ABSTRACT

Political communication is a dynamic, interdisciplinary field that has grown in stature and reach in recent decades, becoming more international in scope and orientation while gaining respect in political science as a legitimate area of inquiry. In the evolving and participatory media-politics landscape, it becomes important to ask how the cross-disciplinary project of political communication research is keeping pace with changing conditions that provide a greater structural role for the press in politics and new technology in the enactment of citizenship. To track these trends in research, this paper reports the results of a longitudinal content analysis of research articles published in the journals Political Communication and the International Journal of Press/Politics for the period 1996-2016. For each year, we selected one issue at random and examined all research articles in that issue, excluding reviews, invited theme essays, and commentaries. Altogether, 229 articles were included in the analysis. Results indicate a noticeable increase in the internationalization of political communication research over the 20-year analysis period, a slight decrease in research expressing a negative evaluative tone toward the media over time, and consistent growth in the percentage of articles with a media-centric focus, defined as positioning the press as a central consideration in the study and regarding news media as central to democratic life. In light of these findings, the unique interpretive lenses that researchers adopt depending on discipline are explored in relation to ongoing developments in political communication research.

摘要

政治传播是一个动态的跨学科领域，近几十年来，其地位和影响力不断提高，在范围和方向上变得更加国际化，同时在政治学中作为一个合法的研究领域获得了尊重。在不断发展和参与的媒体政治格局中，重要的是要问政治传播研究的跨学科项目如何跟上不断变化的条件，这些条件为新闻在政治中的结构性作用和在公民身份制定中的新技术提供了更大的结构性作用. 为了追踪这些研究趋势，本文报告了对 1996 年至 2016 年期间发表在《政治传播》和《国际新闻/政治杂志》上的研究文章的纵向内容分析结果。对于每一年，我们随机选择一期并检查了该期的所有研究文章，不包括评论、特邀主题论文和评论。共有 229 篇文章被纳入分析。结果表明，在 20 年的分析期内，政治传播研究的国际化显着增加，随着时间的推移，对媒体表达负面评价基调的研究略有减少，以媒体为中心的文章百分比持续增长，定义为将新闻媒体定位为研究的中心考虑因素，并将新闻媒体视为民主生活的核心。根据这些发现，研究人员根据学科采用的独特解释镜头与政治传播研究的持续发展有关。