Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
Important Elements of (International)
Agenda Setting
Dr. Jeffrey Wimmer
Institute of Media, Communication & Information
University of Bremen, Germany
Jeffrey Wimmer
Outlook
 Basic elements of the theory
 Example: Africa in the media coverage
 Discussion and Conclusions
Agenda Setting
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
What effect does the media have on your behavior (as a
Journalist) and on the audience in general?
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
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
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
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.
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
Chapel Hill (Mc Combs/Shaw 1972)
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.
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
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)
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
Basic elements of the theory
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
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
Basic elements of the theory
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.
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
Basic elements of the theory
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
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
Priming
• Bringing some issues to the foreground, sending oters
to the back
• Important Question is: How do journalists select the
news?
Framing
• How do Journalists tell the story?
• Example: Management makes „offers“ while labor
unions make „demands“
• Framing is inevitable, but should be used cautiously
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
Pro
• 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.
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
Contra
• 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.
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
Who sets the agenda for the agenda setters?
• major news editors or “gatekeepers”
• politicians and their spin doctors
• public relations professionals
• “Interest aggregations”
Jeffrey Wimmer
Example Africa
Agenda Setting
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
Foreign news in German Media 1995
Wilke 1998: 51
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
Media coverage 1979 (1) compared to 1995 (2)
Wilke 1998: 53
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
Factors determing the ‚African agenda‘
Public Relations:
Stereotypes?
Journalism:
Information as a
commodity?
Adequate
Agenda?
News Agencies:
Top priority are cost
and profit?
Audience:
Ignorance?
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
100
90
Priority (Angaben in Prozent)
80
75,8
Prozente
70
60
50
40
30
20,2
20
10
0,6
3,5
0
very high
high
low
Platzierung
N= 1272 Artikel
very low
Prozente
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
100
90
80
70
60
46,8
50 42,2
37,8
40
30
20,7 24 17,5 17,2 17,4
17,1
20
3,4 3 3,8
10
0
Gesamt
2001
Topics (%)
5,1 3,9 6,3
Nachrichtenthemen
N= 1272 Artikel
1991
7,4
12,2
2,4
4 2,6 5,4
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
Focus on special african countries
1991
2001
Crossnational focus
3,7
8,4
Angola
8,9
1,7
Äthiopien
20,9
3,7
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
N= 1574 Nennungen
Somalia
13,9
2,0
Basis: 48 Länder
Uganda
1,4
4,2
Mali
3,1
0,2
Burundi
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
Speakers in the coverage
activ
100
preventiv
passive
90
80
Prozente
70
65,7
62,2
60
50,6
49,4
47,5
50
36,1
40
48,7
31,7
30
20
10
1,6
0
2,6
3,8
0
African Individuals European Individuals African Institutions
N= 1140 Nennungen
European
Institutions
Jeffrey Wimmer
Negativity of the coverage
10,2% of the coverage is positive
20,8% is neutral/ambivalent
69% is negative
Agenda Setting
Jeffrey Wimmer
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)
Agenda Setting
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
Next Steps
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.
Jeffrey Wimmer
Practical Uses – Media Tenor
Agenda Setting
Jeffrey Wimmer
Practical Uses - Advertising
Agenda Setting
Jeffrey Wimmer
Practical Uses – Advertising
Agenda Setting
Jeffrey Wimmer
Mediatization
Agenda Setting
Due to the expansion of mass media supply citizen‘s exposure to
mass media has increased considerably
600
Minutes per day
500
400
300
200
100
0
1970 1974 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
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
Jeffrey Wimmer
New Media
Agenda Setting
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.
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)
Jeffrey Wimmer
Adaption
Candidates adapt their behavior to the television medium:
Televised debate during the German campaign of 2005
Agenda Setting
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
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)
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
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)
Jeffrey Wimmer
Agenda Setting
Thank you very much and see you
soon!