TV programming in times of changing political communication: A longitudinal analysis of the political information environment

Rosa van Santen*, Rens Vliegenthart

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

Debate about the quantity of political information often tends to evaluate television negatively since it became a widely used mass medium. Systematic data on the supply and proportion of political information on television, however, are scarce. This research fills this gap by presenting a longitudinal analysis of broadcast time for political information. The authors examine specifically how time spent on the broad categories of information, infotainment and entertainment on television in the Netherlands has evolved from 1957 to 2006. Results show that over time both public and commercial broadcasters have dedicated more time to information programming, but these programmes have moved out of prime time, especially on commercial channels. Overall, time spent on entertainment has gone down, contrary to expectations, while time for infotainment programmes has gone up, in concordance with existing beliefs.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)397-419
Number of pages23
JournalEuropean Journal of Communication
Volume28
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Aug 2013
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • History
  • journalism
  • news/information
  • political communication
  • public service broadcasting

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