Important Elements of (International) Agenda Setting Dr. Jeffrey Wimmer

Jeffrey Wimmer Agenda Setting

Important Elements of (International) Agenda Setting

Dr. Jeffrey WimmerInstitute of Media, Communication & InformationUniversity of Bremen, Germany


Basic elements of the theory

Example: Africa in the media coverage

Discussion and Conclusions

Outlook


What effect does the media have on your behavior (as a Journalist) and on the audience in general?


Journalists should have the sensitivity to be "asking people early on in the campaign what issues are you concerned about and then pushing the candidates to talk about these issues. Most journalists are message producers. They are not communicators."Max McCombs


McCombs (1997) defines what the agenda-setting role of the news media should be: 1. Professional Detachment: Agenda setting is not the goal of the news media but it is the "inadvertent by product" of news coverage. The media do not deliberately set the agenda and do not determine the pro and con of a particular issue. 2. Targeted Involvement: As a special institution, news media actively move the issues onto the public agenda 3. Boosterism: News media should become the forerunners of the issues that are important to the public. 4. A Point of Transition: News media must take a more active role in planning the overall community agenda through what is called public journalism.


Goal: The study wanted to measure the relationship between the pattern of news coverage of 1968 presidential election and the key issues of the campaign that the public perceived as important. The study asked 100 undecided voters to outline and rank issues as they saw them; the study simultaneously analyzed the contents of five newspapers, two newsmagazines and two television evening news that run from September 12 through October 6. The contents were divided into 15 categories and were differentiated into a major or a minor category.

Chapel Hill (Mc Combs/Shaw 1972)


Results: Major news media much more interested in reporting the analysis of the campaign of each candidate rather than the debate of the political issues. Furthermore, mass media influenced the voter’s assessment of what they thought as the major issues of the campaign. These undecided voters agreed more in the topics that closely paralleled to those in the media than to those about their own party or candidate preference. (The correlation between the media and voter’s perception were 0.967 on major news items and 0.979 on minor news items)

Chapel Hill (Mc Combs/Shaw 1972)


The first level of agenda setting is the selection of object or issue for attention ("what to think about" or the transfer of salience).• Media coverage can create prominence for issues & people• Media tell people what to think about – but not what to think• Three possible effects

• Awareness model

• Salience model

• Priorities model



Society responds to the pseudo environment created by media, creating the perception of what the environment around them is. Agenda-setting establishes the salient issues or images in the minds of the public.

Agenda setting occurs because the press is responsible for what we as the audience are allowed to hear. In order for an agenda to be set, there is a three-part linear process that must occur.

First, the media agenda must be set; next, the public agenda is created; then, finally, in response, the policy makers/political leaders must make a policy agenda. In the simplest model, the media agenda directly affects the public agenda which directly affects the policy agenda.




Second level agenda setting is the selection of attributes for thinking (“how to think about”), Attributes are the characteristics and properties that detail the images of each object and issue

• Media tell people how to think about• Priming = Focusing on certain issues• Framing = Interpretation of stories


• Bringing some issues to the foreground, sending oters to the back• Important Question is: How do journalists select the news?

Priming

Framing

• How do Journalists tell the story?• Example: Management makes „offers“ while labor unions make „demands“• Framing is inevitable, but should be used cautiously


• It has explanitory power because it explains why most people prioritize the same issues as important. • It has predictive power because it predicts that if people are exposed to the same media, they will feel the same issues are important. • It is parsimonious because it isn’t complex, and it is easy to understand. • It can be proven false. If people aren’t exposed to the same media, they won’t feel the same issues are important. • It’s meta-theoretical assumptions are balanced on the scientific side • It is a springboard for further research •It has organizing power because it helps organize existing knowledge of media effects.

Pro


• Media users may be as ideal as the theory assumes. People may not be well-informed, deeply engaged in public affairs, thoughtful and skeptical. Instead, they pay casual and intermittent attention to public affairs, often ignorant of the details. • For people who have made up their minds, the effect is weakened. • News cannot create and conceal problems. The effect can merely alter the awareness, priorities and salience people attached to a set of problems.

Contra


• major news editors or “gatekeepers”• politicians and their spin doctors• public relations professionals• “Interest aggregations”

Who sets the agenda for the agenda setters?


Example Africa


Foreign news in German Media 1995

Wilke 1998: 51


Wilke 1998: 53

Media coverage 1979 (1) compared to 1995 (2)


Public Relations:Stereotypes?

