scholarly journals Think Tanks and Policymaking

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hartwig Pautz
Keyword(s):  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Information Overload ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Civil Society Organizations ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Relationship

The study of think tanks brings together a range of academic disciplines and allows for multifaceted analyses, encompassing the concepts of ideas, institutions, influence, interests, and power. The literature on think tanks addresses a ubiquitous policy actor as think tanks have been around for a long time, especially in advanced liberal democracies. However, they have also become established actors in authoritarian regimes and in the developing world. Nowhere is their influence on policymaking or the public debate easy to pinpoint. The definition of a think tank has been contested ever since the study of think tanks took off in the 1980s and 1990s. Some scholars have devised typologies around organizational form and output, with a focus on whether think tanks are openly partisan or rather emphasize their political and ideological neutrality; others propose that the think tank is not so much a clearly discernible organizational entity but rather should be seen as a set of activities that can be conducted by a broad range of organizations; others again see think tanks as hybrid boundary organizations operating at the interstices of different societal fields. What most scholars will agree on is that policy expertise is think tanks’ main output, that they seek to influence policymakers and the wider public, and that they try to do so via informal and formal channels and by making use of their well-connected position in often transnational policy networks encompassing political parties, interest groups, corporations, international organizations, civil society organizations, and civil service bureaucracies. Think tanks’ main output, policy expertise either in the form of concrete proposals or “blue-skies thinking,” is underpinned by claims that it is “evidence-based.” The widely used positivist notion of “evidence-based policymaking” has been of benefit to think tanks as organizations that claim to “speak truth to power” by producing easily digestible outputs aimed at policymakers who profess to want evidence to make policy “that works.” Think tanks are active at different “moments” in the policymaking process. John Kingdon’s agenda-setting theory of the multiple streams framework helps us understand think tanks as “policy entrepreneurs” who are most likely to have influence during the moments of problem framing, the search for policy solutions, and the promotion of specific solutions to policymakers and the public. Think tank studies should take into account the relationship between the media and think tanks, and how this relationship impacts on whether think tanks succeed in agenda-setting and, thereby, influence policymaking. The relationship is symbiotic: journalists use think tanks to inform their work or welcome their contribution in the form of an opinion piece, while think tanks use the media to air their ideas. This relationship is not without problems, as some think tanks are in privileged positions with regards to media access while others barely ever cross the media threshold. Think tanks are, in the 21st century, challenged by an “epistemic crisis.” This crisis consists of a loss of faith in experts and of information pollution and information overload. This development is both a risk and an opportunity for think tanks. Concerning the latter, policymakers increasingly need curators, arbiters, or filters to help them decide which information, data, and policy expertise to use in their decision-making processes.

scholarly journals Who Leads? Who Follows? Measuring Issue Attention and Agenda Setting by Legislators and the Mass Public Using Social Media Data

2019 ◽  
Vol 113 (4) ◽  
pp. 883-901 ◽  
Author(s):  
PABLO BARBERÁ ◽  
ANDREU CASAS ◽  
JONATHAN NAGLER ◽  
PATRICK J. EGAN ◽  
RICHARD BONNEAU ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Conclusive Evidence ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Public Issues ◽  
The Public ◽  
Fine Grained ◽  
Us Congress ◽  
Issue Attention ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Relationship

Are legislators responsive to the priorities of the public? Research demonstrates a strong correspondence between the issues about which the public cares and the issues addressed by politicians, but conclusive evidence about who leads whom in setting the political agenda has yet to be uncovered. We answer this question with fine-grained temporal analyses of Twitter messages by legislators and the public during the 113th US Congress. After employing an unsupervised method that classifies tweets sent by legislators and citizens into topics, we use vector autoregression models to explore whose priorities more strongly predict the relationship between citizens and politicians. We find that legislators are more likely to follow, than to lead, discussion of public issues, results that hold even after controlling for the agenda-setting effects of the media. We also find, however, that legislators are more likely to be responsive to their supporters than to the general public.

scholarly journals Tracing Media Audience Relationship Through Agenda Setting A Study of Cable News Channels in Pakistan

