Issue-attention Cycle Research Articles

A “war” over lobster and whales: The issue-attention cycle, media discourse, and political ecology of right whale science and conservation in six US newspapers

A “war” over lobster and whales: The issue-attention cycle, media discourse, and political ecology of right whale science and conservation in six US newspapers

The Stability of Cable and Broadcast News Intermedia Agenda Setting Across the COVID-19 Issue Attention Cycle

ABSTRACT In today’s fragmented media environment, it is unclear whether the correspondence between media agendas that characterizes intermedia agenda setting persists. Through a combination of manual and computerized content analysis of 486,068 paragraphs of COVID−19 coverage across 4,589 cable and broadcast news transcripts, we analyze second and third-level attribute agenda setting, both in terms of central themes and aspects. Through the lens of the issue attention cycle, we assess whether relationships among media agendas change over time. The results show that even in a fragmented media environment, there is considerable evidence of intermedia agenda setting. The attribute agendas were largely similar across outlets despite the similarity slightly decreasing over time. The findings suggest that there was only modest evidence for the prominent perception of fragmented coverage for cable and broadcast news networks’ attribute agendas concerning the COVID−19 pandemic.

Making their Mark? How protest sparks, surfs, and sustains media issue attention

ABSTRACT Media attention is both an important outcome and a resource for protest groups. This paper examines media-movement dynamics using television news coverage of 1,277 protests in Belgium (2003–2019). We situate protest coverage in media issue attention cycles and scrutinize whether features of protest or rather media issue attention fluctuations are key for protest’s agenda-setting effect. Our results show that while most protests fail to alter the attention cycle, a considerable share of protests is followed by a significant increase in media issue attention, especially when surfing issue attention already on the rise. Overall, media issue attention cycles rather than protest features affect protest’s agenda-setting effect, suggesting that protest agenda-setting is more a matter of exploiting discursive opportunities than of forcing one’s issue on the media agenda by signaling newsworthiness. These findings have serious implications for our understanding of protest group agency in news making and agenda-setting.

Period politics and policy change: the taxation of menstrual products in the United Kingdom, 1996–2021

ABSTRACT How, when and why do policies change? This article engages with this question through a focus on the taxation of menstrual products in the United Kingdom from its initial emergence as an issue in 1996 through to the eventual abolition of the ‘tampon tax’ on 1 January 2021. Despite the significance of this topic for broader debates concerning gender inequality, political efficacy and social change it is not one that has been the focus of close historical analysis. The research presented in this article fills this gap in the existing research base and reveals (inter alia): (i) the ebb-and-flow of the issue-attention cycle; (ii) the grating of domestic pressures against international obligations; (iii) incremental policy change in an attempt to assuage campaigners; (iv) the co-option of ‘period poverty’ as a strategic and symbolic issue by Brexit campaigners; (v) and the eventual resolution of the issue a quarter of a century after it was first raised. As such the politics of policy change vis-à-vis the taxation of menstrual products in the United Kingdom fits within a number of broader debates concerning: how, when and why policies change; the complexities of multi-level governance; and interpretations of policy success and policy failure.

Examining COVID-19 Tweet Diffusion Using an Integrated Social Amplification of Risk and Issue-Attention Cycle Framework

ABSTRACT Drawing upon the social amplification of risk (SARF) and the issue-attention cycle framework, we examined the amplification of COVID-19 risk-related tweets through (a) topics: key interests of discussion; (b) temperament: emotions of tweets; (c) topography (i.e., location); and (d) temporality (i.e., over time). We computationally analyzed 1,641,273 tweets, and conducted manual content analysis on a subset of 6,000 tweets to identify how topics, temperament, and topography of COVID-19 tweets were associated with risk amplification – retweet and favorite count – using negative binomial regression. We found 11 dominant COVID-19 topics—health impact, economic impact, reports of lockdowns, report of new cases, the need to stay home, coping with COVID-19, news about President Trump, government support, fight with COVID-19 by non-government entities, origins, and preventive measure in our corpus of tweets across the issue-attention cycle. The negative binomial regression results showed that at the pre-problem stage, topics on President Trump, speculation of origins, and initiatives to fight COVID-19 by non-government entities were most likely to be amplified, underscoring the inherent politicization of COVID-19 and erosion of trust in governments from the start of the pandemic. We also found that while tweets with negative emotions were consistently amplified throughout the issue-attention cycle, surprisingly tweets with positive emotions were amplified during the height of the pandemic – this counter-intuitive finding indicated signs of premature and misplaced optimism. Finally, our results showed that the locations of COVID-19 tweet amplification corresponded to the shifting COVID-19 hotspots across different continents across the issue-attention cycle. Theoretical and practical implications of risk amplification on social media are discussed.

