newspaper articles and editorial pieces relating to the elections were content-analysed to establish their manifest positive, negative, or neutral tonality. It was found that mainstream newspapers’ reporting did not negatively influence voters’ support for the ANC, that reports on elections were predominantly objective with a slight positive bias in favour of the ANC, and that the racial composition of editorial staff changed from being predominantly white to more representative of black personnel, which in turn introduced more visible anti-white bias.

This article starts from the observation that most voters know relatively little about positions and plans of political parties, especially when European Union politics is concerned. One reason for this could be that the main sources for political information, party communication and mass media coverage, provide voters only little concrete information about positions and plans of political parties. We ask how concretely, respectively vaguely, political parties and mass media communicate political positions prior to the 2014 European Parliament elections. We conducted a quantitative content analysis of all European Union–related press releases from 46 national political parties and of all European Union–related articles of 14 national quality newspapers from 7 European countries 12 weeks before the 2014 European Parliament elections. Our analysis shows that press releases as well as media coverage contain more concrete political positions on European Union issues than vague political statements. Other than expected, newspaper coverage provided the public with less concrete information than political actors did. Nevertheless, countries vary with regard to the extent to which party communication or newspaper coverage contain vague statements. We cannot find empirical support that the communication of concrete political positions depends on a party’s “extremity” of issue position or on the type of issue.

Mother of three children, or first and foremost politician? A quantitative content analysis of the representation of female political candidates in the Flemish press This study compares the presence and portrayal of female and male political candidates in news articles that report on newly announced candidatures during times of election. We used a quantitative content analysis to study 390 news articles about two federal (2007, 2014) and two local elections (2012, 2018) in Belgium. The articles were collected from four Flemish newspapers: De Morgen, Het Laatste Nieuws, Het Nieuwsblad and De Standaard. The findings show that male and female politicians are unequally represented. Numerically, male politicians are represented almost twice as often as woman politicians and articles about female politicians are shorter in length. For female politicians the age, marital status, and parenthood are more often mentioned, highlighting their roles in the private sphere. Notably, the coverage of local elections shows a more biased representation than the coverage of federal elections does. As such, this study underlines the importance of comparing different electoral contexts.

This article examines the news framing of the 2017 Hong Kong Chief Executive election using a big data analysis approach. Analyses of intermedia framing of over 370,000 articles and comments are conducted including news published in over 30 Chinese press media, four prominent Chinese online press media, and posts published on three candidates’ Facebook pages within the election period. The study contributes to the literature by examining the rarely discussed role of intermedia news framing, especially the relationship between legacy print media, online alternative news media, and audience comments on candidates’ social network sites. The data analysis provides evidence that audiences’ comments on candidates’ Facebook pages influenced legacy news coverage and online alternative news coverage. However, this study suggests that legacy news media and comments on Facebook do not necessarily have a reciprocal relationship. The implication of the findings and limitations are discussed.

If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: "President Can't Swim". —Lyndon B. Johnson Introduction The term “spin” implies manipulating the truth, and this concept, along with “spin doctoring,” is now common in media and public discourse. The prevalence of “spin zones” in American politics is undeniable; media outlets themselves, such as Bill O’Reilly’s “No Spin Zone” on Fox News, now run segments on the topic. Despite this apparent media certainty about what constitutes “spin” there is a lack of conceptual clarity regarding the term among those who study media and politics. This article will draw on previous literature to identify two competing yet overlapping spin zones in American politics: the media’s spin zone and the President’s spin zone. Highlighting examples from the two most recent American presidential election campaigns, the article will evaluate the interplay of these zones and the consequences for future campaigns. Spin Zones In the United States, the press and the President are engaged in a struggle over providing information. Ever since the Watergate Scandal, the media is increasingly expected to be a “watchdog” that informs citizens and keeps the Executive accountable (Coronel 13) The President, conversely, may attempt to use the power of his position to set the discursive agenda or frame the political debate in his favor. Furthermore, with the rise of multi-media access and information provision, the lines between the spin doctoring of the Executive and the media have become even more blurred. Because of the complexities of these overlapping spin zones, many scholars disagree on how to define and/or precisely measure these effects. The following section briefly describes the ‘spin zone’ tools of agenda setting, framing, and priming, and then considers the example of a candidate who failed to prime his negative evaluation and a President who primes his image and successfully counterattacks his negative evaluation. The literature recognises two separate, yet interrelated zones that are integral to understanding