It is one of the most relevant questions of journalism research: Why do journalists select certain events or topics for publication, neglecting the overwhelming majority of news available to them? Communication scholars have been addressing this question from very different theoretical perspectives, applying a wide variety of social research methods to answer it. But although there are various models identifying a multitude of influences on news decisions, a theory capable of exactly predicting the news selection of tomorrow's newspapers and news (...) programs is still missing. Journalistic decision-making is a complex phenomenon that depends on a number of preconditions which are hard to tackle in a single theoretical approach or empirical investigation. Due to this complexity, there are still many unanswered questions that stimulate both empirical studies and theoretical thinking on news-making. Moreover, the media, journalism, and the factors shaping them are constantly changing. Yesterday's answers may not be appropriate to explain today's or tomorrow's news decisions. (shrink)

The article reports considerable changes in the content and style of German election coverage between 1990 and 2002. The findings are based on a content analysis of the main evening news of the four major television channels, spanning four Bundestag elections. During the observation period, television has immensely expanded its coverage of the top candidates. While the presence of the candidates in the news increased, they were not able to get their issues across to the audience. The news discourse was (...) narrowed down to election and campaigning as issues. Matters of campaigning style, the ‘game schema’, as well as election polls became increasingly salient. The number of sound bites grew, although the average sound bite length decreased slightly. The presentation of the candidates became more vivid and more colorful, and, thus, more attractive for the audience. On the other hand, there are no signs of increasing negativism. The observable trends in the scope and kind of presentation of candidates can be interpreted as increasing personalization and dramatization of media coverage. The changes partially fit into the pattern of convergence. These developments are partly rooted in the change of the German television market. Other results can be explained by historical incidents such as the German unification in 1990, and by the candidate constellation during each election. In spite of some similarities with developments in the US, the authors argue that it would be misleading to label the observable changes of German election coverage as ‘Americanization’. (shrink)