Linking Psychometric Paradigm of Risk and Issue Attention Cycle: Risk Information in News Coverage of Avian and Swine Influenza Global Outbreaks

To examine risk characteristics of health threats during global outbreaks, this study linked the psychometric paradigm of risk and issue attention cycle to content analyze 1,626 news articles during the avian and swine influenza epidemics. The results revealed that journalists used different types of risk information, across the issue attention cycle, to emphasize the risk characteristics of each influenza: Risk characteristics of dread, catastrophic potential, and familiarity were emphasized in the waxing rather than in the waning stage of Avian influenza; in the waxing and waning stages, swine influenza was conveyed as a dreadful disease, through different risk information.

How Mainstream and Alternative Media Shape Online Mobilization: A Comparative Study of News Coverages in Post-Colonial Macau

Protests today involve more identities and interests and have more complex relationships with the media ecology than previously. Former studies indicate the need to identify framing patterns within the changing media politics of activism. The current study empirically investigates the media framing of a social-media-driven protest in post-Colonial Macau, China. Drawing on the framing theory and content analysis methodology of 243 news coverage articles, reports, and posts published during the protest, this study explores the correlation between multimedia features. The results show that news coverage of the protest exhibits an issue–attention cycle. Media stance can affect the features of protest coverages significantly. Compared with mainstream media, alternative media adopted a more positive tone in reporting the protests, including quotations from news sources and the framing devices of the protest paradigm (show, goals, public attitude, impact) in favorable terms. The result suggests the activists’ alternative media counteracted the mainstream media’s marginalization by using a form of “legitimization paradigm”.

Conservation in the News: Comparing News Coverage of Nutrient Reduction in Agricultural and Non-agricultural News Outlets in Iowa

Twelve U.S. states were tasked with developing nutrient reduction strategies to help address hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. To better understand the kinds of messages different stakeholders in these states are likely to encounter about such strategies, we conducted a content analysis focused on the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy (INRS). We examined 483 articles in two agricultural and two non-agricultural news outlets. We found that agricultural news outlets more often led with agricultural themes and more often used agricultural representatives as sources. The non-agricultural news outlets more often quoted representatives of environmental groups. News articles infrequently led with science or health themes. The volume of coverage over time in three of the four news outlets appeared followed similar issue attention cycles. Differences among the outlets may lead to differences in stakeholders’ knowledge or views about the INRS and conservation, posing challenges to consensus-building.

Issue-attention Cycles in Planning Studies

Issue-attention cycles are commonly observed in media and politics, but not in science and humanities. However, in geography and planning studies we do see how certain topics emerge and become fashionable while others slowly fade away from the academic agenda. So far, there are no models that explain the ups and downs of issues in planning research. In this paper we explore the question of how issues attract the attention of the scientific community in the field of planning. We start by reviewing respective sociology of science-literature and suggesting to supplement it with agenda setting-models. We then investigate the development of the issues “shrinking cities” and “climate change” by interpreting social and cognitive networks in both scientific discourses. On this basis we analyse, how individual researchers and scientific communities select research topics. Eventually we discuss the pros and cons of issue-attention cycles in science.

How Headline Strategies and News Sources Affect Number of User Clicks on WeChat

ABSTRACT This study used 2,623 WeChat article headlines on the Chengdu school food safety event and employed quantitative content analysis to explore the dynamic relationship of headline strategy (i.e., headline style and headline frame) and news source with user clicks at distinct phases of the issue–attention cycle. The results first revealed that various types of headline styles affect the number of user clicks based on the issue–attention phase, but no single type dominates public attention at any phase. Second, reader attention could be attracted using the information with the singleton detection mode. However, the feature search mode could filter official-oriented discourse. Third, the “treatment recommendation” headline frame, which clearly summarises the core of texts, generally lacked executability and had a poor effect on audience mobilisation. Fourth, readers depended on certain media channels under low-choice media environment, and information issued by administrative sources was not widely spread because of the limitation on their functions and specific targets. Finally, news from traditional mainstream media, online communities, and independent sources were more click-attractive news than the news from other sources, thus demonstrating a complementary relationship between official reports and social media discourses.

