E. E. Schattschneider,

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donley Studlar
Keyword(s):  
Policy Process ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Essential Dimension ◽  
Competition For Space ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Media ◽  
Democracy In America

E. E. Schattschneider’s short book,The Semi-Sovereign People: A Realist’s View of Democracy in America(1960), is an analysis of the functioning of US democracy, especially the struggle between “privatization” and “socialization” of issues as well as the competition for space on a crowded political agenda. Its major contribution was to develop the concept of agenda-setting, the “conflict of conflicts,” as an essential dimension of the policy process. Intended as a “defense of parties” manifesto against the then-popular group theories of politics, Schattschneider’s book was part of the elitist–pluralist debate in its time as well as leading to a variety of later, more empirical studies on various dimensions of the policy process. Schattschneider’s ideas have inspired many subsequent studies on agenda-setting, both in the US and abroad. This chapter examines the longer-term impact of these ideas as well as the book’s shortcomings, such as lack of attention to the media.

The Media Agenda

2019 ◽  
pp. 271-281
Author(s):  
Rens Vliegenthart ◽  
Stefaan Walgrave
Keyword(s):  
Agenda Setting ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
International Context ◽  
Vast Amount ◽  
Media Agenda ◽  
The Media ◽  
Western European ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Research Studies

This chapter discusses what role the media agenda has played in (comparative) agenda research. Studies into the characteristics of the media agenda demonstrate that, compared to other agendas, the media agenda is characterized by high levels of responsiveness and volatility and that various outlets that jointly constitute the agenda strongly influence each other. In recent years, a vast amount of research has considered the impact of the media agenda on the parliamentary agenda (political agenda-setting) and how the size of this impact depends on a wide variety of contingent factors. Our empirical example uncovers considerable overlap in media agendas across various Western European countries, reflecting the importance of the international context in the construction of news.

scholarly journals Using the president’s tweets to understand political diversion in the age of social media

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan Lewandowsky ◽  
Michael Jetter ◽  
Ullrich K. H. Ecker
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
New York Times ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The Media ◽  
Increased Activity

Abstract Social media has arguably shifted political agenda-setting power away from mainstream media onto politicians. Current U.S. President Trump’s reliance on Twitter is unprecedented, but the underlying implications for agenda setting are poorly understood. Using the president as a case study, we present evidence suggesting that President Trump’s use of Twitter diverts crucial media (The New York Times and ABC News) from topics that are potentially harmful to him. We find that increased media coverage of the Mueller investigation is immediately followed by Trump tweeting increasingly about unrelated issues. This increased activity, in turn, is followed by a reduction in coverage of the Mueller investigation—a finding that is consistent with the hypothesis that President Trump’s tweets may also successfully divert the media from topics that he considers threatening. The pattern is absent in placebo analyses involving Brexit coverage and several other topics that do not present a political risk to the president. Our results are robust to the inclusion of numerous control variables and examination of several alternative explanations, although the generality of the successful diversion must be established by further investigation.

Political Agenda Setting and the Mass Media

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefaan Walgrave ◽  
Peter Van Aelst
Keyword(s):  
Mass Media ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Mass Media ◽  
The Individual

Recently, the number of studies examining whether media coverage has an effect on the political agenda has been growing strongly. Most studies found that preceding media coverage does exert an effect on the subsequent attention for issues by political actors. These effects are contingent, though, they depend on the type of issue and the type of political actor one is dealing with. Most extant work has drawn on aggregate time-series designs, and the field is as good as fully non-comparative. To further develop our knowledge about how and why the mass media exert influence on the political agenda, three ways forward are suggested. First, we need better theory about why political actors would adopt media issues and start devoting attention to them. The core of such a theory should be the notion of the applicability of information encapsulated in the media coverage to the goals and the task at hand of the political actors. Media information has a number of features that make it very attractive for political actors to use—it is often negative, for instance. Second, we plead for a disaggregation of the level of analysis from the institutional level (e.g., parliament) or the collective actor level (e.g., party) to the individual level (e.g., members of parliament). Since individuals process media information, and since the goals and tasks of individuals that trigger the applicability mechanism are diverse, the best way to move forward is to tackle the agenda setting puzzle at the individual level. This implies surveying individual elites or, even better, implementing experimental designs to individual elite actors. Third, the field is in dire need of comparative work comparing how political actors respond to media coverage across countries or political systems.

scholarly journals Political Agenda Setting in the Hybrid Media System: Why Legacy Media Still Matter a Great Deal

2020 ◽  
pp. 194016122092502 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Ines Langer ◽  
Johannes B. Gruber
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
News Media ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Investigative Journalism ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Media System ◽  
Hybrid Dynamics ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Government

