It is received wisdom that the importance of the mass media on policy formation has increased substantially over the last decades. Still, our empirical and theoretical understand-ing of how media attention shapes public policy is only scant. Communication science literature informs us that mass media shape perceived public opinion (e.g., Gunther 1998). The public opinion–policy output nexus literature indicates that public opinion influences policy output (e.g., Brooks and Manza 2006; Burstein 2003).
We integrate these largely separate literatures to examine the nexus between a political proposal (e.g., a politician’s proposal in parliament to increase the pension age), media attention (shaping perceived public opinion), and policy output (the implementation of the pension age increase). We use of a new and unique dataset that links political data (especially parliamentary proceedings) and media data (particularly the largest national newspapers) for the Netherlands over more than 60 years (1945–2012). This long period captures all important phases of welfare state development.
Empirically, we focus on proposals by politicians to modify Dutch public pensions (AOW) by changing the pension amount or pension age. These measures potentially affect the whole population and could thus generate much media attention. We use automatic and manual context analysis to establish the reform proposals. We measure media attention with automatic content analysis and analyze our data quantitatively. First, we assess under which conditions a proposal generates much media attention and when not. The second step is linking the proposal, the degree and tone of media attention, and policy output.
All in all, this study improves our understanding of how the media shape public policy, hence contributing to the workshop’s aim of an encompassing theory integrating how parties, voters, media and unions shape public policy.