Media Systems and Attention Cycles: Volume and Topics of News Coverage on COVID-19 in the United States and China

We examined initial newspaper coverage of the COVID-19 outbreak (January–May 2020) in the United States and China, countries with contrasting media systems and pandemic experiences. We join the context-rich media systems literature and the longitudinal nature of the issue-attention literature to expand each by providing more system-level context for explaining how media cover an issue over time. U.S. coverage peaked later and stayed consistently high, while Chinese coverage was more variable. The most prominent topics in Chinese coverage were related to domestic outbreak response, while U.S. coverage focused on politics, highlighting how issue-attention cycles differ across countries.

Social Media Insights During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Infodemiology Study Using Big Data.

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic is still undergoing complicated developments in Vietnam and around the world. There is a lot of information about the COVID-19 pandemic, especially on the internet where people can create and share information quickly. This can lead to an infodemic, which is a challenge every government might face in the fight against pandemics.ObjectiveThis study aims to understand public attention toward the pandemic (from December 2019 to November 2020) through 7 types of sources: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, blogs, news sites, forums, and e-commerce sites.MethodsWe collected and analyzed nearly 38 million pieces of text data from the aforementioned sources via SocialHeat, a social listening (infoveillance) platform developed by YouNet Group. We described not only public attention volume trends, discussion sentiments, top sources, top posts that gained the most public attention, and hot keyword frequency but also hot keywords’ co-occurrence as visualized by the VOSviewer software tool.ResultsIn this study, we reached four main conclusions. First, based on changing discussion trends regarding the COVID-19 subject, 7 periods were identified based on events that can be aggregated into two pandemic waves in Vietnam. Second, community pages on Facebook were the source of the most engagement from the public. However, the sources with the highest average interaction efficiency per article were government sources. Third, people’s attitudes when discussing the pandemic have changed from negative to positive emotions. Fourth, the type of content that attracts the most interactions from people varies from time to time. Besides that, the issue-attention cycle theory occurred not only once but four times during the COVID-19 pandemic in Vietnam.ConclusionsOur study shows that online resources can help the government quickly identify public attention to public health messages during times of crisis. We also determined the hot spots that most interested the public and public attention communication patterns, which can help the government get practical information to make more effective policy reactions to help prevent the spread of the pandemic.

Agroforestry-Based Ecosystem Services: Reconciling Values of Humans and Nature in Sustainable Development

Agroforestry as active area of multi-, inter-, and transdisciplinary research aims to bridge several artificial divides that have respectable historical roots but hinder progress toward sustainable development goals. These include: (1) The segregation of “forestry trees” and “agricultural crops”, ignoring the continuity in functional properties and functions; the farm-scale “Agroforestry-1” concept seeks to reconnect perennial and annual, woody and nonwoody plants across the forest–agriculture divide to markets for inputs and outputs. (2) The identification of agriculture with provisioning services and the assumed monopoly of forests on other ecosystem services (including hydrology, carbon storage, biodiversity conservation) in the landscape, challenged by the opportunity of “integrated” solutions at landscape scale as the “Agroforestry-2” concept explores. (3) The gaps among local knowledge of farmers/agroforesters as landscape managers, the contributions of social and ecological sciences, the path-dependency of forestry, environmental or agricultural institutions, and emerging policy responses to “issue attention cycles” in the public debate, as is the focus of the “Agroforestry-3” concept. Progress in understanding social–ecological–economic systems at the practitioners–science–policy interface requires that both instrumental and relational values of nature are appreciated, as they complement critical steps in progressing issue cycles at the three scales. A set of hypotheses can guide further research.

Understanding the new post-COVID-19 risk scenario: Outlooks and challenges for a new era of tourism.

