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Agenda-Setting:Studying the Process
Source:Agenda-Setting, James W. Dearing, Everett M.Rogers (1996)
Student: Irina Tacu, 389490
Making News, ZUR350
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1. This chapter critiques pastresearch on the agenda-
setting process;
suggests directions for future works;
identifies ways of combining research
methods to increase the reliability ofobservations and to allow the study ofnewaspects of the agenda-setting process.
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2. Agenda-Setting: the Concept
It explains: why information about only certain issues
is available to the public,
how public opinion is shapedin a democracy.
It is a result of a dynamic interplay(different issues rise and fall in importanceover time) => the study of agenda-settingis the study ofsocialchange and ofsocialstability.
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3. Comparisons Among Agenda-
Setting Approaches Agenda-setting has attracted a huge
amount of research attention; it is animproved approach to understanding media
effects.
Cross-sectional hierarchy designs
VS
Longitudinal research designs
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4.Cross-Sectional Hierarchy
One-point-in-time correlationalcomparisons between:
the media contentand
the aggregated responses from therespondents surveyed about issue
salience*
*salience = the state of being noticeable, visible, important.
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5.Longitudinal Research
Over-time participant observation inmedia organizations;
Analysis of quantitative variables(real-world indicators);
Depth interviews with elites, surveysof public leaders;
Analyses of congressional votingbehaviour.
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6. Advantages ofLongitudinal
over Cross-Sectional Research It can determine the direction of influence of the
agenda-setting process: whethermedia coverageprecedes and influences the public opinion orvice-versa.
It can determine the strength of influence for differentissues in media.
It can distinguish between periods of time with either
strong or weak media effects.
Therefore, it enables the analysis of media effects atdifferent points in the history of a certain issue.
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7. Generalizations about
Agenda-Setting1) Overa certain period of time, different
media place a similar salience on a set ofissues it is not important what themedia say about an issue, but how muchthey say about it.
2) Real-world indicators are relativelyunimportant in setting the media agenda
what seems to count more is the attentionthat organized networks of people cangather related to their framing of aproblem, rather than the severity of it.
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3) The agenda-setting process is one ofsocial
construction; clues from the media andthe environment are interpreted in order todetermine the salience of the issue agenda-setting is sometimes an emotionalreaction to certain trigger events (tragicevent, personal tragedy).
4) The White House, the New York Times andspectacular triggerevents play a dominant
role in putting an issue on the US mediaagenda nevertheless, these are notalways sufficient.
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Tragic events triggering further
media pieces
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5) Scientificresearchresults do not play an
importantrole in the agenda-settingprocess.
6) The position of an issue on the media
agenda importantly determines the issuessalience on thepublic agenda 60% ofthe 112 empirical studies of the agenda-setting process reviewed by this bookconfirm this relationship, but only in this
direction; there is less strong researchevidence on the vice-versa link: does the
public agenda influence the policy agenda?
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7.Toward Disaggregation in
Agenda-Setting Research The term aggregation refers to the
existence of a single approach to acentral research problem.
A powerful paradigm in any scientificspecialty can be dangerous, leading
to the over-standardization of thespecialty and keeping it away fromdevelopment.
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In the case of agenda-setting
research, it may have become overlystereotyped around the McCombs andShaw paradigm, according to whichthe public opinion and policy are
manufactured in a linear, one-dimensional, assembly-line way.
Criticism of this paradigm: it just tells
people what data to collect withoutexplaining their importance.
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An important move toward disaggregation: theErbring et al. study(1980):
The researchers gathered personal interview datafrom a national sample of respondents (publicagenda) and correlated it with the media agenda,which was content-analyzed. The respondents hadactually read the concerned 94 newspapers.
The researchers measured crime and unemploymentrates in the communities of the respondents; nonationwide real-world indicators were used.
The tendency to disaggregate consists in bringing thepersonal characteristics of the respondents to theanalysis.
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8. Research Questions for
Future Study Who else puts an issue on the national agenda?
(influence between nations)
What keeps an issue on the national agenda over alengthy period of time?(Why does and issue dropdown the agenda and disappear?)
What is the nature of theprivate process ofagenda-setting that often may occurprior to the
public process that scholars typically observe?(treuse of case studies, participant observation, depthinterviews etc.)
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What is the role of an issue proponent in the agenda-setting process?(charisma, celebrity)
Do the proponents responsible for the policy agenda-setting of one issue learn from prior experiences withthe agenda-setting process for other issues?
How is an issue framed, by whom, and with whatregularity?
To what degree is the agenda-setting process for anissue in the localcommunity similar to whathappenson a national scale for the same issue?
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What is the end of the agenda-setting process?(Usually, a goal of the agenda-setting process isindividual-level behaviour change: smoking cessation,
recycling etc.)
Why are some issues notresolved?(homelessness inthe US)
How does one issue compete for salience with anotherissue?
Is the media agenda-setting process limited to newsissues?(maybe entertainment and advertising should
be given a role)
How is the agenda-setting process in other nationsdifferent from the one in the US?
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9. Multimethod Research
Designs systematic inquiries that combine several
different data-gathering methods.
Complementary multimethodapproach: each method provides dataabout different but related researchquestions;
Focused multimethod approach: eachmethod provides different data in a strongtest of the same hypothesis or researchquestion.