these media/presidential relations: what we term the presidential spin zone and the media spin zone. The interplay between these zones comes together around three key concepts—agenda setting, framing, and priming. A key difficulty for scholars is that the President, his electoral challengers, and the press are engaged in agenda setting, framing and priming, sometimes simultaneously. Agenda setting is a broad concept and refers to focusing on certain issues to the exclusion of others. Framing is defined as the decision by the news media to “emphasise certain elements to define the ‘public’s belief’ about social and political issues” (Van Gorp 488). Other scholars describe priming as “a disproportionate amount of public comments with the hope . . . of causing voters to base their selection among the candidates on [that] issue” (Druckman et al. 1181; see also Druckman “Framing Effects”; Nelson, Clawson and Oxley; Van Gorp). Candidates may also undertake “image priming,” which is proposed by James Druckman et al., as a tool that can be used to counteract negative candidate evaluations (1182–1183). The definition of the media spin zone is, in most instances, synonymous with priming. Defining the presidential spin zone is more complex. Clearly the presidential spin zone involves both the previously-discussed “issue framing abilities of the president” and how he “set[s] the agenda” (Miller and Krosnick 301; see also, Gamson and Modigliano, Baumgardner and Jones; Druckman, “Framing Effects”). Mark Rozell, for instance, found that the Ford and Carter administrations had difficulty controlling the public agenda since many issues were either beyond their control, or because the president and his advisors lacked the strategy or skill to affect media coverage. The Reagan White House however was able to use his “image” to control the media (85–86). Similarly, George W. Bush’s administration was able to implement policies concerning the invasion of Iraq after the 9-11 through “issue framing” scare tactics, which were constantly reinforced by media outlets (Kellner 643). However, the President can also be engaged in priming at any given time. In other words, the President (or candidate) may attempt to prime what the media has already spun about him/her. A problem, of course, is that the President or candidate, in attempting to prime an issue that has already been spun in a sense tacitly admits they have lost the opportunity to set the agenda in the first place. However, this is when he can seize the aforementioned opportunity to use “image priming” to counterattack the media. In the examples that follow we examine whether the President or candidate can use priming to effectively counterattack the media spin zone, with a focus on two political tools that have been historically reserved for the President or candidates, namely, holding the base and wedge issues. Holding the Base and the Media Spin Zone Holding the base has been defined as a way in which candidates or Presidents can use the media to strengthen support among voters who already identify with their political party (Iyengar and McGrady 246). A classic example of this is the 1984 Reagan/Bush re-election campaign, the “The Bear.” This featured a bear in the woods that “some” could “see” and others didn’t “see at all” which was an implicit threat regarding Soviet communism and a reminder that Reagan was tough on foreign policy (“The Bear”). However, the evidence indicates that the media has increasingly begun “holding the base” on its own to facilitate its partisan framing and priming of candidates or Presidents. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attack advertisements on 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is a key example of a media attempt to “hold the base.” In these advertisements, former “Swift Boat Veterans attack[ed] his [Kerry’s] military record” (Muravchik A17). While this initiative began as a means to collect Republican donations, Shanto Iyengar and Jennifer McGrady maintain that the amount was “trivial” and that the real impact came with “the torrent of news reports across the country” (150). Indeed, Kathleen Jamieson and Joseph Capella found that by August 2004, “viewers of Fox News were more likely than other network viewers to say that candidate John Kerry did not earn his Vietnam medals” (279). Their evaluation of this data demonstrated the power of the media spin zone: “He (Limbaugh) employs intense language, disparaging information and negative framing to distance perceptions of the Democratic candidate from those of the anointed Republican candidate” (Jamieson and Capella 228). The coverage of disputes surrounding Kerry’s military record was augmented by the media’s simultaneous coverage of the threat of terrorism. This priming “in the media continued, reaching a high peak of 55 threat messages in August 2004, a month later 25% of the public was very concerned about another major terrorist attack in the US—two months before the presidential election” (Nacos, Bloch-Elkon and Shapiro 120). Both President Bush and Candidate Kerry acknowledged that their respective win/loss could be attributed in some measure to the press coverage of the “war on terror” (Nacos, Bloch-Elkon and Shapiro 124). While questions loomed about his military experience against the backdrop of the war on terror, Senator Kerry won the first two Presidential debates by significant margins. Alec Gallup and Frank Newport suggested that the Kerry camp had “won the spin contest … to characterize their own candidate as the winner” (406). So, what happened to Kerry? The media spin zone stopped him. The presidential debate wins were 30 September 2004 and 8 October 2004, respectively. Iyengar and McGrady demonstrate that before the debates even began the number of Swift Boat veteran stories primed in the national and international press went from under 100 to over 500 (151). According to Kim Fridkin et al. the media’s spin was a significant factor in the third debate. They found that media coverage concerning Senator Kerry’s response to one question on whether homosexuality was a choice affected citizens’ evaluations of the candidate. In the post debate coverage, the tone “in newspapers, on the Internet, and on television was uniformly negative in its assessment of Senator Kerry’s comments” (Fridkin et al. 30). The impact of this negative framing was sufficiently strong to override positive evaluations of Kerry held by those who watched the debate. In sum, the “perfect storm of media coverage lessened the bounce that Senator Kerry received from the actual debate and led people to develop negative impressions of Kerry a mere three weeks before Election Day” (Fridkin 43). Despite these liabilities, Kerry should have counterattacked the media spin zone. He should have “counterpunched,” as noted by Drew Westen, priming the media that he was “a different kind of Democrat”—“one who knows when it’s time to take off the gloves” (337). Westen’s advice is echoed in Druckman’s call for further research in this area as well as by his own research findings. The media’s framing and priming led to negative evaluations of Kerry, which afforded him the opportunity to prime his “image” in a counterattack, as Druckman suggests (1183). Overcoming the Wedge Issues of the Media Spin Zone President Obama, however, orchestrates a different outcome in dealing with the media spin zone attack against him which centered on a “wedge” or “us verses them” issue. Iyengar and McGrady note that “wedge issues are designed to pit groups against each other, to appeal to voters’ sense of group identity” (145). However, they define wedge issues within the context of presidential spin zones; thus, the candidate or the president would be framing the “us versus them” topic. In this instance, the media framed a wedge issue, the status of President Obama’s citizenship, against him. In this case the birther movement, oft-promoted by conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, argued that President Obama was not a US citizen. This issue became so prominent that it was soon adopted by the media spin zone. The media framing demanded proof in addition to the short form birth certificate that the President had already released (Wilson 109). For his part, President Obama handled the media spin zone’s wedge issue with great aplomb, responding in a brief statement to the public on 27 April 2011: “We do not have time for this kind of silliness” (Shear). Moreover, he did not alienate the media for framing the birther movement, but he placed the blame implicitly on Donald Trump who had taken up the birther gauntlet thrown down by Rush Limbaugh. It was “clearly Trump” he was priming when he indicated that he did not want to be “distracted by sideshows and carnival barkers” (Shear). Moreover, his strategic focus on “silliness” is an illustration of “image priming”. He did not allow himself to be drawn into the race-baiting or religious controversy that was a component of some of the media talk show discussions. The Washington Post reported after Obama’s speech that the percentage of Americans who questioned his legitimacy to serve as President dropped from 20% to 10%—thus legitimating his choice to address the nation. This result meant that the President responded to an attack from the media spin zone with a counterattack of his own; he effectively counterattacked to prime his image. Interestingly, Stephen Ansolobehare and Iyengar have indirectly demonstrated the efficacy of counterattacks in presidential spin zone situations by evaluating situations where one candidate attacks another and the “victim” of the attack either, does not respond, responds with a positive message or responds with a counterattack (143). They found overwhelming evidence that voters prefer their party’s candidate to counterattack rather than be victimised. Conclusion In this paper we have furthered the call for conceptual clarity in the field by joining Druckman et al. in emphasising the need for more research on “image priming” on the part of candidates and Presidents in the interplay between the press and the presidency. If used properly, image priming seems a viable way for the presidency to counterattack against media framing and priming, but squandered opportunities may irreparably harm candidates. President Obama faced a difficult wedge issue that had undercurrents of both racial and religious tensions, but he deftly avoided those issues and found a way to “use Trump as a foil and present the president as a more serious leader” (Shear). His counterattack against the wedge used by the media spin zone was successful. Senator Kerry, on the other hand, failed to counterattack the media spin zone’s rallying of the base. His silence allowed the media to generate both issue and image frames and priming against him. 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Professor Steven Freidman’s book on the challenges facing South Africa’s democracy comes at a time when the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) just hosted the highly contested national elections since 1994. Again, the book comes at a period where cut-throat power struggle politics of coalition governments at local government level are at their peak. The momentum and growth of opposition parties after 25 years of democracy in South Africa signal the growth and maturing of the ‘Rainbow Nation’ democracy. Opposition parties such as the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) are in an expedition to influence the African National Congress (ANC) led government to amend or review the South African Constitution of 1996; aimed at addressing the triple-headed monster (unemployment, income inequality and poverty). This book is also released at a time when troubled African states such as Sudan and Zimbabwe had undergone coup d’état and violent national protests over democracy upliftment. This premise rightly coincides with Freidman’s contention that authoritative leaders particularly in Africa deploy democracy to win elections but they are unable to ostensibly operate within democratic norms (pp vii-ix). This reflection can be well aligned to the assertion of Kenyan public intellectual, legal expert and scholar, Professor Patrick Lumumba “democracy is a competition of ideas, sustained by the constant dialogue where the minority have their say and the majority have their way.”