This unusual volume seeks to accomplish three related goals: * to assess the extent and limits of media power in election campaigns * to extend the concept of media agenda-setting to include the contributions of powerful news sources in the process of election agenda formation * to evaluate the impact of national system variables (differences in political and media systems) on the balance of party and media forces in the formation of campaign agendas In the process, it searches for ways of measuring the discretionary power of the media in electoral politics, testing this in terms of the...

With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the 1990 German national election marked the first time East Germans voted in a free national election since 1933. This book focuses on the last two months before election day and examines key questions about the content and effects of mediated information.