The Time Frame of The Campaign: Retrospectivity in Political Advertising, Talk Shows and Debates Dr. ATHANASSIOS N. SAMARAS Research on Political Advertising has been sponsored by the Hellenic Audiovisual Institute ( Research on Talk Shows and Debates has been sponsored by the Greek Press and Information Office and was conducted under the supervision of Prof. Stylianos Papathanassopoulos 5th International Political Marketing Conference Manchester Business School, The University of Manchester 27th – 29th March 2008

CONTENT ANALYSIS OF POLITICAL ADVERTISING SPOTS 1993, General Elections (N=49) Spots of two major parties. 1994, European Parliament Elections (N=13) Spots of two major parties. 1996, General Elections (N=76) Spots of all parties. 1999, European Parliament Elections (N=34) Spots of all parties 2000, General Elections (N=52) Spots of all parties. Intercoder reliability was assessed on a sample of 20% of the spots and was above +.83 for the two coders for all categories.

TIME FRAME PER ELECTORAL CYCLE ANALYTICAL TYPOLOGY - POLISPOTS

DOMINANT TIME FRAME - POLISPOTS

DOMINANT TIME FRAME PER ELECTION CYCLE - POLISPOTS

NEGATIVITY IN POLISPOTS

NEGATIVITY AND RETROSPECTIVITY

POLITICAL TALK SHOWS Since the early 1990s, talk shows have become an integral part of newscasts in Greece, formulating a particular arena of political communication. These talk shows are appearing in close proximity with the hard news content of the newscasts; in effect framing them. Political talk shows defy the dichotomy between journalistically mediated and candidate controlled communication. This is a hybrid format whose content is affected by both media logic and campaign logic. Journalists and politicians contribute, through real time interaction, to the formulation of the representations. During the General Elections of 2004 a research group at the University Research Institute of Applied Communication, University of Athens, monitored and transcribed all the campaign talk shows embedded in the television newscasts of four major private channels for two week of the 2004 campaign.

FIRST WAVE OF CONTENT ANALYSIS Unit of Analysis: The Soundbite Soundbite is defined as: “a film or tape segment, within a news story, showing someone speaking“ (Hallin 1994:132) “ a block of uninterrupted speech" (Addato 1990:2) "all statements made on the air by news sources". (Lowry and Shidler 1995:35) Research examines both journalist’s and guest’s soundbites. Every speech act is included in the first wave of content analysis. Τhe code book includes the following categorizations : Television station and date Name, status and partisan affiliation of speaker The number of guests that appear in the talk show. Size of the statement counted in number of words. The main topic of the soundbite or the discussion within the context of which the soundbite took place. The presence and the direction of questions

FIRST WAVE OF CONTENT ANALYSIS N=9.636 Coding Units (Soundbites) Break up per channel ALPHA = ,2% ALTER = ,0% ANTENNA= ,5% MEGA = ,3% Break up per source Politicians = ,3% Journalists= ,0% Others = ,7% Intercoder reliability was assessed on a sample of 10 percent of all soundbites and was above +.90 for every couple of coders for all categories Reliability has been computed using the formula of North, Holsti, Zanninovich and Zinnes (1963): R= 2(C1,2)/C1+C2, where C1,2= the number of category assignments both coders agree on and C1+C2= total category assignments made by both coders

From the soundbites only the (30,6%) contain any political information. The soundbites contain solely introductions, phatic communication and turn-taking struggles and are therefore excluded from the second wave of content analysis.

SECOND WAVE OF CONTENT ANALYSIS Τhe code book includes the following categorizations: 1.Dominant Theme: Candidate Issues vs. Policy Issues. 2.Dominant Function: Issue Discussion Vs Image Making. 3.Focus of Image Making Process. 4.Level of Issue Specificity. 5.Benoit’s Typology: Acclaim, Attack, Defend. 6.Target of the Attack. 7.Evaluation Patterns. 8.Time Frame: Retrospective Vs Prospective References. 9.Persuasive Appeals: Aristotelian Typology, Fear Appeals, Mobilization Appeals.

SECOND WAVE OF CONTENT ANALYSIS N=2.946 Coding Units (Soundbites) Break up per channel ALPHA = 827 – 28,1% ALTER = 849 – 28,9% ANTENNA= 699 – 23,7% MEGA = 571 – 19,4% Break up per source Politicians =2.093 – 71,0% Journalists= 769 – 26,1% Others = 83 – 2,9% Intercoder reliability was assessed on a sample of 20 percent and was above +.80 for every couple of coders for all categories.

DISTRIBUTION OF SOUNDBITES PER SOURCE DETAILED TAXONOMY CODEN% Party Leader1575,3% Candidate Member of Parliament184562,6% Party member not candidate MP913,1% News presenter – Anchor378 12,8% Journalists (Guests, reporters, commentators) 39113,3% Celebrities321,1% Pollsters240,8% Advertiser, Communication specialists 90,3% Citizens190,6%

DISTRIBUTION OF SB ACCORDING TO THE NUMBER OF GUESTS OF THE TALK SHOW

DISTRIBUTION OF PARTY SOUNDBITES

PRESENCE OF TIME FRAME Political Talk Shows

DISTRIBUTION OF TIME FRAME PER TYPE OF ACTOR - Political Talk Shows

TIME FRAME PER TYPE OF ACTOR ANALYTICAL TYPOLOGY Political Talk Shows

TIME FRAME PER ELECTORAL POSITION Political Talk Shows

CONTENT ANALYSIS OF DEBATES N=236 Coding Units (Spech Act) Break up per debate 1996 = 60 (only two party leaders) 2000 = 51 (only two party leaders) 2004 =126 (six party leaders) Break up per source Politicians =120 Journalists=117 Intercoder reliability was assessed on a sample of 100 coding units and was above +.85 for the two coders for all categories.

PRESENCE OF TIME FRAME Debate

DISTRIBUTION OF TIME FRAME PER TYPE OF ACTOR – Debates

TIME FRAME IN DEBATES