LAWRENCE — News outlets across the country have been making efforts to engage more deeply with their communities and enhance transparency in their reporting. New research from the University of Kansas has found journalism engagement training has begun to shift political coverage, reducing the prevalence of "horse race" stories about who is winning or losing the elections, and producing more substantive, community-oriented content.
Every election season, headlines tout who is leading in the polls or fundraising. The problem with that kind of coverage is it presents campaigns in a false binary while missing the nuance of issues surrounding an election and without discussing the topics important to citizens or solutions to problems they face, said Margarita Orozco, assistant professor of journalism & mass communications at KU.
The Democracy SOS training program has been working with journalists and news outlets across the country to boost engagement, decrease the number of game-frame stories, apply solutions frames to political issues and more transparently convey intentions to audiences. Orozco and fellow researchers analyzed thousands of stories from outlets that took part in the training and found political coverage did change.
Researchers worked with Democracy SOS to identify outlets that took part in the training. They then analyzed 1,388 political news stories from 19 news outlets, comparing their coverage in 2018, 2020 and 2022.
"The impact of media on citizen's political behavior is always a subject of debate," Orozco said. "I'm interested in how media content can help people make better decisions and in how journalists and media outlets can more effectively engage with their communities. I believe journalists don't need to be 'super journalists' or perform miracles in the newsroom. Simple steps can make a meaningful difference."
The Democracy SOS training programs worked with editors and reporters from small public radio stations as well as small newspapers and large metro dailies. Training sessions featured experts in a variety of themes and "sprints" in which they practiced themes such as focusing not on who was winning a race, but the issues in question therein or how problems facing a community could be addressed.
"The basic premise is that we live in a highly polarized country, and we need to provide news content that helps people become less divided and better informed about key issues," Orozco said.
While the trainings were part of an industrywide effort to move from top-down, false binary coverage, it was not clear if it was having the intended effect. Researchers hypothesized that political coverage in 2022 would have less "horse race" framing than in 2018, more solutions-oriented approaches, more transparency around reporting and journalistic practices, and more engagement reporting within the same time frame. The analysis confirmed all four hypotheses, each supported to varying degrees of strength.
Framing
In 2018, 27% of analyzed stories contained "horse race" framing. In 2022, that percentage dropped to 13%. The change helped to shift the portrayal of elections away from mere popularity contests and superficial coverage, Orozco said, both of which risk alienating citizens from the democratic process when important issues are underrepresented or ignored.
Transparency
Under the variable of transparency, analysis showed that only 6% of stories in 2018 included a message about how the story was reported, which increased to 7% in 2020 and jumped to 20% in 2022. Transparency measures included efforts such as a sidebar explaining how the story was reported, who was involved with producing it, how the outlet would cover elections and/or any other ethical considerations that went into production.
Solutions coverage
Solutions-oriented coverage increased from 7% to 8%-14% across the three comparison points. Trainers defined solutions journalism as "the practice of investigating, in a critical and clear-eyed way, how people are making progress against big problems." One example cited in the research was a Charlottesville Today story about housing inadequacy that examined how local leaders voted, what the ramifications could be and things citizens should know about the issue at the time of publication.
Engagement
Engagement showed a significant difference as well, increasing from only 6% of stories in 2018 to 15% in 2020 and 27% in 2022, respectively. The practice, in essence, engages audiences to find out what issues they feel are important in an election, inviting them to participate via coverage and not simply reporting on polls or campaign strategies.
Co-written by Sue Robinson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Joshua Darr of Syracuse University, the research was published in the journal Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly.
Orozco, who studies media's influence on democracy, said the study showed that the Democracy SOS training was effective in encouraging journalists to reduce black-and-white coverage of winners and losers. Ultimately, that can help reduce polarization, distrust of media motives and produce a better-informed populace, she said.
"The emphasis on winners and losers in election coverage increases citizens' susceptibility to motivated reasoning, leading them to seek out information that reinforces their existing beliefs," Orozco said. "As a result, they may lose sight of the topics, agendas and policy proposals that truly matter, ultimately disengaging from substantive political issues. This study demonstrates that the training is effective. While the impact wasn't as immediate as we had hoped, it made a meaningful difference. Over time, I've observed shifts in journalistic practices and in how journalists connect with their audiences. As an educator, I'm optimistic that these approaches can be integrated into both newsrooms and classrooms."
