Skip Navigation


Public Opinion Quarterly Advance Access originally published online on May 9, 2008
Public Opinion Quarterly 2008 72(2):331-344; doi:10.1093/poq/nfn014
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
72/2/331    most recent
nfn014v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Cohen, J.
Right arrow Articles by Sheafer, T.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Association for Public Opinion Research. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

The Influence of Presumed Media Influence in Politics

Do Politicians’ Perceptions of Media Power Matter?

Jonathan Cohen, Yariv Tsfati and Tamir Sheafer

Address correspondence to Yariv Tsfati; e-mail: ytsfati{at}com.haifa.ac.il.

Much of what politicians do, we maintain in this paper, is driven by their belief in the power of media, which motivates their desire to be featured in news coverage. Our argument rests upon recent advances in communication theory, stressing "the influence on presumed media influence" (Gunther, Albert C., and J. Douglas Storey. 2003. "The Influence of Presumed Influence." Journal of Communication 35(2):199–215) and contributes to our understanding of the mediatization of politics. Combined data from a survey of Israeli members of Knesset (MKs; n = 56), parliamentary reporters’ (n = 20) rankings of MKs’ media motivations, Knesset records of MKs' political activity, and data on the frequency of MKs’ news appearances were used to test this argument. Structural equation modeling revealed that politicians’ belief in the power of media increases their motivation and effort to appear in media coverage, which in turn is related both to greater media prominence and to more parliamentary activity. These results are discussed in light of their implications for both our understanding of political actors and the role of journalists.

JONATHAN COHEN AND YARIV TSFATI are with the Department of Communication, University of Haifa, Israel and TAMIR SHEAFER is with the Department of Communication and Journalism and the Department of Political Science, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. The authors are grateful to Mr Many Avrahami of Ifat Media Information Center for the news coverage data, Roi Estline and Tsahi Hayat for their dedicated research assistance, Efrat Yaskil and the staff of the University of Haifa Survey Center, and Dr Mina Zemach of Dahaf Survey Research Institute. The authors would also like to thank the participants in the "Influence of Presumed Influence Workshop" for their encouragement and helpful feedback.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.