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Partial priming: how issue news shapes issue saliency, which shapes turnout but not the vote

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Abstract

Issues are not neutral. This study about the Dutch 2016 referendum on the EU–Ukraine association treaty asks which issues dominated the news media in the campaign, how the news about these issues influenced the saliency of benefits and disadvantages of the treaty, and how the latter in turn influenced turnout and the vote. A content analysis of newspapers and television news shows that trade and democracy were much more prominent in the news than EU support for Ukraine against Russia. Linking the content analysis to a long-term panel survey reveals that issue news in self-selected media influenced the saliency of benefits and disadvantages of the treaty. The latter motivated voters to cast a vote, but priming was only partial since the voters’ “Yes” or “No” was primarily driven by prior dissatisfaction with the EU and the national government.

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Fig. 1

Source Newspapers and TV news magazines on which the data analysis rests

Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. See for example http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26680250. The treaty itself is archived as http://ec.europa.eu/world/agreements/prepareCreateTreatiesWorkspace/treatiesGeneralData.do?step=0&redirect=true&treatyId=10321, with 29.5.2014 as the date in the treaty’s page header. The date on which the treaty is signed, March 21, 2014, is included in the text of the treaty on page L161/2131, The archived treaty includes the signatures of Arseniy Yatsenyuk, as the non-elected interim prime minister of Ukraine (pages L161/179 and L161/2137) and of all European heads of state, including the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

  2. Source: Wave of the election campaign panel survey that was held shortly before the elections for the European Parliament in May 2014; included in accompanying Dataverse (Kleinnijenhuis and Van Atteveldt 2018).

  3. http://www.rtlnieuws.nl/sites/default/files/content/documents/2016/02/18/46_vragen_oekraine_referendum.pdf.

  4. https://www.sp.nl/nieuws/2015/10/sp-zegt-nee-tegen-associatieverdrag-met-oekraine.

  5. https://www.pvv.nl/36-fj-related/geert-wilders/8963-pvv-flyer020316.html.

  6. Social media queries were performed in www.coosto.com, using simple variants of the search queries that were used in AMCAT.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their gratitude for the detailed comments from the anonymous reviewers, the editor of the special issue Kristof Jacobs, and the editor of Acta Politica, Rens Vliegenthart.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Communication Science, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan, Amsterdam, 1081 HV, The Netherlands

    Jan Kleinnijenhuis, Wouter van Atteveldt & Vera Dekkers

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  1. Jan Kleinnijenhuis
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  2. Wouter van Atteveldt
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  3. Vera Dekkers
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Correspondence to Jan Kleinnijenhuis.

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Kleinnijenhuis, J., van Atteveldt, W. & Dekkers, V. Partial priming: how issue news shapes issue saliency, which shapes turnout but not the vote. Acta Polit 53, 569–589 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41269-018-0104-2

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