Contested Elections in Increasingly Commercialized Media. A Diachronic Analysis of Executive and Parliamentary Election News Coverage in Switzerland

Abstract

In view of the sinking level of consensus and the allegedly growing 'presidentialization' of politics in Switzerland, this paper asks whether this process can be explained by the 'mediatization of politics', enforced by the commercialization of the media. Taking a comparative approach in analyzing news coverage about executive and parliamentary elections from 1960 to 2011 in three different media types, it shows an increasing focus on executive elections, triggered not only by increasing political conflict but also by commercialized 'media logic'. Attention to the executive is highest in the commercialized tabloid paper and lowest in the less commercialized quality paper, which only much later starts to focus on these elections. Contested executive elections have become attractive for commercialized media to focus on prominent figures and dramatize conflicts. This news reporting about politics arguably gives incentives for political actors to contest executive elections, thus intensifying the transformation of the political system.