The news media and their state: Testing concertation in news media and their messages in a comparative analysis of 36 democracies

This study compares media in democracies on a global scale. The structure of news media and the content of news coverage are analyzed in relation to the social and political structures in which they operate. Part I of this study asks if the institutional structure of a democracy influences the nature of a media system. Using primarily secondary data and Lijphart\u27s executives-parties (consensual-majoritarian scale), this study looks at whether news organizations differ with respect to readership, press freedoms and a concept called media orientation. Part II asks whether these same factors influenced news coverage of the buildup to the Iraq war. A content analysis measures sources, frames and the overall tone of news items from 528 news items published in 22 newspapers from 11 democracies