Agenda-setting Function Research Articles

Who Sets the Agenda? Parties and Media Competing for the Electorate's Main Topic of Political Discussion

ABSTRACT According to the thesis of the agenda setting function, both the media and the political parties influence what people think about, if not what they think. Newspaper and television editors make judgements of news priorities, the judgements of one editor influence the views of another, and the result is a media consensus that affects the public's sense of the importance of various issues. Parties' formulation of preferences and priorities through their manifestos aims at promoting each party's proprietary issues and downgrading other issues; this clearly turns the electorate's attention to specific topics. This paper explores the extent to which voters, political parties, and media in Britain share the same issue concerns and reveals which of the two—parties or media—is better at influencing what the public is talking about. Content analyses of party manifestos and press coverage of the 2001 election campaign identify the issues most strongly emphasized by the parties and the press, respectively. Analysis of survey data from the British Election Study 2001/2002 identifies the issues voters are mostly concerned with and enables public opinion's issue concerns to be related to both party manifestos and the press coverage of the campaign. The paper also tests whether the political priorities of British parties are adopted by their own supporters, it explores the extent to which voters are concerned with issues that are not emphasized by the party they vote for, and finally, it explores which party's issues dominated the public agenda in 2001.

Search Engines: Terrorism's Killer App.

This article investigates whether a relationship exists between the number of fatalities caused by a terrorist group and the number of websites returned via the Google search engine when a search for the group is conducted. It is hypothesized that search engines’ algorithms facilitate such an association, and search engines’ role as the Web's “gatekeeper.” Much attention has been paid to understanding the role the news media, particularly television, has within a terrorist's campaign. Today, terrorism is understood as being partly theater—carefully choreographed events created not solely to kill, but to capture transnational television screens, and arouse a heightened state of public apprehension, and achieve a terrorist group's psychological devastation goal. This article questions whether such offline terrorist violence has a similar agenda-setting function online.

The e-Rise and Fall of Social Problems: The Blogosphere as a Public Arena

Social problems theory has yet to fully address the impact that new communication technologies are having on the claims-making process. This article examines the emergence of the blogosphere as a cultural phenomenon that provides claims-makers with a powerful new public arena to advance social problem claims. Using Stephen Hilgartner and Charles Bosk’s (1988) public arenas model of social problem construction, blog-generated problem claims are examined to analyze how Internet driven social problems compete for public attention. Findings suggest that blogs make the claims-making process more efficient, offer expanded carrying capacity compared to traditional arenas, and provide outsider claims-makers with greater opportunity to have a voice in social problems construction. Still, only a small number of blogs have become recognized as claims-making arenas; they still rely on traditional principles of selection; and bloggers face the same competition for mainstream media attention as claims-makers using traditional arenas. Keywords: blog, blogosphere, Internet, new media, public arena. Mainstream news media maintain a gatekeeping function that serves to control the flow of information to audiences. Some claims find it harder to gain media access or to receive coverage (Jacobs 2000). In recent years, proponents of the Internet have proclaimed that new media technology will lead to a democratization of mass media (Rodman 2003). Since the deregulation of the Internet in 1995, users have quickly adapted to and become engaged in an online environment that can transmit large volumes of information in real time for relatively low cost (Plant 2004). The expansion of mass media into cyberspace has already created countless new sources for news: Web sites presented by the mainstream press and sites unique to the Internet, including search engines, message boards, and blogs, may have the potential to diffuse the gatekeeping function of traditional media, thereby altering their agenda-setting function (Williams and Delli Carpini 2004). In particular, the emergence of the blogosphere as an Internet-based claims-making arena may profoundly affect the process of social problems construction. This article expands Stephen Hilgartner and Charles L. Bosk’s (1988) public arenas model of social problems construction by exploring how the blogosphere increases the overall carrying capacity for problem claims, expands the opportunities for outsider claims-makers to promote social problems, and provides new avenues through which insider and secondary claims can be disseminated. Analysis of social problems constructed, in part, through claims made by bloggers also serves to verify the findings of Sheldon Ungar (1992) and Jerry Williams and R. S. Frey (1997) that dramatic real world events serve as focal issues that enhance audience receptiveness of problem claims. 1 Still, while blogs provide novel arenas where problem

Epistemic Democracy and the Social Character of Knowledge

ABSTRACTHow can democratic governments be relied upon to achieve adequate political knowledge when they turn over their authority to those of no epistemic distinction whatsoever? This deep and longstanding concern is one that any proponent of epistemic conceptions of democracy must take seriously. While Condorcetian responses have recently attracted substantial interest, they are largely undermined by a fundamental neglect of agenda-setting. I argue that the apparent intractability of the problem of epistemic adequacy in democracy stems in large part from a failure to appreciate the social character of political knowledge. A social point of view brings into focus a number of vital factors that bear on our understanding of democratic epistemology and our assessment of its prospects: the essential role of inclusive deliberation, the public's agenda-setting function, institutional provisions for policy feedback, the independence of expert communities, and the knowledge-pooling powers of markets.

