Assumptions
The modern media play the role of gate-keepers – they decide what issues, problems and topics will be present in the public sphere and social awareness. Expressing oneself in public gives the opportunity to define the interpretational framework for the public debate, to present, or impose one’s own viewpoints and to influence the shared definitions of the situation. The power of influence of the person expressing themselves in the media correlates positively with the range of the station and the viewing / listening figures of particular programs.
The media under analysis
Considering the above assumptions, we focus on the analysis of which politicians are invited as guests to the most important journalistic programs on radio and TV stations with the broadest range.
The broadcasting times in the morning (7:00-9:00) and evening (18:00-21:00) are key to establishing the daily media agenda. In the field of journalism, the Internet is to a large extent secondary in relation to traditional media and most frequently constitutes an additional channel of distribution of content produced for the radio and TV purposes.
Morning programs:
Evening programs:
Source of data
Information about guests invited to programs is obtained by directly listening to the program if possible, and if not, we use information published on the stations’ websites. The power of influence of radio stations is determined based on radio tracker surveys published cyclically by the Committee of Radio Research (Komitet Badań Radiowych). The range of TV stations is determined using data published weekly by the wirtualnemedia.pl portal for the group of all TV viewers over the age of 4. Only in the case of TV Republika and Superstacja the data are obtained monthly.
Indicators
Presence – determines the percentage share of representatives of a political environment among all guests invited to the analysed programs – counted separately for the morning and the evening band.
Impact – defines the total percentage market share of the stations in which the representatives of particular political environments appeared on a morning or evening.
Effectiveness – it is the proportion between the presence and impact indicators. If a lower level of presence resulted in higher impact, the effectiveness indicator is above 1, and conversely, if the presence is higher and the impact is lower, the effectiveness falls below 0.