Go negative to be on the safe side! A 10-country investigation of the link between journalists’ negative framing and political actors’ strategic communication

Abstract

This paper examines which types of political communication strategies are more likely to be negatively framed by journalists. For political actors, the risk of negative framing is significant: while their statements may reach readers, journalists’ negative interpretations can alter the intended context and meaning. To explore the message-related factors influencing journalists’ negative framing, we analyze data from the second wave of the Comparative Campaign Dynamics project, a cross-national study encompassing manual content analysis of newspaper articles from 16 general election campaigns across 10 European countries. Political actors’ statements are classified into six categories based on two dimensions. The first distinguishes between self-directed and other-directed messages. The second categorizes statements as (a) policy issue-related, (b) character assessments, or (c) character assessments based on issue positions or performance. Our findings reveal that journalists are more likely to negatively frame self-directed statements by political actors, while other-directed and negative campaign messages are more often reported neutrally. This suggests that negative messages not only attract media attention more effectively but also reach voters with minimal distortion from journalists’ negative evaluations. Additionally, journalists appear more critical of parties’ self-assessments than their issue-related statements, reflecting their tendency to challenge political actors’ character evaluations.