New Parties on the News: How New(s) Media and New Parties Shape Attention and Electoral Support for Political Ideas

Project Information

NEWNEWS

Grant agreement ID: 865088

DOI

10.3030/865088

Project closed

EC signature date 15 October 2020

Start date 1 January 2021

End date 31 December 2025

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 999 537,00

EU contribution

€ 1 999 537,00

Coordinated by

ROYAL HOLLOWAY AND BEDFORD NEW COLLEGE
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - NEWNEWS (New Parties on the News: How New(s) Media and New Parties Shape Attention and Electoral Support for Political Ideas)

Reporting period: 2024-01-01 to 2025-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

In recent decades, many new political parties have assumed positions of power in mature democracies. This signals voter demand for fresh faces, new voices, and novel political ideas. On the one hand, openness to new ideas is a necessary condition for democracy and enhances democratic responsiveness. On the other hand, new parties often prove unstable as they emerge and disappear without establishing meaningful ties with voters, thus threatening the quality of representation and of policy output.

New parties face an uphill battle. While most of them die, some survive by attracting voter attention through traditional and new media. Visibility in the media is one of the most influential factors in determining the perceived effectiveness and legitimacy of political parties for voters. It is especially critical for new parties, who often lack the political capital and established rapport with voters. Unfortunately, little is known of the relationship between new parties, media, and voters. The small number of studies on new parties pay little attention to news media, while studies on news media pay little attention to new parties.

#NewNews addresses this literature gap by examining media portrayals of new parties, how these portrayals vary, and how they matter for the election outcomes. Recent advances in computational social science make it possible to study entire populations of (often tiny) new parties and their (often scarce) media visibility in 19 Western democracies since 1950.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Besides conducting surveys in the UK and in the Netherlands, we have built several datasets. One containing all new parties and various characteristics since World War II (we now have 1,477 new parties in 10 countries complete and are looking to add at least 8 other countries). One concerning news media coverage of green parties in 11 countries, 1992-2021. One that includes vote shares of 882 parties across 458 elections in 40 democracies worldwide combined with economic (inflation, growth, and unemployment) and immigration (migration stock, net migration change, and refugee population change) variables since 1966. We have several studies lined up to carry out analyses and have conducted several of them, including a key one on green parties.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

This project goes beyond the state of the art in two ways. First, the news media are brought in. For new parties, it is crucial to receive votes. To receive votes, it is crucial to reach voters. To reach voters, it is crucial to create media attention. However, news media attention has hardly ever been studied in relation to new parties. Second, all new parties are studied (that contest national elections). In studies so far, various kinds of cut-offs have been used, always somehow based on success rate. However, to address the question of why some new parties survive while most die, all new parties must be studied regardless of their success. On both accounts, recent computational social science methods and research designs help us to analyse all news media coverage of all new parties so as to relate that to each of these parties' electoral performance. These two advancements allow this project to answer questions about new party success that have never been rigorously addressed. The datasets that facilitate this investigation are currently being compiled.

ERC CoG