This article addresses a key democratic question that has not been fully answered by political communication research: How do the news media influence gaps in participation between socioeconomic groups? The main purpose is to develop and propose an institutional framework for analyzing how the news media influence participation gaps in different countries. It is argued that past research on media malaise and mobilization effects has not paid attention to the joint influence of two media system characteristics: (1) the strength of media institutions with respect to influencing political participation and (2) the distinctiveness of their population base. European Social Survey data from four democratic corporatist countries are used to analyze both these dimensions of the institutional framework. The results indicate that newspapers and television news might have different influences on participation gaps in these countries, and the findings are discussed in light of the specific media system characteristics of democratic corporatist countries. Finally, some suggestions for future cross-national comparative research based on the proposed institutional framework are discussed.
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