Hvorfor har Sverige ingen Pia? - itslearning

ABSTRACT
During recent decades, most Western European countries have seen the emergence
and electoral success of new right-wing, anti-immigration parties. In this context,
Sweden represents a deviant case in that its most prominent anti-immigration party,
Sverigedemokraterna, has very little electoral support. We explore the role the
framing of immigration issues in Swedish news media plays in demobilizing electoral
support for Sverigedemokraterna. Our basic argument is that the comparative lack
of negative stories on immigration in Swedish media works to shift voter agendas
from the issue of immigration and thereby deflate the electoral support of
Sverigedemokraterna.
First, we apply John Zallers RAS model of opinion formation to provide a
theoretical account of how media agendas affect party vote. Second, we conduct a
'split-ballot' survey experiment to gauge the effect of anti-immigration information
on support for Sverigedemokraterna. We find that anti-immigration information, in
the form of an article about a crime commited by immigrants, significantly raises
respondent inclination to vote for Sverigedemokraterna. We also find that exposure
to Danish media, which is more negative towards immigration, raises support for
Sverigedemokraterna. Our analysis also lends some support to another central tenet
of the RAS model: namely the non-monotonic relationship between political
awareness and the effect of information flows.
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