The Agenda Setting Journal - Volume 5, Issue 2, 2021

This essay examines the notion of personal salience, introducing individual online media users as ‘objects’ in the context of agenda setting theory. The salience of the self has been investigated by scholars in various interdisciplinary explorations. In this project, the notion of personal salience is revisited from an agendamelding perspective. Along with political and civic agendas of individuals that meld in online community environments, individuals promote themselves as agendas that deserve public attention. Examining personal agendas raises new questions about perceptional and behavioral influences as ordinary individuals strive to establish their mediated presence.

This article studies the efficiency of different samples for content analysis of news in media effects studies by comparing the agenda-setting effect of a classic sample with the effect of a sample drawn based on audiences’ self-reported media habits. Contrary to the belief that exposure to sampled media content is necessary for observation of media effects, samples drawn based on overall readership/viewership of the media are more efficient than samples based on audiences’ actual consumption habits. A traditional media sample yields a stronger agenda-setting effect compared to a sample drawn based on self-reported media habits. But correlations between the two media samples are also strong. The findings suggest that a broad intermedia agenda-setting process makes it possible for researchers to draw a traditional sample that is representative of the issues salient to audiences regardless of their level of exposure to the sampled media. In other words, even in a demassified media environment, traditional samples are still the best option for media effects researchers.

A survey of American adults was combined with a content analysis of traditional and social media sources to test the agendamelding theory. Correlation analyses indicated strong agenda-setting effects for both traditional and social media. A regression analysis indicated, among other things, that younger audiences and Democrats give more weight to social media than traditional media while Republicans generally allow their personal preferences to impact their agenda. The findings support the agendamelding theory.

The QAnon conspiracy blends ancient and malleable anti-Semitic bigotry with modern social media. Attribute intermedia agenda setting has rarely considered conspiracy theories. Conspiracies like QAnon are not fact-based and challenge conventional agenda setting methodologies. This study explores attribute IAS among national, regional, and local media coverage of QAnon-supporting congressional candidates in Georgia and Colorado in 2020. It introduces notions of rational and irrational agenda setting domains to fully analyze the transfer of irrational attributes across diverse media agendas.

This study investigates the effects of the two leading prime ministerial candidates’ personal Facebook and Twitter accounts and the effects of exposure to the general social media and web discourse in Hebrew on voters’ agendas during Israel’s April 2019 election. All the posts that appeared on the contenders’ accounts at a point in time in each of the four pre-election campaign weeks were analyzed to identify prominent issues. Social media and web content in Hebrew were also analysed over the same period. The data was compared with 2,217 responses to questionnaires completed on the four dates. The questionnaires also surveyed voters’ political orientations and the likelihood of their following the candidates’ accounts. The results revealed a significant correlation between contenders’ and voters’ agendas. However, significant differences were identified in agendas between those respondents who followed both leading candidates, those who followed a single candidate, and those who followed neither.

In an effort to understand the legislative agenda setting impacts of social media content, the present study analyzes political discourse on Twitter regarding the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Using a Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic model to dissect the Twitter conversation aimed at Representative Karen Bass, the sponsor of the H.R.7120, in the weeks leading up to the bill’s filing, our analysis of nearly 68,000 tweets posted in the days before the bill’s filing reveals that constituents strongly urged the Representative to work on legislation targeted on police reform – offering evidence of how constituents demanded, and drove, legislative action. Considering our findings, we argue that there is considerable potential for social media to serve as an amplifier of social issues and concerns among constituents. Through this process, we posit that social media can prove to be a vital catalyst in social justice reform.