Old ties from a new(s) perspective: Diversity in the Dutch press coverage of the 2006 general election campaign

Abstract

This study examines the extent to which the highly diverse and volatile Dutch electorate received a diverse offer of political newspaper coverage during the 2006 general election campaign. We measured the level of diversity of five subscription based national newspapers with a partisan history and two free dailies. Two forms of diversity were examined: party diversity (i. e., the distribution of attention to political parties) and issue diversity (i. e., the distribution of attention to issues). The diversity of party coverage in the free dailies was greater than the diversity across all newspapers. Whereas free dailies paid a relatively large amount of attention to new and opposition parties, traditional newspapers paid a relatively large amount of attention to the parties with whom they were aligned during the period of “pillarization”. Conversely, we only found small differences in the distribution of attention to issues. The diversity of issue coverage across newspapers was larger than the diversity within newspapers.