Executive hour or political competition in times of crisis?—An analysis of public crisis reporting on the COVID-19 lockdowns in Germany

Abstract

While much work has looked at how governments responded to the Corona pandemic, little consideration has been given to how the crisis affected party competition and what positions political actors took during this period. How were political actors' positions on COVID-19 portrayed in daily newspapers? And how can we explain these patterns? To answer these questions, this article examines the discourse surrounding both German lockdown decisions by analyzing the public coverage of two German daily newspapers. By means of discourse network analysis, the most central actors of the public discourse are revealed at first. Second, relevant factors influencing the discourse centrality of political actors are analyzed. Therefore, a linear regression is performed to identify party-political factors that have a significant influence on political actors' discourse centrality. Participation in the executive branch in the Länder and federal level as well as having candidate status emerge as central factors influencing discourse centrality.