This paper explores the new travel risk scenario by analysing travel risk perception during the pandemic and proposes measures to improve traveller confidence based on the issue-attention cycle. The study was conducted during two stages of the pandemic. During the initial stage, travellers' decision-making process was studied to learn why travellers chose to maintain or cancel travel plans and what variables influenced their travel risk perception. An online survey was conducted with data collected from 1075 travellers residing in 46 countries (52 nationalities). The second stage of the study started at the beginning of de-escalation in Europe. A qualitative study was conducted in which 28 international hospitality experts were interviewed. They were asked about specific measures to encourage tourism from a global perspective. The results help tourism authorities and companies better understand tourist behaviour and provide concrete measures for restarting tourism.

Issue analysis on sexual violence case in sport field reported in the press: Spline function model and text mining application

Purpose The purpose of this study is to analyze issues of sexual violence case in sports field reported in the press by using spline function model and text mining. In specific, spline function model is used to measure social interest level based on issue attention cycle theory and figure out the flow of issues by applying text mining. Methods Study material is 2,660 news articles reported from January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2019 and press DB(Big Kinds) of Korea Press Foundation is used to collect study material. Results Social interest level on sexual violence case in sports field is dramatically increased due to disclosure of Sim player starting from Me Too movement started from the culture and art world. Because of this, as structural problem in sports field arises, social interest level comes to a climax, and then it was founded that the government’s countermeasures establishment and special audits by the Ministry of Education were in progress. From the perspective of the issue attention cycle, it has the stages of latent-occurrence-rising-decision-decay-disappearance, but the period from rising to declining is short, so it corresponds to a breaking issue attention cycle. Conclusion This study examines the progress of sexual violence case in sports field from rising to disappearance in the perspective of the issue attention cycle. With this incident, the world of sports is establishing sports ethics center and proceeding policies such as Basic Sports Act, and the future studies need to review the effectiveness of this policy.

COVID-19 Discourse on Twitter in Four Asian Countries: Case Study of Risk Communication.

BackgroundCOVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2, has led to a global pandemic. The World Health Organization has also declared an infodemic (ie, a plethora of information regarding COVID-19 containing both false and accurate information circulated on the internet). Hence, it has become critical to test the veracity of information shared online and analyze the evolution of discussed topics among citizens related to the pandemic.ObjectiveThis research analyzes the public discourse on COVID-19. It characterizes risk communication patterns in four Asian countries with outbreaks at varying degrees of severity: South Korea, Iran, Vietnam, and India.MethodsWe collected tweets on COVID-19 from four Asian countries in the early phase of the disease outbreak from January to March 2020. The data set was collected by relevant keywords in each language, as suggested by locals. We present a method to automatically extract a time–topic cohesive relationship in an unsupervised fashion based on natural language processing. The extracted topics were evaluated qualitatively based on their semantic meanings.ResultsThis research found that each government’s official phases of the epidemic were not well aligned with the degree of public attention represented by the daily tweet counts. Inspired by the issue-attention cycle theory, the presented natural language processing model can identify meaningful transition phases in the discussed topics among citizens. The analysis revealed an inverse relationship between the tweet count and topic diversity.ConclusionsThis paper compares similarities and differences of pandemic-related social media discourse in Asian countries. We observed multiple prominent peaks in the daily tweet counts across all countries, indicating multiple issue-attention cycles. Our analysis identified which topics the public concentrated on; some of these topics were related to misinformation and hate speech. These findings and the ability to quickly identify key topics can empower global efforts to fight against an infodemic during a pandemic.

Misinformation During the COVID-19 Outbreak in China: Cultural, Social and Political Entanglements.

Not only did COVID-19 give rise to a global pandemic, but also it resulted in an infodemic comprising misinformation, rumor, and propaganda. The consequences of this infodemic can erode public trust, impede the containment of the virus, and outlive the pandemic itself. The evolving and fragmented media landscape, particularly the extensive use of social media, is a crucial driver of the spread of misinformation. Focusing on the Chinese social media Weibo, we collected four million tweets, from December 9, 2019, to April 4, 2020, examining misinformation identified by the fact-checking platform Tencent-a leading Chinese tech giant. Our results show that the evolution of misinformation follows an issue-attention cycle pertaining to topics such as city lockdown, cures and preventive measures, school reopening, and foreign countries. Sensational and emotionally reassuring misinformation characterizes the whole issue-attention cycle, with misinformation on cures and prevention flooding social media. We also study the evolution of sentiment and observe that positive sentiment dominated over the course of Covid, which may be due to the unique characteristic of "positive energy" on Chinese social media. Lastly, we study the media landscape during Covid via a case study on a controversial unproven cure known as Shuanghuanglian, which testifies to the importance of scientific communication in a plague. Our findings shed light on the distinct characteristics of misinformation and its cultural, social, and political implications, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study also offers insights into combating misinformation in China and across the world at large.

