The President and Media in the Agenda-Setting Process: Who Sets the Policy Agenda?

Abstract

This study explores one of the recurrent questions in agenda-setting studies: who sets policy agendapolitical leaders or the media? A content analysis was conducted by coding the texts of six of President Clinton's State of the Union addresses and three networks' (ABC, CBS, and NBC) evening news broadcasts. The results do not provide strong evidence of a causal direction between the media agenda and president's agenda because both coefficients are statistically significant and similar in degree. This study suggests, however, there may be a variance among different media actors in their roles and involvement in the agenda-setting (building) process.