Media Logic: Journalistic Schemata in Election Campaign Coverage.

Four journalistic schemata are prominent in the media logic debate: journalists' preference for personalised coverage, contest coverage, negative coverage, and limited issue diversity. This study tests whether these journalistic schemata are four indicators of a single media logic and whether this logic is shared by media outlets. The manifestation of these four journalistic schemata in television and newspaper coverage of five Dutch national election campaigns (1998 - 2010) was measured by a Semantic Network Analysis. Personalised coverage, contest coverage, negative coverage, and limited issue diversity indeed form four indicators of a single media logic. This logic is shared among newspapers and television broadcasters. What is more, the study surprisingly shows that the degree of personalised coverage and contest coverage has decreased, the tone of the news has become less negative, and the issue diversity has increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]