New Parties and Their Media Coverage: An Experimental Study of Media Practitioners in Italy

Studies on news values have provided many insights into what gets reported in the media. Nonetheless, less attention has been paid on how and why new party’s messages are reported and what role (if any) ethical considerations play in the reporting process. In this study, we use the concept of news values to examine how journalists from four Italian regions perceive the newsworthiness of party messages especially when it comes from a new party. Fictional party press releases are used to test for the influence of five important news values in the context of political news using factorial survey experiment. Additionally, we investigate the effect of ethical guidelines before presenting a hypothetical news scenario to journalists. Very preliminary findings show that the unexpectedness and the magnitude of the political action announced influence journalists’ perception of newsworthiness, while we also elucidate the role of ethical guidelines in media practitioners’ decision-making process.