New Wave Gatekeeping

Abstract

This study explored agenda-setting implications of indexing news content by topic. It was expected that indexing would diminish the power of mass media to set an audience agenda. An experimental version of a newspaper was created in which salience cues were removed and replaced with a topical index. The experimental and control versions of the newspaper were administered to more than 400 university student subjects. Results showed statistically significant differences in news topic exposure, but equivalently concentrated patterns of readership in the two versions. Rather than directing readers to stories based on editorially determined salience cues, the agenda set by the experimental version was based on ordering within the index and newspaper. Most readers of the indexed newspaper also evaluated it negatively, but a core of such readers liked the indexing, suggesting that different readership styles condition responses to information ordering in a newspaper.