Political Agenda Setting and Mass Media

Overview

The term "agenda setting" is a theory that postulates that the media—in this case, mass communication media—exerts a great influence upon the public, in order to determine which issues will receive more salience among the public. The term "agenda setting" was coined in 1972 by Donald Shaw and Max McCombs in their seminal publication The Agenda Setting Function of Mass Media. The latter was a study performed on political campaigns of 1968 and 1972, in which it was determined that mass media exerts an important effect on the issues considered most important by voters. In other words, the issues considered relevant by the media—the agenda—becomes the issues of importance for the public. The agenda, as such, is divided into three main components: (1) The media agenda, which establishes the issues that the media will broadcast and disseminate; (2) the public agenda, that is, the rate of significance that the public will attribute to the mediatized issues; and (3) the political agenda, that is, the information that government institutions and agencies want to share with the population (usually by way of the media). All these agendas are created and influenced, in turn, by myriad actors: the interests of media managers and producers, of policymakers and politicians, and different interest groups.

As a theory, agenda setting includes several hypotheses; one of the most common posits that the chances of a political response increase and/or an issue moves higher in the political agenda whenever that same issue is given saliency in the media agenda. In other words, whatever is salient at a given point in time in the media agenda will influence the political agenda. This phenomenon, however, is based on the traditional model of information, in which the information flows from mainstream media to opinion leaders, and from opinion leaders to their followers. Critics warn that in the contemporary media landscape, which includes social media networks, media outlets receive information from different sources and so do their publics. Nevertheless, the ability to set an agenda still grants the media a powerful role, as they can promote social consensus and influence behavior, among different groups, according to the issues they choose to promote.

In that sense, there are three ways in which the media can exert influence: (1) by establishing an issue for discussion or debate; (2) by determining an issue that will not be discussed or debated; (3) by disseminating a specific definition or reality about an issue. Empirical results of agenda setting research tend to confirm that the media, by assigning political relevance to some issues and de-emphasizing or neglecting others, are capable of influencing politics, among both the public and government entities (Thesen, 2013).

Moreover, when media outlets mediatize an issue at the expense of others, some actors will be advantaged while others will be hindered. Therefore, media depictions of social issues, and their explicit or implicit attributions of responsibility, bear an effect on the political sphere. Based on the cumulative results of agenda setting research, communications scholars argue that the media's political agenda setting is a powerful factor of political competition, and political parties and government institutions tend to react, positively or negatively, to such information. That is, the results of news selection processes influence which issues political actors take into consideration and seek solutions for.

A growing number of studies examine the effect that media coverage has on the political agenda, and they show, across the board, that the effect is also contingent on the type of political actor, the type of issue, and the type of public it is dealing with, as well as the type of media used. It is also important to note that there is not one single political agenda, just as there is not one homogeneous public. In fact, many political agendas exist at any given time. The media, as well, is more influential on some issues than on others. Nevertheless, the political agenda is at the top of political actors' priority list and it changes depending on the actor. For example, while a legislative house may have one political agenda, a presidential cabinet may have another, and political parties have their own political agenda, as well.

Political communications scholars also posit that a media political agenda is important for social movements and grassroots organizations. For these to be able to disseminate their message and have an impact, it is important to garner the attention of the media and gain as much coverage as possible. Otherwise, it will have little chance of reaching its political goals and exerting an influence on policy- and decision-makers.

There are many ways in which researchers can engage in agenda setting studies. In traditional agenda setting research, for example, researchers can assess an institution's agenda by reading through their publications, such as party manifestos, government plans, agreements, speeches, and social media posts. New factors in the social sciences include understandings of identity and social environments. Technological developments, such as the widespread fragmentation of televised and cable communication, and new media technologies, have also complicated the field.

