University of Aarhus

1. Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to give a picture of that part of the Danish 1971 election campaign which took place on the radio and television. The picture of the campaign will be based on a content analysis and as such describes some content variables, but the structure of the programmes in the two media is also taken into consideration. The function of the programmes will be discussed from the point of view of the question put by Blumler and McQuail¹ and later by Elihu Katz² about whether election propaganda in different countries can be characterized as 'platforms' for the political parties or as 'windows' for the voters. The problem is whether the part of the election campaign conducted on Danish radio and television can be characterized mainly as 'platforms' where the politicians deliver their prepared messages to the public, or mainly as 'windows' through which the voters can observe the politicians, their plans and reactions to each other. To put the question in another way, what function does this part of the campaign perform for the political system - including broadcasting as such - in addition to serving voters and the political parties?

2. The 1971 Election

The concrete object of this analysis is the 1971 election, which took place in September of that year. The election was decided on by the three parties forming the Government and was announced at a meeting in August 1971, where Parliament was convened to decide on the tax rate. The election was not the outcome of an unresolved conflict in Parliament, and the three parties forming the Government could have waited until the spring of 1972, when three parties would have been in the Government for four years. From the foregoing it follows that in the situation existing in August 1971 there was no given issue for the election campaign. (In this respect the 1971 election was different from the 1973 election, which was called for after a conflict in Parliament about the taxation of private residences.)

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* This article was originally presented as a paper at the European Consortium for Political Research's Workshop in Strasbourg, 1974.

* This article was originally presented as a paper at the European Consortium for Political Research's Workshop in Strasbourg, 1974.

3. The Political Parties

The three parties forming the Government since the 1968 election were the
Agrarian Liberals, the Conservatives, and the Radical Liberals. The Prime Minister
was Hilmar Baunsgaard of the Radical Liberals.

After a long period in power as the majority party forming the Government,
the Social Democrats had been in opposition since the 1968 election.

Besides these four old parties, which had been continuously represented in Parliament for a long time, there was the Socialist People's Party, which in the period from 1966 to 1968 had supported the Social Democrats when they formed the Government.

Dividing along a left-right dimension we find to the left of the abovementioned parties the Left Socialists and the Communist Party. Both parties became represented in Parliament in August 1971 after an internal conflict among the Left Socialists. The last two of the nine parties participating in the 1971 election were the old Single Tax Party, which had not been represented in Parliament since 1960, and a completely new party, the Christian People's Party. All parties that have been represented in Parliament in the period before a given election are allowed to participate in the election. New parties and parties not represented in Parliament since the last election have to collect a given number of signatures from people who are willing to support the party. At the 1971 election this was done by the Single Tax Party and by the Christian People's Party.

4. Why Radio and Television

Why then choose to look at radio and television, on which only a small part of the total election campaign took place? There are two main reasons for this decision. First of all, the Danish radio and television (in the following called DR) have a monopoly with respect to broadcasting programmes in Denmark. Several obligations and limitations are connected with this monopoly given by the state, a monopoly which has always existed in Denmark for these media. Among these obligations is the demand for DR to be neutral, and to give small minorities the possibility of presenting their views.

Another reason for choosing television and radio is that these media are physically available to all members of the Danish society because of their wide coverage. From a nation-wide sample interviewed in October 1971 we know that 79 per cent of the Danish population followed the political programmes.

How great a part this coverage forms of the total campaign conducted by the different parties varies. Some of the large parties spend a great deal of money on advertising in newspapers. Some of the parties had a newspaper connected with them in one way or another, a newspaper willing to support the party in its own articles and/or willing to give space to articles written by the political candidates. There was also a difference in the degree to which the candidates from the different political parties had arranged or were invited to participate in meetings.

With respect to DR all the different parties that participated in the election were formally alike. Every party, large or small, old or new, forming the government or in opposition, was given the same amount of time on radio and television. Equal tune for all parties is a parameter for the Danish system, but compared with the situation in other countries mentioned by Elihu Katz³ this is a value on a variable, relevant for a cross-national comparison.

