News Values and Resource Allocation as the Determinants of Election Coverage: Analysis of a Hong Kong Election

While past research has shown that the news media can mobilize citizens for voting participation, little has been done on the determinants of the level of attention paid by the media to elections. Drawing on theories of news production, this study postulates that considerations of news values and the dynamics of resource allocation would combine to shape the quantity of election news. The empirical analysis focuses on a local election in Hong Kong, in which the news media paid different levels of attention to the contests in different constituencies. It shows that characteristics of the electoral contests relevant to the news values of prominence and conflict can explain how much coverage a constituency received, and the influences of news values factors can be interactive as well as additive. At the same time, the influence of resource allocation is illustrated by a relatively stronger media focus on the contests in urban center areas as well as the support for a resource spillover hypothesis. The general implications of the findings are discussed.