Kriesi, Hanspeter. "Personalization of national election campaigns". Party Politics, Vol.18, No.6 (2012): 825-844.

Kriesi, Hanspeter. "Personalization of national election campaigns". Party Politics, Vol.18, No.6 (2012): 825-844.

• The contemporary literature on the personalization of politics tends to blame the phenomenon on a combination of the collapse of traditional party systems, thus weakening the connections between voters and political parties, and the rise of new forms of electronic and news media which prefer to focus on personalities as opposed to other aspects of politics (826).
• There is little evidence to support the personalization thesis, with most studies looking at an increased focus on individuals and their personal characteristics in politics finding inconsistent conclusions. Most studies suggest that while media focuses on individuals more than in the 1950s, this has not been reflected in voting behavior (826).
• "Rather than a trend towards an increasing level of personalization, what we generally observe are large country-specific differences in the overall degree of personalization and of the concentration of attention on the top candidates" (841).
• Presidential systems tend to increase the personalization of political discourse in a country, with the United States being the most prominent example. The author expects that France should have the most personalized elections in Western Europe because of its presidential system, with Austria and Germany experiencing similar trends due to the power of the Chancellor (827-828).
• The results confirm this hypothesis, with France having an extremely personalized coverage of elections, followed by Germany and Austria as distant seconds, and with the extremely parliamentary systems in Netherlands and Switzerland being dead last. The UK was less personalized than Germany, showing that the system remained functionally parliamentary rather than functionally presidential (831).
• The type of media on which election campaigns are viewed is important to the degree of personalization of politics in a country, with the introduction of televised debates as part of election campaigns being particularly important in the increasing personalization of national politics (828).
• Although the introduction of televised debates and other forms of TV news increased the personalization of politics in Western European countries, the effect did not remain isolated. Newspapers, both professional and tabloid, were just as personalized as TV news in their coverage of elections (831).
• The author's survey of TV news, tabloids, and newspapers from selected Western European countries does not confirm any personalization of politics. There were no observed trends towards personalization in Netherlands, UK, France, or Switzerland, and personalization actually decreased in Germany and Austria since the 1970s (831-832).
• The news media's focus on individuals is extremely concentrated on a small number of key political figures, in France this was the leading presidential candidates, whereas in Germany and the UK, the only individuals highlighted on the national stage were the party leaders (832-833).
• The pattern is much less clear among less personalized elections. In Netherlands and Switzerland there is a preference for party leaders, but many other lesser political figures also get personal coverage. This likely is an outcome of the small amount of coverage given to individuals (833-834).
• Overall, personalization is much more focused on members of government than on the opposition, potentially incurring a incumbency advantage because of increased and intensified media attention (836).
• The trend of ignoring the opposition is even more prevalent in situations where a grand coalition or political consensus occurs. In situations of broad-based governance, the opposition can become largely absent from media narratives, like in usually is in coalition-happy Switzerland (837).