The Agenda Setting Journal - Volume 2, Issue 2, 2018

50 years have passed since the seminal 1968 election study was conducted in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. A conference was held with formative theorists Drs. Shaw, Weaver and McCombs. Presentations clustered into 9 clear areas. First, there were areas undergoing theoretical expansion: (1) agenda building, (2) Network Agenda Setting (NAS), (3) Need For Orientation (NFO), and (4) agendamelding. Beyond the established areas, (5) new theoretical directions were proposed. Other work tested and validated the theory in the current digital and political landscape. This included work on (6) the current U.S. political climate, and (7) agenda setting in unique international conditions. Methodological boundaries were pushed, with presentations focused on (8) qualitative agenda setting and (9) best practices for big data and on social media. This article summarizes the aforementioned themes and synthesizes comments raised in discussion at the conference.

This study is a mixed-method quantitative and qualitative content analysis that examined the overlapping presence of agendamelding theory and in-group out-group formation on the social media platform Reddit. The study looked at the top 10 posts for one month (n = 310) on the pro-Donald Trump subreddit /r/The_Donald. The results show that media choice was used to prove membership to the in-group, often by derogating the media used by the out-group. Specific patterns emerged within the derogative language as well. Links to left-wing and neutral news media sites were often commented on and criticized, while the content of the linked news article was ignored or changed. Right-wing news media sites, which were used as news sources rather than commentary, were typically posted without changes, unlike neutral news media sites, which were often posted in a mocking manner. As agendamelding suggests, participants sought to avoid dissonance by posting media to fit within the community.

Reddit communities focused on Christianity demonstrate significant resistance to mainstream news media attribute agendas on Christianity and Christians. This computerized content analysis of five years of news coverage and survey responses from 113 Redditors found digital community members soundly rejected mainstream news attribute agendas. Data point to the strength and independence of digital communities to meld and define their own agendas and rhetoric while affirming both a need for orientation and previous research establishing limited agenda-setting effects regarding religion.

This study explicates the concept of news media agendamelding. While only one-quarter of U.S. adults are on Twitter, it remains a popular platform among news media and political elites who often still set the public agenda for political discourse. Twitter provides insights into the issues that are at the top of the media and policy agendas, as well as how social media might influence the way journalists approach political issues. At the same time, there is concern about the influence of social media on political polarization. This study uses a specific set of influential Twitter users to examine one main question: Were there differences between right, left, and center political media reactions during the 2016 presidential debates? This study provides further evidence that there is, in fact, a conservative political Twitter media agenda that exists separately from liberal or nonpartisan media outlets.

One prominent competitor to press influence on the public in digital spaces is the President of the United States. This presidential influence is largely unaccounted for, however, in contemporary agenda-setting models. This study examines the network agenda-building and setting capabilities of President Trump around tax reform and North Korea to determine whether and how presidential use of Twitter facilitates agenda building and disrupts the traditional press/public agenda-setting process. Offered in this research are contributions to network agenda setting by placing this theoretical perspective in conversation with research on how the press and public “echo” the language of the president under particular circumstances. Our results illustrate the president can disrupt press-public agenda formation in some circumstances, but popular accounts of the all-disrupting influence President Trump has on political life should be approached cautiously.