News Bias: Media Content, Public Perceptions and Voting Behavior at the 2009 German Federal Election

Hajo Boomgaarden / Holli Semetko, News Bias: Media Content, Public Perceptions and Voting Behavior at the 2009 German Federal Election, pp. 442-464. News bias is supposed to play an important role during election campaigns. This study deals with the effects of news bias on voting decisions. It considers two different types of news bias and assesses (1) the degree to which there is an association between objective and subjective news bias, and (2) whether these different forms of bias affect changes in voting decisions. The results show that the association between objective and subjective bias is marginal. Furthermore it shows that, whereas subjective news bias has no systematic effect on voting behavior, both the visibility of political parties in the media and the tone of coverage relates to changes in voting behavior over the course of the campaign.