Why some politicians react to the media more than others

What is it about?

This study is the first to explore how the goals and motivations of individual politicians influence their real-life level of responsiveness to the media. We examine this in three countries (Belgium, Canada and Israel) and by analyzing 45,574 parliamentary speeches and 412,112 news articles.

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Why is it important?

While previous studies examined politicians' responsiveness to the media by examining groups (parties, parliaments), this approach tells us little on what drives an individual politician to be more or less responsive to the media. Politicians' behavior is determined by the relationship between individual goals and preferences on the one hand and institutions or collective groups on the other. Our findings show that indeed, individual-level explanations matter.