5. DR and the Political Parties between Elections

What kind of interaction processes can normally be found between the DR and the political parties in Denmark? In the period between elections the political parties have the possibility of being a creator of news, i.e., to create, according to their power position, situations which from a journalistic point of view fulfil all, or at least some, news criteria. In this situation politicians can be characterized as an active part in the interaction between journalists and politicians, but nevertheless it is the journalists who take the initiative in putting the politicians in a position to use the media.

Another more passive way for the politicians arises from the situations in which they, according to their position, are of relevance for what is going on in society and as such are invited to news programmes to comment, etc., on situations created by other persons in or outside the Danish society. From analyses made of the news programmes on Danish radio⁴ and television⁵ we know that politics is major news, and politicians are often interviewed or referred to on Danish radio and television.

A third possibility that does not differ very much from the above-mentioned ones is the chance of being invited to participate in or to join the topical programmes in which the news is followed up. But this possibility differs from the above-mentioned ones with respect to the time given to statements from the politicians, because these programmes normally provide more time for each topic than the ordinary news programmes. Nevertheless all these methods of interaction between politicians and the broadcasting media (operationalized by journalists) are governed by the conditions formally stipulated for the broadcasts but put into practice by the journalists. It is possible that there exists a kind of transaction between politicians and the journalists from radio and television, as hypothesized by Svennik Høyer⁶ for the relationship between the national press and the politicians. At least I agree with Høyer on the fact that politicians are rather dependent on publicity. In this way it is natural that politicians are willing to follow the journalist when the latter opens up the possibility of the politicians using the broadcasting media.

Contrary to this practice it is possible for a minister to ask for time on television and radio in order to present main topics from the minister's own area of political responsibility. This right to access to broadcasting is very seldom used by the Danish ministers, however, because the news programmes normally contain news from the political arena. Therefore it is more common that it is the Danish radio which initiates the contact between broadcasting and politicians.

But what possibilities of using radio and television have political parties not forming the Government and as such not represented by ministers? Except the above-mentioned possibility of being a creator of news, DR gives no automatic right of access to television and radio in the period between elections.

6. What Then at Elections?

Since the 1966 election the different political parties participating hi the election have had access to broadcasting time both on radio and television in Denmark. The principle for giving the different parties access to these media is that all parties should have equal broadcasting time.⁷ Another way of dividing the total amount of time given by these media to political programmes in the last few weeks before an election could have been proportional broadcasting time, i.e., that the parties are given broadcasting time in proportion to their relative strength. Proportional broadcasting time is used in Israel, for instance, as mentioned by Katz.⁸ According to Blumler and McQuail, a compromise between these forms of provision of broadcasting time is used in Great Britain.⁹

The situation in Denmark is that all the parties participating in the election have access to radio and television. The largest party (according to strength at the last election) chooses, first of all, the day for its programmes. Then, party number two and so on. Normally the result is that the largest party chooses the latest day possible for its programmes, and the smallest party or the party/parties not represented in parliament since the last election start the series of party programmes.

Besides the equal amount of time given to all the parties, every party is given the same amount of money by DR to make its own programmes of presentation if the party does not choose to make them in cooperation with journalists and technicians from DR.¹⁰

In 1971 most of the parties made their presentation programmes in cooperation with commercial film agencies. There were great differences in how much money the parties spent on these programmes in addition to the money they got from DR. But in relation to DR all parties were equal. Every political party participating in the election was given equal broadcasting time and equal money from DR.

7. The Structure of the Programmes

Several different types of election programmes were used on Danish radio and
television during the 1971 election.

(1) Each party had a programme named 'Presentation' in which politicians presented the ideas and plans of their party. This programme lasted 15 minutes on television and another 15 minutes on the radio.¹¹ Most of the parties used different texts for television and radio. These programmes were scheduled during prime broadcasting time in the evening following the newscasts in both media.