2019 ◽  
Vol 03 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dr. Muhammad Riaz Raza
Keyword(s):  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Media Influence ◽  
P Value ◽  
Cable News ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media Agenda ◽  
The Media ◽  
One Year ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
National Reconciliation

The aim of this research study was to trace the relationship between media presentations and public priorities. To trace the media and public relationship for media influence on the public through agenda-setting, four issues Pak-US relations, energy crises, and national reconciliation ordinance were studied on two leading news cable channels, The Express and The Geo News Randomly selected news shows and bulletins for a period of one year have been examined to gauge the media agenda while a survey to cable television viewers of two news channels has been conducted separately to check the audience’s agenda on these issues. 156 news bulletins and the same number of prime time talk shows were analyzed through agenda-setting and framing models to gauge media agenda. Results confirmed strong connections between media’s issues salience and the audience’s issue priorities on four understudied issues. Correlations were measured from r +0.66 to r +0.90 with a p-value of less than .001. H1 and H2 have confirmed the strong media influence on the public priorities in ranking the understudied issues.

Think Tanks and Foreign Policy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuti Bhatnagar
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Policy Frames ◽  
Policy Actors ◽  
The Media ◽  
Intellectual Elites

The role of think tanks as policy actors has developed over time and created significant global scholarship. Widely understood as non-state policy actors, think tanks established either with or without the support of government have evolved in various political contexts with varied characteristics. They are avenues for the discussion of new policy ideas as well as used for the consolidation of existing understandings of global and national political issues. As ideational actors think tanks interact with policy frameworks at different levels, either in the framing stage or at the stage of consensus building towards certain policies. Intellectual elites at think tanks allow for the introduction of think tank ideas into the policy frames as well as the creation of public opinion towards foreign policy decisions. Think tank deliberations involve an interaction with policymakers, academic experts, business and social actors, as well as the media to disseminate ideas. Institutionally, think tanks in a wide variety of political contexts play a critical role in the making of foreign policy and bring closer attention to processes of state–society interactions in different political environments.

scholarly journals Media frames and public perceptions of global poverty in the UK: Is there a link?

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirjam Vossen ◽  
Lau Schulpen
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
Global Poverty ◽  
Media Frames ◽  
The Public ◽  
Governmental Organizations ◽  
Non Governmental Organizations ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract This study investigates the relationship between media frames and public perceptions of global poverty. Building on a frame analysis, the paper reconstructs prevailing poverty narratives in British news articles and non-governmental organizations’ (NGO’s) advertisements between 2011 and 2013. Following this, these narratives are compared with the narratives that emerge from public opinion studies. The findings suggest that there is a strong connection between media frames and public knowledge and perceptions of global poverty. Both the media and the public define poverty in developing countries’ terms of destitute victims, lack of development and bad governance. Both suggest that the causes of poverty are internal to developing countries and imply that there has been little progress in reducing global poverty.

scholarly journals O paradigma científico no discurso da mídia brasileira sobre Zika e microcefalia

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Juliane Lopes Ferreira dos Santos ◽  
Denise Silva Matias ◽  
Nauana Nascimento Novais
Keyword(s):  
Control Measures ◽  
Scientific Paradigm ◽  
Scientific Debate ◽  
The Public ◽  
Emergency Situations ◽  
Biological Causation ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Official Sources ◽  
The Relationship

Introduction: In 2015 Brazil was surprised by an increase in the incidence of microcephaly, related by the Ministry of Health to Zika virus infection during pregnancy. This theme, which was notorious for public health, reached wide popular repercussion through the media. Objectives: To describe the presence of the scientific paradigm in the discourse of health professionals, researchers or journalists who inform the lay public about biological causation. Methodology: All the news made available on the digital platform of the Folha de São Paulo newspaper, containing the key term "Zika and microcephalia" and published between November 11, 2015 and March 4, 2016, was performed. Scientific elucidation on the subject. The news items were classified as to the presence of certainty or uncertainty about the relationship between Zika and microcephaly in their content and the central idea in the subject titles. Results: Of the 387 reports analyzed, 51.4% related Zika as a causal factor of microcephaly, while 32.8% considered the presence of uncertainty in the relationship. It was verified that the newspaper privileged subjects related to the repercussions due to the diseases, being predominant the report of control measures. Considering the origin of the news, it was significant the use of official sources, presented in 82% of the news. Conclusion: The scientific paradigm was disregarded, ignoring the uncertainty principle and the scientific debate. The limitations of both journalists and health managers were also demonstrated in the elaboration of an effective communication with the public in emergency situations.