The Agenda-Setting Function of National Versus Local Media: A Time-Series Analysis for the Issue of Same-Sex Marriage

This study compares the agenda-setting effects of national and local media on public salience in a market where an issue was both local and national with the effects in a market where it was primarily national. A new measure of public salience is also introduced. Results indicate that agenda-setting effects of local and national media are very different, with local media exerting a stronger agenda-setting influence when the issue is both local and national.

The Primacy of the Public: In Support of Bioethics Commissions as Deliberative Forums

In a 2004 article, we argued that bioethics commissions should be assessed in terms of their usefulness as public forums. A 2006 article by Summer Johnson argued that our perspective was not supported by the existing literature on presidential commissions, which had not previously identified commissions as public forums and that we did not properly account for the political functions of commissions as instruments of presidential power. Johnson also argued that there was nothing sufficiently unique about bioethics commissions to make the public forum perspective particularly applicable. We respond by arguing that analysis of commissions' work as public forums fits well within the literature on commissions, especially on their agenda-setting functions, and that the political functions of commissions are often compatible with their functioning as public forums. We also demonstrate how the origins and concerns of bioethics make public forum analysis particularly applicable to bioethics commissions.

SECOND-LEVEL AGENDA SETTING AND POLITICAL ADVERTISING

This study examines the agenda-setting function of televised political advertisements during the 2004 US presidential election. Adding to the growing research on second-level agenda setting, we examined how the advertising agendas of the Bush and Kerry campaigns may have impacted the public evaluations of the two candidates. Our results provide support for the agenda-setting hypothesis as well as mixed support for the second-level hypothesis. Research findings are discussed in terms of the larger context of agenda-setting research and theory.

The Media in the 2006 Israeli Elections: Who's Manufacturing Consent? Framing the Spin-Doctors

The 2006 elections were different from earlier elections in more ways than one. It was an intriguing campaign, full of events and shifts, with a genuine agenda and new heroes. Throughout the campaign—which started with Amir Peretz’s victory over Shimon Peres in the Labour party leadership elections—voters watched the media covering the implosion of the Likud and its ensuing electoral debacle, the shrinking of Labour, Sharon’s descent from stage, the creation of Kadima. Although parties were born, split, shrivelled and withered away, the public did not notice major differences between the main parties’ platforms. In light of their ideological weakness the parties sought to brand themselves by concentrating on their prime ministerial candidate’s image and building a differentiated political agenda. Those tasks were outsourced, handed over to PR specialists. As a result, leadership grooming and platform composing were replaced by the use of vague catchphrases, well-designed sound bites, misleading examples, and the use and abuse of statistics under the spin-doctors’ guidance. The latter had to decide, among other things, whether to emphasize the issue of security, regarded traditionally as the primary focus of Israeli politics, and to discuss the Intifada, the disengagement plan and Hamas’ victory in the Palestinian elections—or to emphasize socioeconomic issues, reflecting the unprecedented number of citizens living below the poverty threshold, massive education, health and welfare budget cuts, state workers fired and salary payment delays, and pensioners condemned to hunger. Socioeconomic issues, denied centre-stage for years on the pretext of a national emergency, received greater attention and had more impact

Pundits, Ideologues, and Ranters: The British Columbia Election Online

This article examines the potential for Internet discussion boards to be a vehicle for political deliberation through a case study of the BC Votes discussion board during British Columbia’s 2001 provincial election. Research reveals that the board was dominated by a relatively small number of users and that the favourite discussion topics were not issues but how parties and leaders were performing. The authors conclude that the perception of ideological homogeneity in online discussion may be overstated and that the first post in a discussion thread has an important agenda-setting function. They also find that the relative newness of discussion boards may play a role in shaping the nature of discussion there.