(2) Following the Presentation Programme on television there was a programme
lasting for 30 minutes transmitted simultaneously by radio and television,
in which journalists put questions on the basis of letters from voters to
politicians of the party that had just presentedits ideas and plans.

This programme was intended to be a dialogue, in contrast to the Presentation Programme, in which the political parties alone decided how to use the broadcasting tune. In these programmes the journalists were able to choose the topics they themselves found most interesting from among the many letters written to the different parties.¹² The journalists also had the right to continue and follow up questions and unclear answers from the politicians.¹³

(3) Later in the evening listeners or viewers had the possibility of asking direct questions by telephone of the party that had presentedits ideas that evening. This programme, which lasted for 50 minutes for each party, was only an audio broadcast. In this programme a journalist acted as mediator between politicians and the voters. Outside the programme (before and during it) several journalists were engaged in selecting the telephone calls from the voters.

(4) The following day a panel of newspaper journalists were given the opportunity of asking questions of politicians from the party that had presentedits ideas the previous evening. This programme was transmitted only by radio and put on the air in the early afternoon.

(5) Besides the above-mentioned programmes, which were made for all nine parties, radio and television transmitted three debates arranged with participants from all the parties. These debates centred around broad topics such as the economy, foreign policy, and planning. In these debate programmes journalists only worked as coordinators of the different speeches, questions, and answers. All nine politicians participating in these debates, each representing his own party, were given equal time for speaking.

(6) In the last two weeks before election day specific news programmes called
'Election Extra' were established in both media separately. These programmes
presented very short features from meetings all over the country.

(7) There were also 5-minute programmes early in the morning in which one
voter chosen at random discussed issues with a representative of the party that
had presentedits ideas the day before.

These seven categories and the news made up the total broadcasting outlets for
politicians on Danish radio and television during the 1971 election.14 They were
actually excluded from all other programmes.

In Table I the programmes that are basic for the following analysis are shown.
In Table II you find the total number of minutes used for these election programmes
by each medium.

The total amount of time given by the media for these programmes was 2325 minutes, i.e., 38 hours and 45 minutes. For 10 hours of this broadcasting time radio and television transmitted the same programmes at the same time. From a consumer point of view it was only possible to follow these political programmes for 28 hours and 45 minutes altogether. Similarly, the time allotted for broadcasting of political programmes was a total of 28 hours and 45 minutes. The principle of equal broadcasting time for all nine political parties gave each political party the possibility of using around 3 hours¹⁶ for communication to the electorate through radio and/or television.

8. The Unit of Content Anaylsis

In the following analysis it is not the time spent for different purposes which is used as the unit of analysis; instead, each statement given as one uninterrupted communication is used. For example: if a politician talked about several issues woven together, the different issues were coded separately (multicoded) but the communication as such was only counted once. In the 'Presentation' programmes politicians very often made long statements including references to more than one issue. The differences between the programmes with respect to the structure of communications are given in Table 111.

9. The Structure of Communications

The total amount of communications is divided in Table IV according to the form of the communications. Each communication unit has been classified as question, answer, or statement as such (not given as an answer or as part of a question). Only a very small part of the total number of communications was classified as statements. Six per cent of the total number of communications were statements, all given by politicians - i.e., one-tenth of the communications from politicians were statements as such. Three-quarters of these were found in the presentation programmes - the last part was found at the beginning of the programme 'Meet the Press,' and at the end of the programme with questions by journalists. In the cross-debates, too, each politician was given the opportunity of starting with a statement, and, if he had not used all his time in the debate, of finishing his communications in a given debate with a speech - here classified as statements as such.

By comparison, a little less than 20 per cent of the total amount of time has
been given by DR for this kind of communication. More than 80 per cent was
given for programmes based on questions or debates.

