Information subsidies: Agenda-setting traditions

Abstract

Since the days when town criers rang their bells inviting citizens into the town square to hear the local news, government has played an important role in assuring that citizens do, or do not, receive relevant information about government that, at least in a democratic system, enables them to participate. Much of the information government provides to its citizens originates with public relations or public information officers within government. The role the mass media play in setting the public agenda has been a topic of considerable research attention over the past 20 years. Only recently, however, have mass communication and public relations researchers begun to look at who, or what, sets the media's agenda. Interestingly enough, studies of the influence that government sources, particularly government public relations and public information officers, have upon the media agenda have been undertaken almost simultaneously in the United States and in the United Kingdom. This paper, which reports and synthesizes major findings of U.S. and U.K. studies, concludes that much of the difference between the two countries in the media reception accorded government public information subsidies may be due to differences in the structure of both local media and local government. However, the authors suggest that there also appear to be philosophical differences among journalists in the two countries that influence the shaping of journalistic response to government information subsidies.