Political communications in the Icelandic general election campaign of 1987

Abstract

The thesis is a study of political communications in a general election campaign in Iceland in 1987. The theoretical background is the so-called agenda-setting approach to communication. A multimethodological approach was used: first, a content analysis was applied to printed pamphlets published by the political parties, election broadcasts on TV, daily newspapers, television news and current affairs programmes over a period of eight weeks; second, a three wave panel survey of a sample of 1500 voters, twice before the election and once immediately after it; third, a survey of news-reporters’ attitudes towards media and their job, organized and run by students at the University of Iceland; and fourth, a qualitative study of practices and atmosphere inside the State’s TV newsroom some days before the election. The thesis is divided into four main parts, which are further divided into sub-sections. The first part deals with theoretical considerations, offers an outline of Icelandic history and social reality and discusses the methodologies employed. Part two is based on the panel survey, a survey of newsreporters and a qualitative study inside the state’s TV newsroom. Part two considers the uses of media in the campaign and attitudes towards them. It reports on news values and practices as found in the survey of news-reporters and the qualitative survey inside the TV newsroom. Part three is based on content analysis and the survey. It discusses the "three agendas": the party agenda, the media agenda and the voter agenda. Part four is an assessment of the research. An effort is made to relate the three agendas, in order to measure statistically their impact on one another. A final chapter discusses the conclusions that can be drawn from the various parts of the thesis about the agenda setting process.