Design of the Study: An Integrated Approach

Abstract

In the recent decades different complementary approaches to capturing the effects of political campaigns have been offered (for an overview see Brady and Johnston 2006; Goldstein and Ridout 2004, Iyengar and Simon 2000). Without doubt, one of the strongest approaches to investigating the effects of mediated political campaigns is the analysis of longitudinal data from panel designs (e.g. Bartels 2006). However, even studies relying on panel data are plagued with the problem of drawing causal inferences about campaign effects because little is known about the content of the press releases, the political advertisements or the news media. This shortcoming is addressed in the present study by using an integrated approach. We explicitly attempt to integrate data collection and data analyses of the strategies of political and media actors an analysis of their impact on the opinion formation of voters. Figure 1.1 in Chapter 1 illustrates the integrated design of the present study: It highlights the three types of actors involved in the political communication process – politicians, the news media and citizens – and the decisions and processes taking place at the site of each one of these actors, as well as the sets of reciprocal processes linking each pair of them.