A Preclinical Medical School Curriculum on Firearm Violence to Develop Patient Counseling and Foundational Health Policy Skills

ABSTRACT Background Firearm violence is a unique public health crisis in the USA (US). A majority of U.S. physicians believe they should discuss firearm safety with patients. However, little education on firearm injury prevention and counseling exists in medical school. We sought to address this gap by creating a curriculum on firearm violence as a part of a required preclinical medical school course focused on health policy issues. Methods The Kerns 6-step model for curriculum development was used to define the problem and assess learner needs. The two-hour small group session was co-authored by a student and faculty member to address the course theme of health policy as applied to firearm violence. The Issue-Attention Cycle, history of firearm policy, and US politics were incorporated from published literature, with a patient counseling role-play added in 2019. Results The ‘Current Case in Health Policy – Firearm Violence’ small group was implemented in 2018 and 2019 for all first-year medical students. Of the 2018 student evaluations, 57% selected this small group as the most valuable in the course. In a follow-up survey in 2020, 78% of the respondents agreed that they felt more confident counseling patients on firearm safety following the role-play. Conclusion Students broadly endorsed the incorporation of firearm policy and counseling skills into medical education. This curriculum can be adapted for learners at all stages of training, especially given the limited exposure to this topic in medical education.

Crowdlending in Asia: Lessons from Its Chequered History

Abstract Background: Crowdlending is increasingly popular among investors as a means of alternative investment or for raising capital. This platform emerged in Asia in 2009, with China being one of the earliest countries to introduce crowdlending. Since its inception over a decade ago, the industry has grown significantly; yet multiple unresolved issues remain. Method: Using computer-assisted textual analysis and content analysis, our study examined articles from representative online newspapers in Asian countries to understand crowdlending diffusion in Asia, both within China and outside China. Results: Using the issue-attention cycle and the diffusion of innovation (DOI) theory, our analysis of news excerpts relating to crowdlending over a ten-year period (2009-2019) showed that crowdlending diffusion took two different paths. In China, it started with the practical use of crowdlending, with government regulations introduced after numerous problems emerged. In contrast, outside China, the rules were enacted simultaneously with IT artifact and practice. Furthermore, in connecting the DOI theory with an IT-based regulatory system, we demonstrated the usefulness this approach in explaining how DOI can inform IT sensemaking and rulemaking, which can help crowdlending practitioners remove potential impediments from crowdlending practices. Lastly, media coverage on crowdlending practices was found to have offered multiple perspectives, which could have had an impact on public opinion and attitude towards the new technology. Conclusion: Our study’s chief contribution lies in showing how media facilitates crowdlending diffusion. In painting a broad picture of crowdlending in Asia, we show that media can help the public, practitioners, and governments to be aware of the crowdlending platform’s potential risks and to find ways to mitigate them. Knowing about crowdlending diffusion can help authorities in Asian countries consider more effective ways of regulating the industry. Hence, media as a contextual factor could be considered in other innovation research and IT-based regulation frameworks.

ROLE OF PAKISTANI PRINT MEDIA IN PROMOTING CLEAN AND GREEN PAKISTAN CAMPAIGN

The aim of the research is to inspect the role of Pakistani Print Media (Daily Jang, Nawa-i-Waqt, Dawn and The News) in promoting Clean and Green Pakistan Campaign during selected time period from February to April in 2019. A sample of Total 356 newspapers was used in which 112 newspapers were taken from the month of February, 124 newspapers from the month of March and 120 newspapers from the month of April. The research was based on the Issue Attention Cycle by ‘Anthony Downs’. In this analysis, in the perspective of news and advertisements published in the selected newspapers, Chi-Square test was applied for two hypothesis testing, the test showed insignificant results for H1 and significant results for H2.
 Keywords: Print Media, Clean and Green Pakistan Campaign, Image Building