News Story Descriptions and the Public's Opinions of Political Candidates

Abstract

Combining a telephone survey of a probability sample of residents in the Austin, Texas, metropolitan area and a content analysis of the local daily newspaper, this study replicates and extends prior research on attribute agenda setting with an emphasis on the attribute priming consequences of agenda-setting effects for opinions about candidates in the 2002 Texas gubernatorial and U.S. senatorial elections. Correlation and regression analyses support the central proposition of attribute agenda setting and indicate that attributes positively or negatively covered in the news are related to opinions about each candidate. Attributes receiving extensive media attention were more likely to affect attitudinal judgments for heavy newspaper readers than for light newspaper readers.