THE SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE EXISTENTIALIST

In an open and virtually boundless media environment, old responses to the question of who is a journalist, based primarily on roles associated with the process of gathering and disseminating information, no longer apply. This article suggests a reconceptualization of the journalist based instead on normative constructs. Specifically, it advocates a blend of two competing philosophical approaches, existentialism and social responsibility theory, as well as two roughly corresponding professional norms, independence and accountability. The combination produces a “socially responsible existentialist”, a journalist who chooses to act as a trustworthy source of information that serves the public interest. That framework is applied at both a concrete level, through consideration of weblogs and the proliferation of partisan information sources, and a conceptual level, through consideration of gatekeeping and agenda-setting functions.

Towards a Public Relations’ Agenda Setting Theory

Limited attention has been paid to inputs into the agenda setting function of the media. Many studies were content with examining how media agenda affects the public as well as the policy agenda an...

Setting the (Cultural) Agenda: Concepts, Communities and Representation in Euro-Mediterranean Relations

Since 9/11, inter-cultural dialogue, in the Euro-Mediterranean area and beyond, has unintentionally reproduced the ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis. A rethink of the concepts of ‘cultures’, communities and their representatives points to the agenda-setting function of inter-cultural dialogue, which also legitimises specific interpretations of regional and international politics. In spite of some positive developments within the EMP's inter-cultural dialogue, this article recommends a departure from the rhetoric of ‘inter-cultural dialogue’ altogether. Instead, a clear distinction between cultural co-operation and the promotion of sustainable development and human rights is necessary, along with the establishment of a trans-cultural dialogue that defines similarities and differences across states and regions along thematic lines.

The nature of newspaper coverage of homicide

Objectives: Previous research has shown that some homicides are more likely than others to receive newspaper coverage (for example, homicides by strangers). The present investigation examined whether, once the decision...

Think about it This Way: Attribute Agenda-Setting Function of the Press and the public's Evaluation of a Local Issue

This study examined the attribute agenda-setting function of the media, which refers to significant correspondence between prominent issue attributes in the media and the agenda of attributes among audiences. An opinion survey on a local issue and a content analysis of a local newspaper revealed that, by covering certain issue aspects more prominently, the media increase the salience of these aspects among audience members. We also found an important outcome of attribute agenda setting, attribute priming effects. Findings indicated that issue attributes salient in the media were functioning as significant dimensions of issue evaluation among audience members. This study concluded that the media, by emphasizing certain attributes of an issue, tell us “how to think about” this issue as well as “what to think about.”

This is the Partnership for a Drug-Free America: Any Questions?

The paper examines the impact and possible unintended side effects of the privately sponsored Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA) media campaign to reduce illicit drug abuse. The paper describes the history, goals, organization, production processes, and process and outcome evaluations of the PDFA advertising campaign. It also reviews major criticisms that have been leveled at the PDFA campaign, including its dissemination of false information, the narrow scope of its message, a number of unintended iatrogenic side-effects, potential conflicts of interest arising from the sources of its funding, and the agenda-setting function of the PDFA campaign in defining which drugs are dangerous and how the attendant problems should be addressed.

Visualizing America's drug problems: an ethnographic content analysis of illegal drug stories on the nightly news

