Visst samband mellan mediaexponering och opinionsstöd för Sverigedemokraterna

Pieter Bevelander och Anders Hellström har undersökt om det finns ett samband mellan mediaexponering och opinionsstöd för Sverigedemokraterna under den förra mandatperioden 2006-2010. Trespassing the Threshold of Relevance: Media Exposure and Opinion Polls of the Sweden Democrats, 2006-2010 visar att det finns en samband, om än relativt svagt. Utrymme i media för Sverigedemokraterna tenderade att öka stödet för partiet. Det gällde särskilt för Dagens Nyheter, medan exponering i Sydsvenskan hade motsatt effekt.

The results of the analysis suggest that the SD was given a fair amount of publicity. Our findings also tend to falsify the first hypothesis; hence, the media effect is not salient for all the parliamentary political parties. At the same time, we could verify our second hypothesis; hence, the media effect shows to be more important for the SD compared to the other parliamentary parties, similar in size. Finally, the third hypothesis is verified – the regional newspaper Sydsvenskan had relatively the highest proportion of articles linked to the SD, however, this exposure was less significant to explain the fluctuations in the opinion polls. The media effect differs between the six newspapers put into scrutiny in this study, the leading daily Dagens Nyheter (DN) had a considerably stronger effect on the opinion fluctuations, compared to the other five newspapers. The degree of media exposure sometimes matters, especially for ‘new parties’, but neither to the same degree everywhere nor at the same time.