Beyond Information and Opinion. The importance of public communication in the referendum process

Abstract

There is considerable speculation, but not a great deal of solid knowledge, about the importance of public communication - and especially about the influence of the media - in the referendum process. This applies not only to the way the subject is dealt with in the press and by politicians, but also to the field of academic research. The deficiency affects not only political systems in which the primary decision-making process is a parliamentary-representative one, but even Switzerland, which is second to none in the world in its regular use of initiatives and referendums at the national level. Here, as elsewhere, research on referendums is primarily based on data from representative public opinion polls. However, the focus is rarely on the role of the media and public communication, and even when it is, the relevant reports are based on data about the use of the various information media, while little light is shed on the actual content of the latter (cf. Kriesi 1994). Data on the scope of political advertising has occasionally been evaluated and used as an indicator of the intensity of the campaign and of the broad spectrum of expressions of political opinion (cf. Kriesi 2005). Other studies draw retrospective conclusions from observable swings in voting behavior about the possible course of the campaign and influences on it (cf. Longchamp 2003). To date, no study has yet appeared in Switzerland which systematically links data on the structure and content of public communication (data acquired from an analysis of the content) with data from surveys on voting behavior. And it is only very recently that such a study has appeared in the international literature.¹