cohen_tsfati_and_sheafer_2008-libre

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had a mean of 3.98 and a standard deviation of 0.81. The correlation between this construct and presumed media influence on the public was r = .27 (p = .05).

MEDIA MOTIVATION AND EFFORT

Instead of relying on MKs’ self-reports regarding their own media motivation and effort, we chose to obtain a measure of this construct using a survey of parliamentary reporters, who are probably more neutral witnesses regarding the level of motivation and effort invested by the MKs in pursuit of news coverage. Parliamentary reporters are also probably more capable of accurately assessing the motivation and effort of individual MKs comparatively, that is, one in relation to the other.

To create the sample of journalists, we received a list of parliamentary reporters from the Knesset’s Public Relations office. To this list we added other journalists whom we knew covered politics and were not on the list (e.g., those who cover party politics rather than the Knesset). We then removed from the list foreign language reporters who worked for media organizations who already had Hebrew language reporters on the list. This final list consisted of 31 reporters, and the survey institute was instructed to interview 20 of them.

Each of the 20 respondents, interviewed by phone,3 was requested to rate each of the 55 MKs. Question wording was:

It is clear that every politician is interested in being covered by news media, but it is also known that this desire is not equally shared by every MK. We ask that you rate the following MKs by their motivation to be covered in the media. By motivation we mean the efforts they make by sending press releases, willingness to be interviewed on a wide range of topics and the extent of cooperation with various requests and demands of journalists. For the purpose of our study it is important to us, to gauge not the degree of success or talent of each MK, but only the extent of their motivation and effort to achieve coverage for him/herself and his/her causes. Disregarding the question of whether you believe this motivation is fueled solely by a desire for self promotion or by other goals, we need to know what the extent of effort you estimate each MK invests, on a scale varying between 1 for ‘low motivation’ to 5 for ‘high motivation.’

To minimize order effects, the names of the MKs were randomly ordered, and two different versions of the questionnaire were used, at random, with the list of MKs simply reverse ordered in the second. There was a high internal consistency between the 20 different reporters (Cronbach’s α = .87; M = 2.92; SD = 0.82). Each of the different ordering of the MKs was treated as a separate indicator. The average score was calculated for each MK in each version. Media motivation and effort was modeled as a latent construct influencing the two indicators.

3. Field work for this survey was conducted by Dahaf Survey Research Institute.

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PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITY

It was measured using data from the Knesset Information Center.4 The number of motions for the agenda and bill proposals, submitted by each MK in our sample, the numbers of bills submitted by each MK that passed at least first reading, and the number of plenum speeches they gave, were recorded. Finally, we recorded the percentage of participation in plenum votes, and the percentage of days in which the MK was present in the Knesset on days it was in session. All these measures related to the third and fourth sessions of the 16th Knesset, between October 2004 and December 2005.5 Because the various indicators of activity were measured on different scales, they were standardized, and an activity score was calculated as the average of the seven indicators (Cronbach’s α = .71; M = −0.06; SD = 0.71).

COVERAGE IN NEWS MEDIA

Ifat Media Information Center maintains an ongoing tally of each time a legislator is interviewed in national electronic media (Sheafer and Wolfsfeld 2004), including the two main radio networks, and three national TV stations. If portions of an interview are rebroadcast, then the rebroadcast is considered a second interview. The news coverage construct is simply the summations of MKs’ appearances in these news media between April 2005 (the time the survey was in the field) and December 2005 (the last meeting of the 16th Knesset). This variable varied between 0 and 193 (M = 43.33; SD = 46.28). Due to this extreme variance, the variable was recoded into five categories (1–5), each containing approximately one-fifth of the sample (M = 3.03; SD = 1.45).

CONTROL VARIABLES

To conduct a valid test of the hypotheses, several variables known to predict media motivations were considered as potential alternative explanations. First, an item measuring the type of media motivation worded, “In your opinion, in order to advance a political career is it more important to be successful in the national media or in regional or sectorial media?” was accounted for [“national

4.http://www.knesset.gov.il/stats/heb/16/template.asp.

5.Naturally, we would rather use parliamentary activity data from a period that follows, rather than precedes, survey data collection, but this was not possible given that the data are available only per Knesset session, and that the fourth session of the 16th Knesset was remarkably short (24 meetings only). Thus we included the third session, which began prior to survey data collection. However, given that parliamentary activity is highly stable across time (the correlation between our activity measure and an identical measure relating to the first and second sessions of the 16th Knesset was r = .78, p < .001), we believe the use of parliamentary activity data from a period that in part preceded the survey data collection is not problematic.

Politicians’ Perceptions of Media Power

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media” = 1 (49.1 percent); “regional or sectorial media” = 0 (7.3 percent); “both are of similar importance” = 0 (43.6 percent)]. Second, we controlled for politicians’ belief that media appearances are part of their obligation. This item was worded, “In your opinion, to what extent do politicians have a public obligation to appear in the media?” [“not at all” (= 1) to “very much so” (= 5)] (M = 4.07; SD = 0.86). Finally, a control was included for each politician’s feelings of inefficacy toward the media. The item was worded, “In Israel’s current state of affairs, who do you think have more power: the media or politicians?” and coded “1” for respondents who answered that “media are more powerful than politicians” (43.6 percent) and “0” for the rest. Our model also includes several controls, which were expected to be related to both parliamentary activity and media appearances. First, we coded each MK’s political standing (his or her hierarchic position in the system) into three categories (3 = cabinet ministers, 2 = former ministers, deputy ministers or committee chairs, 1 = regular MKs). Second, we controlled for political centrality—the MKs’ party’s distance from the nation’s symbolic center, as defined by Neuberger (1997).6 We also coded for the tenure of each MK in the Knesset, his or her sex, and whether he or she was part of the coalition during any part of the relevant sessions or not.

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