Second-level Agenda Research Articles

Sun Exposure and Skin Cancer: An Examination of Communications for Prevention on Instagram in a High-Risk Context

Young people are increasingly affected by skin cancer in industrialized countries around the world, such as Spain, in Europe. The incidence of skin cancer is expected to continue to increase in the coming years if adequatephotoprotection habits are not implemented. Social media have been previously studied as a tool with great potential for skin cancer awareness and prevention in the young population (Falzone et al., 2017), so it is necessary to know and deepen the communication in these media to contribute to prevention. This paper explores these aspects in the context of the high prevalence of skin cancer in Spain. It aims to analyze the content of strategic communication of primary prevention or photoprevention disseminated on Instagram –the social media most used by young people (IAB Spain, 2023)– through the agenda-setting theory and the health belief model. As a result of the analysis of publications issued during the prevention campaign season in 2022, data were obtained regarding the first-level agenda, with a prevalence of content on photoprotection (40.9%), and the second-level agenda, with a majority framing focused on the causes of skin cancer (58.1%). Likewise, the publications showed a low frequency of the health belief model elements related toskin cancer prevention, except for the action signal (49.5%).

Failure or Reasonable Move?: Portrayal of American Pullout from Afghanistan in Russian and American International Media

This study examined competing narratives about the actions of the United States abroad through an analysis of 314 news items of the 2021 American withdrawal from Afghanistan by two media organizations: Russian Sputnik and American Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The textual analysis revealed five dominant themes in Sputnik: Americans as losers and Taliban as winners, Americans as incompetent, Americans as unreliable, insensitive, and irresponsible, Americans as duplicitous, and Americans as a threat to world peace; and four dominant themes in RFE/RL: The Taliban taking over the country quickly, Americans successfully leading the evacuations, Americans having good faith and defending the decision to pull out, and Americans as naïve and lacking good judgment. The findings are interpreted in light of the image theory and second-level agenda setting theory.

News Frames and News Exposure Predicting Flu Vaccination Uptake: Evidence from U.S. Newspapers, 2011–2018 Using Computational Methods

ABSTRACT Flu remains a prevalent public health issue and the flu vaccine uptake remains low. This study examined the behavioral consequences of first- and second-level agenda setting by testing the effects of exposure to flu-related news coverage and different frames on flu vaccine uptake, while controlling for confounding sociodemographic factors, utilizing computational methods. Findings suggested that the media effects on children and adult influenza vaccine uptake differed. The frame of influenza caused deaths/illnesses stories was the only media frame that positively predicted flu vaccine uptake among children. Four frames, including influenza caused deaths/illnesses stories, flu prevention tips, things to know about flu vaccine, and public accountability positively predicted flu vaccine uptake among adults. Exposure rate negatively predicted flu vaccine uptake among adults. A few sociodemographic factors impacted flu vaccine uptake. Results also revealed the most and least exposed frames and state exposure rates to flu-related news stories.

Measuring public opinion formation

AbstractFor the past 50 years since the seminal agenda-setting study, scholars have continued to make strides in understanding the importance mass communication plays in public opinion formation. Although scholars have measured both first- and second-level agenda setting often using open-ended response, more close-ended measures might assist in measuring the theory, adding to the rich data. This experimental study directly compared open-ended responses shown to gauge an agenda-setting effect with close-ended responses to enhance the assessment of both first- and second-level agenda setting. The findings identified close-ended scales, including news salience, social salience, personal salience, and feelings salience, that add to the precision of measuring the salience of issues and attributes, indicating we have alternative measures to gauge agenda setting.

A utilitarian view: A content analysis of agenda-setting effects within popular news coverage of the mobile phone

The mobile phone has changed the human–mobile device relationship, which has given rise to a controversy regarding the neutrality of technological devices. This study seeks to understand how news media portray mobile phone devices using second-level agenda setting that extends the model to the public perception of mobile devices. Conducting a content analysis (N = 630) of two major U.S. newspapers covering the years 1991 to 2015, this study discovered that news articles primarily communicated mobile phones as neutral tools.