Questions made up the largest part of the number of communications, both when the communicator was voter and journalist. All these questions were asked of politicians, and the answer category is highest for politicians, in whose case up to three-quarters of all their communications took the form of answers. Not all

of these answers were given to questions from voters and journalists because of
the issue-oriented cross-party debates.

In the cross-party debates the politicians put questions to each other, and this
kind of communication accounted for 7 per cent of the total number of communications
from politicians.

The category of connecting remarks, which means communications not related to issues and put neither as questions nor answers, is very high for journalists because of their position as mediators between voters and politicians in the telephone programmes. The politicians made 9 per cent of these remarks not related to issues and formed neither as questions nor answers.

Some communications in Table IV placed in the answer category were put as a yes-answer on a question from the programme editor (journalist) about whether or not the man/woman on the telephone was satisfied with the answer he/she got from the politicians. Seventy per cent of the answers from voters indicated that he/she was satisfied with the answer from the politician to the questions. Very few (i.e., less than one per cent) expressed dissatisfaction with the answer they got. The journalists were very seldom dissatisfied with the answers they got to their questions from the politicians.

Because of the large share devoted to questioning and debate, the conclusion with respect to the structure of the political programmes in radio and television must, hi relation to the points mentioned by Katz,¹⁷ be that these programmes are structured more to function as 'windows' for the voters than as pure platforms' for the political parties. In this regard, the programme structure used on Danish radio and television should give the Danish voter a better possibility of getting information about the political parties in comparison with voters in countries with a more 'platform-type' broadcasting of election campaigns.

10. The Contents of the Programmes

Until now we have looked upon the structural aspects of the programmes. What
about the contents of the political programmes? Will the analysis of the content
help us to conclude that these programmes are mainly 'windows'?

With respect to the contents I feel that it is relevant to follow the lines given
in the hypothesis mentioned below in order to test for a possibly planned function
in the propaganda18 of the parties:

(1) A political party will through its propaganda/information try to convince
voters of its own excellence with respect to the solution of the problems of society.

From this hypothesis some more testable hypotheses may be deduced:
1.1. that a political party will try to show that it is aware of the problems

which are felt by the electorate to be problems that politicians should take care of

1.2. that the party is more able/willing to take care of these problems than any
other party

1.3. that the party has planned to do something in the future to solve the problems
- perhaps has already started to solve the problems

1.4. that they are critical of other parties, their plans, and/or their previous
work.

A lot of other hypotheses could be advanced.19

The above-mentioned hypotheses can be tested in the following way:
re 1.1.: Comparison of issues from the campaign and issues felt by the voters

to be major problems that the politicians should take care of (mentioned in a survey,
August 1971)

re 1.2.: Degree of positive references to one's own party and of references to
earlier success

re 1.3.: Degree of references to plans for the future
re 1.4.: Degree of negative references to other parties

The degree to which the above-mentioned hypotheses are verified will be taken
as an indicator of the programmes having at least the function of 'platforms' for
the political parties.

It is not possible to say from this whether or not they are functioning as
'windows' for the voters, because it is possible that the programmes are both
'platforms' and 'windows' at the same time.

11. The Issues of the Programmes

What kinds of issues were dealt with in the election campaign and how were these issues related to the issues that voters felt politicians should address themselves to? In the Table below nine major issues from the campaign are listed. The nine issues are:

(1) The EEC is counted as an issue mentioned if it was mentioned that the
election was about Denmark's entry into the EEC or if other aspects in relation to
the EEC were brought up.

(2) Social problems as an issue cover social welfare, pensions, drug addiction,
and crime.

(3) Housing as an issue covers all mentioned aspects of the housing situation,
from rent and building of new houses to scarcity of housing.

(4) The issue environment covers environmental problems such as pollution.
(5) Taxes cover all kinds of problems related to taxes, whether they be income

taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, or other tax-related problems.

