View article

Television has become the central medium of communication in modern politics. The way in which leaders are presented to the public on TV shapes and measures their status, and their power can no longer be fully understood without reference to television coverage. This article, based on a cross-national study of nightly newscasts in Germany, France, and the United States, finds that the frequency with which the images of leaders appear on TV reflects the different patterns of political dominance in the three nations. The authors link this to different social and political systems and analyze the implications for leadership.