First and Second Level Intermedia Agenda-Setting between International Newspapers and Twitter during the Coverage of the 266th Papal Election

This article’s main purpose is to understand whether the intermedia agenda-setting effect occurs between the online versions of international newspapers and Twitter during the Papal election in 2013. The researchers have tracked each available country’s trending topics on Twitter to understand the popularity of the subject in various countries. The researchers then followed each country available on Twitter at the time when the study was conducted, starting right after the announcement of the new Pope at the Sistine Chapel in Vatican on 12 March 2013 till 15 March 2013 for four days and collected all available data. Later, the researchers collected data from the websites of international newspapers, The New York Times, The Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Wall Street Journal. Two computer-based content analysis were conducted. In order to understand the relationship amongst these media entities, the cross-lagged panel design with the Rozelle-Campbell (1969) baseline was used. In the end, researchers examined the second level agenda setting effect between media by looking into what was said about the Papal election – positive, negative, or neutral. The results supported both first and second-level agenda setting influence between media.

Techniques of Strategic Political Communication: The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s Persuasive Devices

ABSTRACTThis research analyzes the entire range of Arabic language communiqués issued by the Muslim Brotherhood from July 2013–July 2017 in order to show how political Islamist movements utilize persuasive techniques to advance their strategic communication campaigns and achieve their political goals. Using agenda-setting as a theoretical framework and the seven devices developed by the Institute for Propaganda Analysis (IPA) in the late 1930s as a deductive tool, this article demonstrates that the Brotherhood’s communication strategy strongly aligned with the seven devices developed by the IPA: more than one technique was identified in 97% of the movement’s communiqués analyzed. These findings indicate that persuasive techniques are being used by the Brotherhood as strategic communication devices to serve the goals of 1) discrediting the current military regime; 2) winning the hearts and minds of Egyptians; and, 3) establishing themselves as a legitimate political actor. This case study advances second-level agenda setting theory by suggesting that the IPA’s persuasive techniques reveal the specific mechanisms through which the Brotherhood seek to achieve their communication goals. By raising awareness of these techniques as a critical means of setting the Brotherhood’s agenda, this article also seeks to empower domestic and regional audiences consuming these messages.

Democratization or censorship?

AbstractUsing second-level agenda setting, this paper examines the coverage of Argentina’s 2009 media reform. To investigate the attributes the media used, data were collected from three national newspapers’ online publications (Clarín, La Nación, andPágina/12). Results from the analysis suggest that the newspapers used different attributes and tone based on their political leanings. Content analysis before and after selected court’s rulings on the new media law demonstrate thatLa NaciónandClaríntended to converge in the way they used attributes and tone. When the rulings went against the interests ofClarínandLa Nación, both newspapers reacted negatively, in tone and attribute, relative toPágina/12.

The Pictures in Our Heads

Most research has focused on how conventional news influenced second-level agenda setting, but more research needs to investigate how humorous news might affect attribute agenda setting, and compare those effects with conventional news. In this experiment, participants received media messages with the same information structured as either conventional news or humorous news to examine how the structure of the media message might affect second-level agenda setting. The results indicated people accepted the attributes of issues related to certain issues when it was presented as a humorous news program. However, conventional news was more successful in second-level agenda setting as compared to humorous news, meaning people accepted attributes of issues more when presented as a conventional news program.

First- and second-level agenda setting in the Twittersphere: An application to the Italian political debate

ABSTRACTThe rise of social network sites reopened the debate on the ability of traditional media to influence public opinion and act as an agenda setter. To answer this question, the present paper investigates first-level and second-level agenda-setting effects in the online environment by focusing on two heated Italian political debates (the reform of public funding of parties and the debate over austerity). By employing innovative and efficient statistical methods such as the lead–lag analysis and supervised sentiment analysis, we compare the attention devoted to each issue and the content spread by online news media and Twitter users. Our results show that online media keep their first-level agenda-setting power even though we find a marked difference between the slant of online news and the Twitter sentiment.

Strangers on a Theoretical Train

Agenda setting and community structure theories are conceptual inverses of one another that are rarely considered in tandem. This study employs DICTION 6.0 and McCombs and Funk's research design to compare news coverage of immigration and abortion over a 10-year period in national, high-demographic interest, and low-demographic interest newspapers. Although only modest support is found for inter-media, second-level agenda setting, considerable support is found for community structure effects.

Agenda-building linkages between public relations and state news media during the 2010 Florida Senate Election

Grounded in first- and second-level agenda building, this study examined the role of political public relations in contributing to the news media agenda during the 2010 Florida Senate Election involving three major candidates. The findings offered support for agenda building at both the object (issues and stakeholders) and attribute levels of salience (issue frames and candidate attributes) between candidate information subsidies and news coverage. Some marked differences were observed across the different types of information subsidies.