Agenda-Setting Theory

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxwell McCombs ◽  
Sebastián Valenzuela
Keyword(s):  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Issue Salience ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media Agenda ◽  
Core Concepts ◽  
The Media ◽  
Setting Theory ◽  
Attribute Priming ◽  
Attribute Agenda Setting

This chapter discusses contemporary directions of agenda-setting research. It reviews the basic concept of agenda setting, the transfer of salience from the media agenda to the public agenda as a key step in the formation of public opinion, the concept of need for orientation as a determinant of issue salience, the ways people learn the media agenda, attribute agenda setting, and the consequences of agenda setting that result from priming and attribute priming. Across the theoretical areas found in the agenda-setting tradition, future studies can contribute to the role of news in media effects by showing how agenda setting evolves in the new and expanding media landscape as well as continuing to refine agenda setting’s core concepts.

Achieving the Aims of Open Justice? The Relationship Between the Courts, the Media and the Public

2004 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharon Rodrick
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Foreseeable Future ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Do So

This article begins by outlining what the principle of open justice is intended to achieve. It then investigates the nature of the relationship that exists between the courts and the media, and between the media and the public, and suggests that these relationships are not always conducive to realising the aims of open justice. While the reporting role of the traditional news media will undoubtedly persist, at least for the foreseeable future, it is argued that, since courts now have the means to deliver to the public a fuller and truer picture of their work than the media can, they should seize the opportunity to do so.

Mediascape and Movement

2019 ◽  
pp. 100-122
Author(s):  
Francis L. F. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter reviews the relationship between the media and the Umbrella Movement. The mainstream media, aided by digital media outlets and platforms, play the important role of the public monitor in times of major social conflicts, even though the Hong Kong media do so in an environment where partial censorship exists. The impact of digital media in largescale protest movements is similarly multifaceted and contradictory. Digital media empower social protests by promoting oppositional discourses, facilitating mobilization, and contributing to the emergence of connective action. However, they also introduce and exacerbate forces of decentralization that present challenges to movement leaders. Meanwhile, during and after the Umbrella Movement, one can also see how the state has become more proactive in online political communication, thus trying to undermine the oppositional character of the Internet in Hong Kong.

Police, Media, and Popular Culture

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alyce McGovern ◽  
Nickie D. Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Reality Television ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Citizen Journalism ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Television Programming ◽  
The Public ◽  
Police Organizations ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Communications ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between the police and the media is complex, multidimensional, and contingent. Since the development of modern-day policing, the police and the media have interacted with one another in some way, shape, or form. The relationship has often been described as symbiotic, and can be characterized as ebbing and flowing in terms of the power dynamics that exist. For the police, the media present a powerful opportunity to communicate with the public about crime threats and events, as well as police successes. For the media, crime events make up a significant portion of media content, and access to police sources assists journalists in constructing such content. But the police–media relationship is not always cosy, and at times, tensions and conflicts arise. The increasing professionalization of police media communications activities has further challenged the nature and scope of the police–media relationship. Not only has the relationship become more formalized, driven by police policies and practices that are concerned with managing the media, but it has also been challenged by the very nature of the media. Changes to the media landscape have presented police organizations with a unique opportunity to become media organizations in their own right. The proliferation of police reality television programming, together with the rise of social media, has served to broaden the ways in which the police engage with the media in the pursuit of trust, confidence, and legitimacy; however, this has also opened the police up to increasing scrutiny as citizen journalism and other forms of counterveillance challenge the preferred police image.

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