Finally, it is important to bear in mind that the media "mediates" its influence. That is, the mass media is a vast set of outlets, technologies, and channels. The information disseminated by the media usually originated elsewhere and is sifted, selected, and organized by the various media outlets before broadcast or dissemination. The power of the media in politics resides, mainly, in its capacity to direct the attention of its audience or public to salient issues and institutions. In that sense, the role of the media is to redistribute power among a societies political actors (Thesen, 2013).

Further Insights

There is no consensus yet in agenda setting studies on some of the most salient research questions, such as, how autonomous the media is in the setting its political agenda; the extent to which sources participate in establishing the political agenda; and, how political actors establish their agenda. It is possible that even if consensus is ever reached, the dynamics and realities will continue to change along with technology, demographic, political, and social values.

Recent studies have found specific patterns and support the notion that political actors think strategically and respond strategically to current news. For example, opposition parties tend to be more reactive to media coverage than government parties, which are already in power and can often be more thoughtful and parsimonious about their reaction to news.

"Issue ownership" plays a significant role in how a political actor will respond to media coverage. Issue ownership is the extent to which voters associate specific issues with certain parties; for example, in the United States, tax cuts are traditionally associated with the Republican party and environmental issues with the Democrats. That means that these parties are perceived as having established greater competence on those issues and thus, voters see them as "owning" the topic. Therefore, according to surveys, political actors respond more strongly on mediatized issues when they are considered as owners of the issue. This provides them, as well, with the opportunity to advocate for issues in which they are interested, whereas they can gain less by focusing on issues that the other parties own. In this sense, the media is not the cause for their attention on the issue, as much as a stimulator.

Agenda setting is contingent. Recent studies in Europe found that reaction of parliament members to coverage is conditioned by how the issue is framed by news media. When the news report provides a context that matches their views on the topic, it provides a window of opportunity to promote their solutions as plausible and thus, triggers discussion on the topic. In contrast, when news media frames the issue in a context that is opposite to their views, it will hinder support for their policies and thus, it appears better to refrain from reacting.

Two studies on parliamentary questions and the media in Sweden and Spain, and the Netherlands, respectively, conducted by D. J. van der Pas (2017), found that parties' reaction to media coverage on salient issues is conditioned by how the news is framed. Political parties tend to react when the frame the media uses matches their own understanding of the issue. When media reporting provides a context in which their frame prevails, their policy solutions appear more plausible; hence, it makes sense to discuss the issue in parliament at that time. On the other hand, if political actors discuss a topic when its media coverage is contrary to their platform and framing, they will have a hard time finding support for their policies.

Other studies on the effect of media on political agendas focus on the proportion by which political adoption of issues corresponds to its mediatization. Studies support the idea of strong reactions of political actors and institutions to social events, such as protests. According to a research team conducted by Rens Vliegenthart in 2016, when media coverage of a protest increases, so does the government attention and response to the primary protest issue. Nevertheless, most scholars find that there is no proof of direct influence of protest on a government agenda. They argue that for a social movement to bring about political change, it must first attract media attention to the problem; hence, the reason for the protests. Their success is contingent on the media to dedicate attention to their issues of interest, as well. Therefore, protests do not lead directly to policy changes. Change depends on additional factors, such as the issue itself, the extent and framing of the media coverage, and the extent to which the issue gains traction among the public. Some issues are simply more attractive and will be likelier to garner attention than others.

A prime example of protests setting a political agenda occurred in 2020 following the May 2020 death of George Floyd during an arrest by Minneapolis, Minnesota, police. The African American Floyd was killed when a White police officer kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for more than nine minutes during the arrest. Floyd’s death—one of several high-profile killings of Black men during police arrests in the twenty-first century—sparked anger and protests across the United States and in other parts of the world. The incident brought the issue of systemic violence and racism against African Americans into the public consciousness and prompted several Congressional proposal for police-reform legislation.

However, while the protests resulted in some immediate action, they also served to further divide the American people along political and racial lines. African Americans and politically liberal people viewed racism as a more serious problem and became more distrustful of police, while political conservatives maintained their previous attitudes toward race and their support for police (Reny, Newman, 2021).