“Truthiness” and Second-Level Agenda Setting

This study examined the impact of satire news programs on perceptions of media credibility. Using second-level agenda setting as a theoretical framework, the results of this mixed-methods study show that negative portrayals of television news on these satire news shows make salient certain negative attributes that match viewers’ perceptions of credibility. A survey ( N = 650) found that Daily Show/ Colbert Report viewers had less positive views about the credibility of television news programs, while content analysis ( N = 401) of 4 weeks of episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report reflected the results of the survey, showing that television news programs, particularly those on cable, were more frequently portrayed negatively and made the target of jokes. The analysis shows television news is a frequent target of these satire shows’ criticisms and these shows’ negative attributes are made salient, which is reflected in the survey respondents’ low credibility scores for this medium.

Need for Orientation, Selective Exposure, and Attribute Agenda-Setting Effects

This study explores the ability of an interaction between need for orientation (NFO) and selective exposure to explain citizen's motivations to seek information from specific media sources and the consequences of this behavior for attribute agenda-setting effects. It draws important conceptual distinctions between the two moderate NFO categories, distinguishing active involvement NFO (high relevance and low uncertainty) from passive involvement NFO (low relevance and high uncertainty). The results suggest that in a political context, people with active involvement NFO are more likely to seek ideologically congruent media sources and more likely to adopt the media's attribute agenda. This study implies that at the second-level agenda setting, the salience of issue or object attributes on the media agenda is more likely to strengthen preexisting attitudes for people with high political interest and strong partisan identity.

Cultural Agenda Setting and the Role of Critics

In this study we investigate and expand agenda setting theory in the context of the market for art-house films. First, we test first and second-level agenda setting hypotheses, according to which higher media visibility and favorable media valence of a particular film are expected to have positive effects on public salience. Second, we expand agenda setting theory by adding critical valence as an important influence of public salience within cultural contexts. Our findings suggest that while higher media visibility, favorable media valence, and critical valence have positive effects on public salience, they are also independent of one another in carrying salience over to the public.

Exploring the role of the Senate Majority Leader's political public relations efforts

Grounded in first- and second-level agenda building, this study explored the role of the U.S. Senate Majority Leader in shaping the salience of issues and issue attributes in news media coverage and policymaking in 2011. A total of 358 public relations messages, 164 newspaper articles, and 83 policymaking documents were analyzed. Significant correlations were found supporting agenda-building linkages at both levels. Different types of information subsidies were explored, including press releases, blog posts, Facebook posts, and Twitter messages.

Defining Obesity: Second-Level Agenda Setting Attributes in Black Newspapers and General Audience Newspapers

This content analysis study examines how obesity is depicted in general-audience and Black newspaper stories (N=391) through the lens of second-level agenda setting theory. The results reveal that both Black newspapers and general-audience newspapers generally ascribe individual causes for obesity. While both types of newspapers largely neglected to mention solutions for the problem, Black newspapers were more likely than general-audience newspapers to suggest both individual and societal solutions for treating obesity. For Black newspapers, these solutions more often included community interventions. In addition, Black newspapers more often used a negative tone in stories and more frequently mentioned ethnic and racial minorities as at-risk groups.

The Tiger Woods Scandal in the Media: Measuring Attribute Effects on the Public

This case study examines the Tiger Woods sex scandal using second-level agenda setting and attribute priming as its theoretical structures. It approaches the case through the compelling-arguments hypothesis to explain the transfer of salience from the media agenda to the public agenda. A content analysis of print and broadcast media is employed to determine the dominance of scandal stories in general, and the “sex/adultery” attribute in particular, on the media agenda. This study also uses attribute priming to measure the presence of opinion and its direction in the public, after exposure to the scandal stories. The data that form the public agenda come from a nationally representative survey of the American public, as well as online search queries on Google.

The agenda-building function of political tweets

This article expands the scope of agenda-building research, which has traditionally focused on the ability of press releases, press conferences, and political ads to influence media coverage. In-depth interviews with political reporters and editors at US newspapers during the 2012 campaign found that tweets from political leaders are used by journalists in ways that suggest first- and second-level agenda building. Participants gave examples of how political tweets have shaped their coverage in terms of the events they cover, the sources they interview, the quotes they use, and the background information they rely on to decide how to cover an issue. In addition, political tweets that contribute the most to coverage tend to have several elements in common.

Addressing the "Medical Malady": Second-Level Agenda Setting and Public Approval of "Obamacare"

Addressing the "Medical Malady": Second-Level Agenda Setting and Public Approval of "Obamacare"