Eksperter i valgkamp: Proces eller indhold?

TLDR: In this article, the authors investigate how journalists refer to experts during an election campaign and find that an equal number of articles referred to the election campaign's political content (i.e., they mentioned the topics promoted by the political actors during the campaign).

Abstract: Reference to experts in the Danish print press has exploded during the last decades. This article investigates how journalists refer to experts during an election campaign. Two general election campaigns are analysed: 1998 and 2007. In absolute numbers there is an overall increase for the four newspapers surveyed, but with individual differences. As the number of election campaign articles dropped dramatically in the same period, the share of expert articles rose. Contrary to international debates on increased process journalism, in both 1998 and 2007 an equal number of articles referred to the election campaign’s political content (i.e. they mentioned the topics promoted by the political actors during the campaign) and to the political process.