"Very few cross-national studies have examined the consequences of electoral manipulation, including the manipulation of election administration and the media, on citizens’ trust in elections. This paper addresses this gap by exploring how autonomy of election management bodies (EMBs) and media fr
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eedom individually and conjointly shape citizens’ trust in elections. Citizens are more likely to express confidence in elections when EMBs display de facto autonomy and less likely to do so when mass media disseminate information independent of government control. Additionally, we suggest that EMB autonomy may not have a positive effect on public trust in elections if media freedom is low. Empirical findings based on recent survey data on public trust in elections in 47 countries and expert data on de facto EMB autonomy and media freedom support our hypotheses." (Abstract)
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"It is still not well understood how the media affect anti-immigrant party voting. In this paper, we argue and demonstrate empirically that mere exposure to immigration- and crime-related news is positively related to the likelihood that a voter casts a vote for an anti-immigrant party. On the basis
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of a media content analysis (N = 20,084 news items) in combination with a voter panel survey (N = 17,014 respondents) conducted in 11 European countries we find for several anti-immigrant parties that e ceteris paribus e exposure to news about immigration or crime increases voters' probabilities to vote for these parties. We discuss our findings in light of prior research on issue ownership, and their implications for the role of the mass media in established democracies"(Abstract)
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"This report presents an analysis of Iranian public opinion and mood as expressed over Twitter in the nine months following the election. The research represents an initial case study of a novel methodology developed to analyze politically oriented social media content. In addition to policy-relevan
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t findings regarding Iranians’ attitudes toward a variety of topics (e.g., President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the United States), our methodological approach is described in detail. The results should be of interest to analysts and policymakers concerned with Iranian politics and public opinion in closed societies, as well as social media researchers." (Preface)
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