This article examines the roles of the media in the process of political agenda setting. There is a long tradition of studies on this topic, but they have mostly focused on legacy news media, thus overlooking the role of other actors and the complex hybrid dynamics that characterize contemporary political communication. In contrast, through an in-depth case study using mixed-methods and multiplatform data, this article provides a detailed analysis of the roles and interactions between different types of media and how they were used by political and advocacy elites. It explores what happened in the different parts of the system, and thus the paths to attention that led to setting this issue in the political and media agendas. The analysis of the case, a partial policy reversal in the United Kingdom provoked by an immigration scandal known as the “Windrush scandal” reveals that the issue was pushed into the agenda by a campaign assemblage of investigative journalism, political and advocacy elites, and digitally enabled leaders. The legacy news media came late but were crucial. They greatly amplified the salience of the issue and, once in “storm mode,” they were key for sustaining attention and pressure, eventually compelling the government to respond. It shows that they often remain at the core of the “national conversation” and certainly in the eye of a media storm. In the contemporary context, characterized by fierce battles for attention, shortening attention spans and fractured audiences, this is key and has important implications for agenda setting and beyond.

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.

The Mass Media and the Policy Process

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annelise Russell ◽  
Maraam Dwidar ◽  
Bryan D. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Mass Media ◽  
Policy Process ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Mass Public ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Mass Media

Scholars across politics and communication have wrangled with questions aimed at better understanding issue salience and attention. For media scholars, they found that mass attention across issues was a function the news media’s power to set the nation’s agenda by focusing attention on a few key public issues. Policy scholars often ignored the media’s role in their effort to understand how and why issues make it onto a limited political agenda. What we have is two disparate definitions describing, on the one hand, media effects on individuals’ issue priorities, and on the other, how the dynamics of attention perpetuate across the political system. We are left with two notions of agenda setting developed independently of one another to describe media and political systems that are anything but independent of one another. The collective effects of the media on our formal institutions and the mass public are ripe for further, collaborative research. Communications scholars have long understood the agenda setting potential of the news media, but have neglected to extend that understanding beyond its effects on mass public. The link between public opinion and policy is “awesome” and scholarship would benefit from exploring the implications for policy, media, and public opinion. Both policy and communication studies would benefit from a broadened perspective of media influence. Political communication should consider the role of the mass media beyond just the formation of public opinion. The media as an institution is not effectively captured in a linear model of information signaling because the public agenda cannot be complete without an understanding of the policymaking agenda and the role of political elites. And policy scholars can no longer describe policy process without considering the media as a source of disproportionate allocation of attention and information. The positive and negative feedback cycles that spark or stabilize the political system are intimately connected to policy frames and signals produced by the media.

scholarly journals Agenda Setting, Religion and New Media: The Chabad Case Study

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tsuriel Rashi ◽  
Maxwell McCombs
Keyword(s):  
New Media ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Communication Strategy ◽  
Communication Media ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
List Type ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Media

Theoretically grounded in agenda setting, a theory focused on the transfer of influence from communication media to a public, this paper examines the media activity of Chabad, an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish movement that is committed both to making Judaism generally accessible and to influencing public discourse. Rabbi M. M. Schneerson, the movement’s late wise and charismatic leader, undertook this dual mission in light of his conception of the theological grounds for the exploitation of mass media. Our examination of Chabad’s agenda-setting communication strategy was guided by two research questions: What is the range of communication media used by Chabad in an effort to achieve its goal? What evidence is there regarding the agenda-setting success of these communication efforts? Although it is obviously difficult to judge the precise degree of success, it is clear that Chabad is involved in a wide range of media and public activity and has already influenced public discourse well beyond the range of the movement itself and of the Jewish religion. The answer to the two questions above will help us understand the various movements that try to influence the agenda on religious grounds, so that we can determine the interface between religion and setting the agenda. It may also assist the efforts of other religious groups that want to influence the media and the political agenda.

How Politicians’ Attitudes and Goals Moderate Political Agenda Setting by the Media

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 431-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alon Zoizner ◽  
Tamir Sheafer ◽  
Stefaan Walgrave
Keyword(s):  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
The Media

scholarly journals How the news media set the agenda

2004 ◽  
pp. 217-223
Author(s):  
Maxwell McCombs ◽  
Iris Chyi ◽  
Spiro Kiousis
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media Agenda ◽  
The Media ◽  
Setting Theory ◽  
News Event

The agenda-setting role of the news media is a powerful influence on what we pay attention to and how we understand the vast world of public affairs that lies beyond our personal experience. Subsequent to the seminal Chapel Hill study in 1972, agenda setting theory has expanded beyond the influence of the news media on the public to elaborate the broader process of agenda setting. The scope of the theory now extends from the elements that shape the media agenda to the consequences of agenda-setting effects for attitudes and opinions. This article presents the results of two empirical studies recently published in the United States that further elaborate this process. One explicates how the press shifts its spotlight from one aspect to another of a major news event to build the prominence of that event on the media agenda. The second explicates the implications of prominence on the media agenda for the public’s attitudes and opinions about public figures.

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