AdequateAgenda?

News Agencies:Top priority are cost

and profit?

Journalism:Information as a

commodity?

Audience: Ignorance?

Factors determing the ‚African agenda‘


Priority (Angaben in Prozent)

0,6 3,5

20,2

75,8

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

very high high low very low

Platzierung

Prozente

N= 1272 Artikel


Topics (%)42,2

20,7 17,2

3,4 5,1 7,4 4

46,8

2417,4

3 3,9 2,4 2,6

37,8

17,5 17,1

3,8 6,312,2

5,4

0102030405060708090

100

Konfli

kt

Politik

Katas

trophen

Gesell

schaf

t

Wirt

schaf

t

Ethik

/Mor

al

Sonsti

ges

Nachrichtenthemen

Prozente

Gesamt 1991 2001

N= 1272 Artikel


N= 1574 Nennungen

Basis: 48 Länder

1991 2001

Crossnational focus 3,7 8,4

Angola 8,9 1,7

Äthiopien 20,9 3,7

Burundi 0 2,4

Elfenbeinküste 0,6 2,0

Kenia 5,2 5,8

Kongo 0,6 11,0

Eritrea 0,1 7,2

Ruanda 2,5 5,3

Simbabwe 1,7 4,4

Somalia 13,9 2,0

Uganda 1,4 4,2

Mali 3,1 0,2

Focus on special african countries


Speakers in the coverage

62,2

50,6

65,7

47,5

36,1

49,4

31,7

48,7

1,6 0 2,6 3,8

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

African Individuals European Individuals African Institutions EuropeanInstitutions

Prozente

activ passive preventiv

N= 1140 Nennungen


Negativity of the coverage 10,2% of the coverage is positive 20,8% is neutral/ambivalent 69% is negative


Sources 31,3% media correspondent 16,6% media at home 47,9% news agency 3,6% different sources 0,6% other sources

(N=1272 Artikel)


The theory has been circulating for the past 30 years and it will be circulating for many more years. The agenda setting will not only focus on the idea of media but it will expand to a new domain. The second-level of agenda setting (salience of attributes) has contributed a lot to the study beyond cognitive effects to behavioral effects. The growing studies on intermedia influence and media framing are some examples of the continuation of agenda setting theory.

Next Steps


Practical Uses – Media Tenor


Practical Uses - Advertising


Practical Uses – Advertising


0

100

200

300

400

500

600

1970 1974 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005

Min

ute

s p

er d

ay

Due to the expansion of mass media supply citizen‘s exposure to mass media has increased considerably

Exposure to newspapers, radio, TV, Internet on an average day, German citizens aged 14 and over;

source: Best/Engel, in Media Perspektiven 1/2007, Tab. 1

Mediatization


Source: Rainie/Cornfield/Horrigan (2005): The Internet and campaign 2004. Pew Internet & American Life Project. March 2005. http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_2004_Campaign.pdf (1. Mai 2006)

32 million people traded emails with jokes in them about the candidates.

31 million went online to find out how candidates were doing in opinion polls.

25 million used the internet to check the accuracy of claims made by or about the candidates.

19 million watched video clips about the candidates or the election.

17 million sent emails about the campaign to groups of family members or friends as part of listservs or discussion groups.

16 million people checked out endorsements or candidate ratings on the Websites of political organizations.

14 million signed up for email newsletters or other online alerts to get the latest news about politics.

7 million signed up to receive email from the presidential campaigns.

4 million signed up online for campaign volunteer activities such as helping to organize a rally, register voters, or get people to the polls on Election Day.

New Media


Candidates adapt their behavior to the television medium: Televised debate during the German campaign of 2005

Adaption


Last word from the North

„Entwicklungsländer werden aufgrund der vorherrschenden Modi der Nachrichtenselektion in einem Ausmaß mit negativen Nachrichten über ihre

eigenen Länder konfrontiert, die die westlichen Staaten in einer ähnlichen Entwicklungsphase kaum

hingenommen hätten.“ (Kepplinger 1994)


Last word from the South

„Wenn Sie drei Monate lang darauf verzichten, Lügen über uns zu verbreiten,

sind wir bereit, drei Monate lang die Wahrheit über Sie zu verschweigen.“

(Meshgena 1995)


Thank you very much and see you soon!

Important Elements of (International) Agenda Setting Dr. Jeffrey Wimmer

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