Exploring party–issue linkages as an indicator of issue ownership in election news coverage in two Danish national elections

Mark Ørsten*, Mads Kæmsgaard Eberholst

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Abstract

Existing research on issue ownership has largely placed the political parties at the center of studies. Recent research has, however, suggested to expand the focus. First, it has been suggested that the salience of different political issues can be affected by events exogenous to political parties, such as real-world events and societal trends. Second, the news media have been identified as another central arena for issue ownership competition and maintenance, making the concept of party-issue linkages in election coverage an additional topic of study. Taking its cue from this line of research, this paper contributes to election research by exploring party-issue linkage as an indicator of issue ownership for both political parties and political leaders in the two most recent national Danish elections. Both elections took place in times affected by societal trends and real-world events. Based on large-scale content analysis of leading Danish news media, and using descriptive statistics, we find a significant shift in media salience from 2019 to 2022. This shift leads to changes in party-issue linkage for both political parties and specific political leaders, especially regarding the most salient issues of the elections.
Original languageEnglish
JournalJournalistica
ISSN1901-6220
Publication statusAccepted/In press - 2024

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