(6) The issue called working problems covers problems such as wages, unemployment,
industrial democracy, strikes, and so on.

(7) Education and culture include every educational and cultural problem,
including religion.

(8) Under the issue general economy inflation, savings, rate of interest, level
of production, and investment are included.

(9) The issue exports/imports includes, in addition to export, import, and the
balance of trade, the more frequently mentioned problem with balance of payments.
The specific term balance of payments was so often mentioned in the campaign

that an issue was made out of this specific kind of economic problem. But
in comparison with all other problems mentioned in the campaign it was a minor
problem as we shall see later.

Table V shows the percentage of statements from different sources referring to each of the issues. The first column deals with the total output of the radio and TV communication connected with the election campaign, and in the next three columns these communications are divided by source into politicians, journalists, and voters (viewers and listeners). Table VI represents a further division of politicians' statements according to their party.

Whether we look at the voting campaign as such or differentiate between what is communicated by politicians, journalists, or voters, we find that the EEC, general economy, and taxes are the three issues most frequently used in the campaign.

When we look at politicians from the different parties we find some differences
between the parties with respect to priority of issues. Politicians from the Socialists
People's Party, from Agrarian Liberals, and from the Single Tax Party

talked more than any other parties about the EEC. Up to a quarter of the communications of these parties was about the EEC. The Radical Liberals also talked more about the EEC than about any other issue, but only 18 per cent of their communications were about the EEC. Social Democrats talked about the EEC as much as Radical Liberals, but they talked even more about the economy in general (22 per cent). Politicians from the Conservative party gave highest priority to taxes (21 per cent). This issue was followed by the economy in general, and very close to this issue came education and culture.

Among the four parties not represented in Parliament, the Left Socialists and the Communists talked more about wages and the labour market than about any other issue. For the Single Tax Party it was the economy in general, the EEC, and taxes which were the main issues. The Christian People's Party was the only party in which the main issues were really different in so far as their mam issues were education and social problems. Housing problems were talked about to the same degree as the economy in general and taxes. The Christian People's Party was the party that talked the least about the EEC.

When one is testing hypothesis 1.1., the problem is to what degree the issues taken care of by the politicians in the political programmes are the same issues as the majority of voters felt were the problems which the politicians should take care of. In Table VII data about public opinion are given. The data come from a sample interviewed in late August just before the election campaign started.²⁰

From the opinion data we are informed that the issue areas that were most salient to the population were social problems (40 per cent) and housing (22 per cent). When the opinion is differentiated according to party identification, we find that it does not matter to which of the five largest parties the voter belonged - in all party groups social problems were the dominant problem area.²¹

For voters identifying with the Social Democrats and the Socialist People's Party housing problems came next. For Agrarian Liberal and Conservative voters general economic problems came next. For people identifying with the Radical Liberals environmental problems came next. For voters identifying with the Social Democratic Party this was the third most frequently mentioned problem. As can be seen, it was not especially the problems felt as major problems by the

electorate which were talked about by the political parties in the campaign. The data used for Tables V and VI are taken from the total number of programmes. As mentioned earlier, only a small part of the total programmes was planned by the parties. If we isolate the presentation programmes made by the different parties, we find that the economy in general more than any other issue was dwelt on by most of the parties. The Conservatives were the only party where this issue was second - the leading place was occupied by wages and the labour market. The Communists and the Christian People's Party talked more often than any of the five parties earlier represented in Parliament about social problems and housing in their Presentation. As an issue the EEC was not very frequently used in the Presentations of the four old parties. The Communists and the Socialist People's Party referred relatively more often to this issue, but it was not the main issue for any of these parties.

From the foregoing it is not possible to say that with respect to specific issues the campaign was not planned as a 'platform' for the different parties' propaganda - but it is possible to say that if the politicians had planned it as propaganda, they did not succeed with respect to issues following this hypothesis.