In 1986 President Ronald Reagan declared a national on Drugs. Three years later, President George Bush renewed the call to arms. The national media gave the War on Drugs their official blessing. On television, in news magazines and in newspapers, the media accepted and amplified the government's claim that illegal use was approaching epidemic proportions (Orcutt and Turner, 1993; Gitlin, 1989). Over the years from 1986 to 1992, U.S. citizens were treated to a barrage of news stories about illegal drugs. In 1992 drugs began to fade from the American agenda; by 1993 the federal government was moving to consolidate or eliminate the special agencies created or enhanced in 1986 to wage the war. From 1986 to 1993 changes in actual use in America were fairly small. Between 1988 and 1990, the year under scrutiny in this paper, according to the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, illegal use actually fell, as did use of cocaine. Crack use remained flat (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1989, 1991). Others have argued that there never really was a crisis, at least in terms of an epidemic of illegal use (Reinarman and Levine, 1989; Orcutt and Turner, 1993; Mosher and Yanagisako, 1991). And the War on Drugs actually had little impact on the use of illegal drugs. Meanwhile, use of the two most deadly drugs, alcohol and tobacco, either remained flat or dropped slightly. There is a substantial body of literature offering explanations of why, although use in the U.S. was declining in the late 1980s and early 1990s, drug war rhetoric and punitive solutions to the ran rampant. A number of these works have attested to the importance of the news media in that process. Orcutt and Turner (1993) demonstrate how the news media distorted statistics to support the view that the problem was growing. Sharp (1992) shows how Presidential access to the media in this as in other historical periods enables political leaders to promote or demote issues in the media and hence in the public agenda. Jensen, Gerber and Babcock (1991) use surveys of newspaper and magazine coverage to demonstrate how initiatives by politicians preceded the formation of grassroots mobilization around illegal drugs, while Beckett (1994) employs OLS regression to show that television and print coverage, as well as public concern, were actually both functions of elite state initiative, moves by political leaders to place illegal drugs on the public agenda. Iyengar (1991) establishes a link between media coverage and public support for punitive solutions by combining content analysis with audience reaction studies. Several of these authors use content analysis in their analyses. Yet all use written sources-news scripts or abstractsas the source of the raw data that they analyze. Television is a visual medium. Although political leaders may drive the basic content of the news, news organizations themselves mediate that content, turning it into narratives with beginnings and endings, good characters and bad characters, and pictures that illustrate everything. The research described here attempts to go further than earlier studies in analyzing the visual as well as the textual content of television news stories about illegal drugs. Looking at a sample of stories aired in 1990, one of the high points of media coverage of illegal drugs, we aim to provide thick description of the mediated content, as well as the themes and patterns that lie within that coverage. The importance of television news Television news has become the chief source of information and analysis of major social problems for the overwhelming majority of Americans (Roper Organization, 1991). Cohen pointed out in the early 1960s, and later research has confirmed, that the news may not tell people what to think, but it definitely tells them what to think about (Cohen, 1963; Rogers and Dearing, 1988). This agenda-setting function of the mass media helps to explain why the War on Drugs became a national obsession in the late 1980s and early 1990s. …

Bad News, Period

Jamieson, Kathleen Hall. 1984. Packaging the Presidency: A History and Criticism of Presidential Campaign Advertising. New York: Oxford University Press. Kernell, Samuel. 1986. Going Public: New Strategies of Presidential Leadership. Washington, DC: CQ Press. Kinder, Donald, and Thomas Palfrey, eds. 1993. Experimental Foundations of Political Science. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. McCombs, Maxwell, and Donald Shaw. 1977. The Emergence of American Political Issues: The Agenda-Setting Function of the Press. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Co. Miller, Arthur, Edie N. Goldenberg, and Lutz Erbring. 1979. Type-Set Politics: Impact of Newspapers on Public Confidence. American Political Science Review 73:67-82.

International agenda-setting effects of Saudi Arabian media: A case study

The purpose of the present study was to examine the impact of Saudi Arabian media in setting the intrapersonal, interpersonal and international agenda for the civil servant employees in Riyadh, the capital city. Al-Riyadh and Al-Sharq Al-Awsat were selected for analysis as they were reported to be the most popular Arabic language newspapers in Riyadh. In addition, the two television channels in Saudi Arabia were also examined for their agenda- setting effects. The results of our study indicated that while the mass media were not successful in influencing the intrapersonal and interpersonal agendas of the public, they were very effective in influencing the salience of issues in the public's international agenda. The crosslagged correlations showed that the direction of influence was from the mass media to the public and not vice-versa. The findings of this study have important implications for the agenda-setting functions and impact of the media in countries with a tightly controlled information processing and disseminating system. It is hoped that testing the agenda-setting effects in Saudi Arabia may suggest some generalities that may be relevant to other countries in the Third World with similar socio-political systems.

The Agenda-setting Functions of Diet Member's Bills

The Agenda-setting Functions of Diet Member's Bills

Agenda-Setting in an Historical Perspective:

Agenda-setting has been a topic of study in the field of communications research for two decades. What is absent so far is an attempt to make the concept of agenda-setting useful in an historical context as well or an attempt to describe the historical dimension of the agenda-setting function of the mass media. This paper analyses a process of agenda-setting which took place more than 200 years ago. The historical event to which this concept is applied is the coverage of the American Revolution in the German press. Beginning in 1773, reports on the dispute between Britain and its colonies in America proliferated, and for several years this became the main topic reported by the Hamburg-based newspaper which is analysed here. The process of agenda-setting is first described by quantity and kind of coverage. It is then considered as a result of the course of events. On the other hand, the coverage, as far as possible given the historical context, can be considered as the cause of an effect. Four variables are determined to have influenced this effect: medium, topic, audience and political system. The great differences between the political system of Germany and that of Britain or the then emerging United States of America were the reason why the coverage in the German newspaper caused only an `agenda of the media', but had no influence on the agenda of public policy.