We employ a factorial survey with political journalists to tackle these questions: 1) which politicians get selected as a news source by journalists and 2) is this source selection of politicians contingent upon journalists’ characteristics? The experimental survey offers some advantages.
Firstly, researchers generally use content analyses to analyze news coverage of politicians and thus investigate the actual news product (McManus 1994). We deviate from this dominant perspective and analyze the selection processes by journalists. Secondly, a survey with journalists allows us to analyze news coverage on a disaggregate level. Whereas content analyses draw conclusions about news organizations, we look specifically at individual journalists. However, we also consider the social context, since individual decisions are grounded within the social field (Shoemaker & Vos 2009). Thirdly, we analyze interaction effects between politicians and journalists. For example, research shows that female reporters select a greater number of female news sources (Wagner 2010).