What about the journalists? What role did they play in the game? Were the journalists aware of what was going on among the public as such, and did they try to draw the salient issues into the campaign? In Table V we saw what kind of issues the journalists brought into the campaign. The EEC was the dominant issue among the journalists, followed by taxes, and with relatively low rating came questions about social problems and housing. From this it may be relevant to conclude that at least the journalists were not able, or did not try, to direct the campaign to issue areas of major interest to the electorate. From these data it is not possible to conclude whether the journalists were aware of what was going on among the electorate and just did not want to use their knowledge, or whether they were without sufficient contact with the public as such. But it is possible to conclude that the journalists did more than just follow the politicians. With respect to EEC they made this issue dominant in the 1971 campaign.

What then about that portion of the electorate which established contact with politicians by telephone? Was this rather small group of the total Danish population able to change the picture of the campaign? Among the voters who participated in these programmes we find that the dominant issues are taxes, the economy in general, and the EEC. But compared to the other types of communicators they were relatively more oriented towards social problems.

The selection which had taken place before these voters (only a very small part of the voters who phoned, as mentioned earlier) got through the series of gates at the editorial room in DR makes it impossible to conclude whether it was a specific part of the Danish population interested in certain issues which tried to reach the politicians by telephone, or whether it was the selection which made the EEC the dominant issue even among this group of voters. But from the point of view of the function of the relationship between broadcasting and politicians in the social system, these programmes did not to any appreciable extent present issues the public felt were salient.

A specific issue in an election campaign is the formation of the Government after the election. Among the large parties the Social Democrats more than any other party talked about this issue, viz., in 9 per cent of all the communications from this party and all specific recommendations were given to the party itself. In contrast, the three parties governing until the election did not talk very much on this issue. The Radical Liberals talked less about it than the two other parties with which they had been governing. In particular, they did not talk about a continuation of the coalition between the three partners as did the other two parties in the coalition, the Agrarian Liberals and the Conservatives.

The Socialist People's Party did in its campaign talk positively of a Government formed by the Social Democrats. The parties not represented in Parliament talked less than the above-mentioned parties about a new Government. The Left Socialists and the Communists mentioned this topic only a few times. On the other hand, the Christian People's Party, which was the only new party in the 1971 campaign, was asked about this issue rather often, and references were made to it in 9 per cent of all the communications from this party.

But how great was the interest in this issue among the journalists and the 'voters'? Only three per cent of the total number of communications from these two groups was centred around the formation of Government after the 1971 election. However, we found a very great interest in this specific issue among the journalists during the 1973 election, and as in the 1971 election the new parties in particular were asked about their preferences. But the old parties were also faced with this question to a very high degree in the 1973 election.

12. The Time Dimension Used in the Programmes

Referring to hypothesis 1.3. we expect that all parties hi their propaganda will talk about what they have been doing if they have been governing or what they are going to do if they intend to participate in the government. In Table IX the time dimension used by the different parties in the campaign is shown. Social Democrats talked more than any other party about what they were going to do. The three governing parties referred to the future to a varying degree, the Radical Liberals to the least extent. Among the parties not represented, the new Chris

tian People's Party was the only one which actively talked about what they
planned to do.

References to earlier work were found among the four old parties, Social
Democrats, Agrarian Liberals, Radical Liberals, and, to a lesser degree, among
the Conservatives.

Compared with these four parties the Socialist People's Party and the three parties
not represented hi Parliament talked very little about what they had done
earlier.

References to what the parties were doing at election time came from all 9 parties. An especially great number of these references came from two of the parties not represented (viz., the Single Tax Party and the Christian People's Party).

With respect to this time dimension as a variable, it is the difference between new and old parties - combined with the situation of the Social Democrats as the large party previously forming the Government and at the moment in opposition - which explains the picture.

How is this related to the function of the campaign? If it had followed our hypothesis for political propaganda, we would in a way have expected a greater amount of the communications to have the character of plans for the future. The question then is: what did the journalists and the 'voters' ask about - what were they interested in? And what interested the politicians when they had the possibility of discussing questions with each other?