In the twenty-first century, the field of agenda setting went through seismic changes brought about by the rapid development of the Internet and its related technologies. Even at the end of the twentieth century, few could foresee the future development and power of online media. In fact, whereas agenda setting tended to understand the field in the context of a homogenous or scantily differentiated public, the evolution of online media accelerated the fragmentation of the public, giving rise to a multiplicity of media agendas and, in time, a deep political polarization among media users.

Moreover, the arrival of new media has continuously recast the two-step communication flow model used in traditional agenda setting. At the beginning of online media analysis, the information was reconsidered as flowing from mainstream media to opinion leaders and then, to followers. However, experts now find that social media users cluster in more fragmented fashion and that social media receives their information from many more sources than previously considered.

This fragmentation led scholars to reconsider and incorporate theories on selective perception, first posited in the 1940s, which postulate that the attention of political actors and of voters will be focused directly on those elements in the message they find congenial and supportive. It follows, then, that media users will also avoid exposure to information that fails to support or be congenial to their beliefs and expectations. In the contemporary media and political landscape, then, the capacity of individuals to engage in selective perception and to select different types of media, are factors changing the field of agenda setting studies (Aruguete, 2017).

Issues

Social media is really a multimedia environment, one which offers more interactive engagement than any other media technology. Parallel to the explosion of online media technologies has been the growing financial and systemic difficulties of conventional media. The widespread take-over of mass media industries by online media is unparalleled in the history of mass communications. The Internet offers citizens worldwide myriad alternative sources of information, which they can share in real time across the world with like-minded others. Language barriers are rapidly disappearing, as free online translation technology helps users make sense of information offered in different languages. Moreover, information is disseminated without the mediation of editors, broadcasters, journalists, and other conventional information catalogers, causing multiple agendas to proliferate.

From the standpoint of political agenda setting, then, the study of media and virtual spaces has become crucial. One of the main focuses of study, for instance, is the extent to which new virtual spaces replicate the agendas of conventional media and the extent to which they impact the opinions of the public and the decisions of policymakers. In a space as unmediated as the Internet, one question becomes salient: Who drives agenda setting?

The jury is still out, but recent studies share some preliminary findings. Some argue that news outlets, such as the online presence of established newspapers and news programs, continue to exert a strong influence. Not surprisingly, surveys have found the effect to be age-related, with older people being more prone to influence since they tend to stick to a narrower selection of media outlets for their information. The development of studies and surveys shares one finding: The idea that the public is homogenous has lost traction. On the other hand, experts find that it is possible to find homogenous groups in some specific Internet spaces.

Other changes brought upon the field of agenda setting relate to time. The Internet operates in real time—that is, there is no almost no delay in the issuing and delivering of information—and it never closes shop. Moreover, whereas older forms of technology, such as cable and television, expect a passive user, new media provides ample opportunity and incentive for interaction. According to many experts, users have become active builders of the agenda, not only as consumers but also as participants and producers. In this new medium, Marshall McLuhan's dictum that "the medium is the message" is materialized, with the opening of new spaces that break apart previous understandings of how a political agenda is created.

Some scholars argue that social media such as Twitter are a reflection of an agenda created by the public. For example, one study found strong correlations between salient issues in online versions of newspapers in Spain and the trending commentaries of Twitter users (Aruguete, 2017). Other studies conducted elsewhere have not correlated these findings, which suggests that these dynamics may be culture-bound and tied to other social factors. Also, the influence of social media does not have to be immediate; in fact, it is now analyzed as occurring throughout different stages, as it occurs through posts and conversations through time or when a text or video "goes viral." There is, however, a sort of consensus overall, that social networks have the ability, when featuring political opinion makers and leaders to spearhead a political agenda-setting process. The extent to which this may be beneficial or harmful depends upon its users' tendency to second-guess or verify the provided information, by finding pertinent data and factual information from verifiable sources.

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