Measuring public opinion formation

Abstract

AbstractFor the past 50 years since the seminal agenda-setting study, scholars have continued to make strides in understanding the importance mass communication plays in public opinion formation. Although scholars have measured both first- and second-level agenda setting often using open-ended response, more close-ended measures might assist in measuring the theory, adding to the rich data. This experimental study directly compared open-ended responses shown to gauge an agenda-setting effect with close-ended responses to enhance the assessment of both first- and second-level agenda setting. The findings identified close-ended scales, including news salience, social salience, personal salience, and feelings salience, that add to the precision of measuring the salience of issues and attributes, indicating we have alternative measures to gauge agenda setting.