Only a small part of the communications from the politicians was oriented towards the other parties' future plans or work already done. Each party talked much more about itself, and when once or twice it asked about the other parties, it was primarily about previous work. Journalists and 'voters' were both more interested in what was going on at the moment than in plans for the future. Journalists were rather interested in what the politicians had been doing, too.

Information about what had been done by the different political parties with
respect to different issues and problem areas must be regarded as relevant for the

voters. But plans for the future cannot, though to a high degree expected in propaganda, be regarded only as propaganda and as such included in 'platforms.' It must also be relevant to know the plans for the future, to discover them, if the 'window' function is the goal, though it is natural to argue that plans are sometimes more glittering promises than really planned work.

13. The Style Used in the Programmes

To what degree did the different parties declare that they had confidence in their own party? During the whole campaign this happened rather seldom, especially with respect to the three coalition parties. Lack of confidence in these three parties was, however, mentioned very often by the Social Democrats (in 15 per cent of all communications from this party). From the Socialist People's Party, too, there were negative expressions towards the three parties forming the Government. The parties most willing to express confidence in themselves were the Communists and to a lesser degree the Social Democrats.

All things considered, negative references, especially towards the Government
parties, were five times the number of positive references to these parties, even
when the three Government parties' own positive remarks are included.

To explain these differences the dimension governmental position/in opposition is the relevant factor. The function of negative remarks compared with positive remarks is relevant for the discussion about 'platforms' or 'windows' (hypotheses 1.2 and 1.4), but in a way it is much more relevant to the whole political system as such. At least this is one of the factors which it is relevant to discuss when we try to explain what happened between the 1971 and 1973 elections in Denmark. One of the main themes in this debate has been the lack of confidence in the political system, especially in the old political parties. And, as stated by Borre,²² it is in this distrust, publicized to a very high degree by all mass media in the 1971 election, as well as in the between elections period, that made the 1973 election a protest election.

14. The Function of the Programmes

Can the above-mentioned programmes primarily be characterized as propaganda
or as information? Or to ask as Elihu Katz does: Are the programmes to be
characterized as 'platforms' or 'windows'?

If we look at the structure of the Danish programmes in relation to the structural points mentioned by Katz, the conclusion must be that the Danish programmes are more debate-oriented than purely propaganda-oriented and thus more like 'windows' than like 'platforms'. Only a limited part of the time spent on the political programmes was spent on pure 'platforms'.

Nevertheless, almost all the politicians tried to spend their tune in a way flattering to their own party. In this way it is not satisfying to use the proportion of debate versus propaganda statements as a measure of 'windows' versus platforms'.

To return to the discussion about propaganda or information, these are not pure types. It depends on the intentions of the communicator²³ whether the content of a communication can be characterized as propaganda, whereas it depends on the receiver of the message²⁴ whether the content of a communication can be characterized as information, the result being that a given communication may be intended as propaganda but may be received as information. Similarly, a programme can be constructed as a 'platform' and still be used as a 'window'; and vice versa the structure may favour the 'window' function but still have the function of a 'platform'.

The point of interest here then is the role of the broadcasting corporation. Are they acting as a formal organization or are the journalists as such trying to clean the 'windows' for the voters? Are they trying to make politics more understandable and more relevant to the electorate? If we look at the structure of the programmes, we find that the broadcasting organization has tried to clean the 'windows', e.g., by giving ordinary voters the possibility of putting questions to the political parties in the programmes on radio. And the programmes could have the same function when journalists are asking questions.

It depends mainly on the journalists whether these programmes succeed. Are they capable of asking the politicians questions that are critical and salient for the voters, and are they generally able to structure the programmes in such a way that the function of these programmes is maintained? If we look at the issues preferred by the journalists, they did not succeed in asking the questions salient to the voters. They showed some interest in what had been done by the different political parties but not a high degree of interest in plans for the future.

