Are all policy decisions equal? Explaining the variation in media coverage of the UK Budget

Langer, A. I. and Sagarzazu, I. (2017) Are all policy decisions equal? Explaining the variation in media coverage of the UK Budget. Policy Studies Journal, 45(2), pp. 337-358. (doi: 10.1111/psj.12119)

Abstract

A country's budget is one of the most important public policy instruments, as it establishes the government's policy priorities and has the potential to determine winners and losers. The budget, however, is a mixture of different components and these get varying degrees of attention in the media. Drawing on sociology of news research, this paper seeks to explain this heterogeneous coverage of a budget's policy decisions. To do so, it uses a unique data set of over 5,000 articles of press coverage of six UK budgets (2008–2012). These articles are coded for the presence/absence of each of the budget's policy decision, via automated content analysis. On the basis of a multivariate negative binomial model, we find that the salience of a policy decision in the coverage is determined by its cost, whether it is negative (i.e., tax hikes and spending cuts) or positive, the income group that is the most affected by it, and the level of attention given to it by the government.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Sagarzazu, Dr Inaki and Langer, Dr Ana Ines
• Authors: Langer, A. I., and Sagarzazu, I.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Politics
• Journal Name: Policy Studies Journal
• Publisher: Wiley
• ISSN: 0190-292X
• ISSN (Online): 1541-0072
• Published Online: 08 July 2015
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2015 Policy Studies Organization
• First Published: First published in Policy Studies Journal 45(2):337-358
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher.