2. Political Communication Methods

Question 1

dominant methodology - media systems

Answer 1

Comparative case studies

Question 2

dominant methodology - media and democracy

Answer 2

Case studies (democratization)
Experiments (democratic virtues)
Content analysis
Survey research

Question 3

dominant methodology - impact of media on politics

Answer 3

Content analysis (case studies)
Time series (policy change)
Experiments (political knowledge)

Question 4

dominant methodology - electoral campaigns

Answer 4

Survey research
Content analysis
Experiments

Question 5

universe (content)

Answer 5

content of what

Question 6

population (content)

Answer 6

complete set of media you are interested in

Question 7

cases (content)

Answer 7

what specific media you are interested in

Question 8

units of analysis (content)

Answer 8

what specific elements of specific media do you want to analyse

Question 9

what is content

Answer 9

universe

population

cases

units of analysis

Question 10

big data consequences

Answer 10

can be messy and perhaps incomplete or poorly encoded

from causation to correlation

Question 11

saliency

Answer 11

what is the weight of content

Question 12

levels of saliency

Answer 12

1. word count
2. word combination
3. counting the argumentation

Question 13

trade-off saliency

Answer 13

The more interesting the measure, the more complex it is to code, and the less easy it is to code it quantitatively (hand coding vs. computer coding)

Question 14

valance

Answer 14

what is the direction of the content (the degree of attraction of aversion that one feels towards a specific object or event)

Question 15

levels of valance

Answer 15

1. mere direction (pro / against)
2. intensity of positivity / negativity (degree)
3. object of positivity or negativity

wat is de direction / hoe erg / tegen wie?

Question 16

language modelling

Answer 16

big data and new types of patterns.

pre-training on an example corpus (copyright issues), like Wikipedia / parliamentary debates

This makes windows of 6-12 worlds before and after and does preprocessing (removes stop words)

windows of 6-12 worlds before and after specific word

Question 17

experiments

Answer 17

a research design in which the researcher both controls and randomly assigns values of the independent variable to the participants

• controlling / randomly assigning is important!

research design / controls and randomly assign values of variables

Question 18

experiments - controlling

Answer 18

control group + treatment group

Question 19

experiments - randomly assigning

Answer 19

randomly assigned to treatment or placebo

Question 20

framing experiments

Answer 20

1. sample
2. pretest
3. treatment
4. post-test

Question 21

sample (experiment)

Answer 21

randomly assign students to one of three groups

Question 22

pretest (experiment)

Answer 22

before reading test the students are surveyed

Question 23

treatment (experiments)

Answer 23

two groups get a different text to read, third one is control group

Question 24

post-test (experiments)

Answer 24

survey again to see effects of the treatment

Question 25

Problems of surveys

Answer 25

selection effects vs. media effects

false recalls

endogeneity problem

Question 26

false recalls (problem survey)

Answer 26

exposure is a necessary condition for the direct effect to happen / inaccurate reporting has significant effects on results of studies

inaccurate reporting –> effect on results study

Question 27

samples checklist

Answer 27

1. check sample size
2. check the type of sample
3. what is the bias
4. is the bias a problem
5. modest in claims

Question 28

endogeneity problem

Answer 28

occurs when the explanans (X) may be influenced by the explanandum (Y) or both may be jointly influenced by an unmeasured third

X influenced by Y or a third variable