This was during the 1971 election campaign; what then about the 1973 election? The structure of the programmes was the same during the 1973 election as the above-mentioned and, accordingly, the structure of the communications will not vary much. The issues in the 1973 campaign differed to some degree from the issue profile in 1971. The EEC was still a campaign issue, but now after the Danish entry into the EEC only the parties that were against the EEC made this the main theme.

Further, the number of political parties participating in the 1973 election was different from that of the 1971 election. Two new parties had emerged since 1971, and a total of 11 parties fought for votes. The new protest parties made the election campaign a much harder fight with more negative remarks, the mam issue being distrust in the old political parties. After the campaign more than 80 per cent of the population said that they did not understand what politics was about.²⁵ After the 1971 election 81 per cent also gave this answer.²⁶ On both occasions we had to put the question 'What was the function of the election campaign?' - a campaign which was followed by 79 per cent of the adult Danish population hi 1971 and by 92 per cent in 1973.

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NOTES

1. J. G. Blumier and D. McQuail, Television in Politics (London: 1968), p. 41.

2. Elihu Katz, 'Platforms and Windows: Broadcasting's Role in Election Campaigns', in D. McQuail (ed.), Sociology of Mass Communication (London: Penguin Books, 1972).

3. Ibid.

4. Karen Siune, En uges radionyheder i Norden (Århus: 1972).

5. Hans Bonnevier, En veckas TV-nyheter i Norden, Swedish Radio, 1970; and Marit Bakke and Karen Siune, Nyheder i radio og TV, Århus, I (1972) and (1973).

6. Svennik Høyer, 'En transaksjonsmodell for studiet av pressen', in Tidsskrift for sarnfunnsforskning, Vol. 14, 1973, pp. 81-105.

7. This is possible in a multiparty system, though Katz found it an unrealistic solution. See Katz, op. cit., p. 366.

8. Katz, op. cit., p. 354.

9. Blumier and McQuail, op. cit., p. 284.

10. In 1971 each party was given D. kr. 26,000 -in 1973 D. kr. 30,000.

11. In the third programme (light programme) 5 minutes were given to each party in the late afternoon to present its ideas.

12. According to data given from DR mentioned in Bo Fibiger, Partipolitisk Sprogbrug (Århus: 1972), around 200 letters were received for each party programme.

13. In the 1973 election this programme was not based on letters from listeners and viewers but was exclusively based on questions raised by the journalists themselves.

14. Until the 1971 election politicians were not allowed to participate in the news programmes during the election campaign.

15. A 10-minute newscast has to be excluded.

16. This includes questions and other remarks from voters and journalists to the party.

17. Katz, op. cit.

18. Propaganda is defined by the aim of the communicator.

19. Other relevant hypotheses could be: Every party will have its own reference group to which it tries to appeal more than to other groups Every party will try to keep its earlier voters and at the same time try to get votes from the neighbouring parties. This last hypothesis is in line with that referred to by Kline. See Gerald F. Kline, Mass Media and the General Election Process: Evidence and Speculation, p. 53.

20. In the survey there were very few voters from the other four parties.

21. These data åre compared in Karen Siune and Ole Borre, 'Setting the Agenda for a Danish Election', Journal of Communications, Vol. 25, No. l, 1975.

22. Ole Borre, 'Denmark's Protest Election of December 1973', in Scandinavian Political Studies, 9/74 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1974), pp. 193-204.

23. B. L. Smith et al., Propaganda, Communication and Public Opinion. A Comprehensive Reference Guide (Princeton, N.J.: 1946), p. 1.

24. B. O. Birgerson et al., Medborgarna informeras (Stockholm: 1971), p. 16.

25. The item to which 81 per cent agreed was: 'Sometimes politics is so complicated that people like me really don't know what is going on'.

26. Borre, op. cit.