Journalism 614:Agenda Setting and Framing

Categories of Effects:

1. Agenda Setting 2. Priming 3. Cueing 4. Framing

Agenda Setting is

…the process by which problems and alternative solutions gain or lose public and elite attention.

…a fierce competition because we cannot consider every issue at once because the public’s “carrying capacity” is too small

Why is Agenda Setting Important?

E. E. Schattschneider: ‘The definition of the alternatives is the supreme instrument of power”

Control over agenda means control over outcomes

Agenda setting is therefore about getting on the agenda, and about keeping things off of it.

The Foundations of a Paradigm

Rejection of persuasion– Focus on cognitive processes

Rediscovery of powerful effects– Response against the limited effects paradigm

Interest in media--politics interface and conditions under which effects occur

Agenda Setting

Agenda-setting– “telling us what to think about” (Cohen)

– Identified with McCombs & Shaw (1972)

– Emphasis on how the media shapes public opinion concerning the relative importance of issues

– Indicators of media emphasis• Attention (frequency and length of stories)

• Placement (top story, “above the fold”)

• Content cues (headlines, photos, tone)

• Number of sources / Number of outlets

• Others?

Four Phases of Research

Nearly 300 published studies– First phase - publication of McCombs & Sha

w’s original research - coin the term– Second phase - follow-up to confirm the effect

and discover contingencies – Third phase - new domains - agenda of

candidate character and personal concerns– Fourth phase - attention to the sources of the

media agenda - inter-media effects

How Issues Reach the Agenda

Group conflict Leadership activity Protest movements Media coverage or activity Changes in indicators Political changes Crises and Focusing Events

Special Role of Focusing Events

“a rare, sudden, well-known, actually or potentially harmful event.”

– Mass Shooting, Earthquake, Govt Shutdown…

Tend to induce sudden attention to issues

Can trigger intensive group interest/activity

Focusing events can fade fast off agenda

Studying Agenda Setting

Time-order is key– Media shape public agenda?– Media follow public agenda?– Both respond to something else

• Institutional prompting• Objective reality

– Studies show that there is a time-ordered connection between media and public agenda

• Cross-lagged correlations - arbitrary time lag• More sophisticated studies improve early methods

Major Questions

Who sets the public agenda, and under what conditions is this effect likely to occur?

Who sets the media agenda, and which media direct the agenda-setting process?

Who sets the agendas of interest groups, leaders, and policy makers?

Contingent conditions Need for cognition/orientation

– Increases agenda setting through media surveillance Political involvement/interest

– Increases agenda setting through news use Issue abstraction

– More pronounced for abstract issues Personal viewpoints

– Increases when consistent with personal orientation Interpersonal discussion

– Reduces media dependence for agenda development

Setting the media agenda

Intermedia agenda setting - influence that agendas of different media have on each other

Political advertising — and political elites — drive the agenda of all news organization

National news agencies have been found to drive the agenda of local news agencies

National newspaper have been found to drive the agenda of television networks and digital outlets

Setting the elite agenda

Reciprocal causation between journalists and policy makers - both have influence

Media coverage can help shape the agenda of policy-makers– However, these effects do not appear to

ultimately affect policy making itself

Elites pay attention to the public agenda that the media helps to establish

Problems with Agenda Setting

Trouble linking evidence to key theories of society, news work, and human psychology– Often focused on aggregate level effects – shift

in issue priorities across the population – and rely on incomplete psychological explanations

– Failure to fully integrate content and effects in coherent studies of media effects

• Limited experimental evidence

Questions about Digital Media

May lessen the agenda-setting effects

– More content choice

– More control over content

– More outlets and opinions

Blogs, in particular, rely on media agenda

– This may strengthen agenda setting effects

Priming (Iyengar & Kinder)

Drawing attention to an issue can change the criteria used to evaluate political leaders– Issues high on the public agenda serve as basis

for judging the success or failure of elites– Short-term effect or long-term effect?– Priming in politics may have profound effects

• E.g., Media attention to Persian Gulf war primes positive evaluation of Bush Presidency which reversed when focus was shifted back to the economy (Krosnick)

Priming Issues

Increasing attention to effects of priming on other issues through the “spread of activation”

Encountering moral-ethical issues changes how people understand other issues they encounter– Come to understand other issues in ethical terms

Can also prime particular candidate characteristics– Focus on issues can prime judgments of competency or

integrity, depending on the issue

Second Level Agenda-Setting

Revised version of the theory Media tell us how and what to think

– Attention to particular attributes

Sounds like framing– “to frame is to select some aspects of a

perceived reality and make them more salient in a communication text” - Entman

Framing

Two broad traditions– Sociological - Outcome of news work

• The process of news production

– Psychological - Categories of the mind• The process of audience consumption

Framing and Cueing

The power of language to shape thought– Frames - broad organizing principles

• Idea used to structure a news story

• Journalistic decision

– Cues - labels and categories• Word or phrase with rhetorical value

• Contested by elites

Framing and Cueing

Episodic vs. Thematic frames Strategy vs. Policy frames Ethical vs. Material frames Individual vs. Societal frames

Pro-life vs. anti-abortion Estate tax vs. death tax Terrorists vs. insurgents

Episodic vs. Thematic

Iyengar, 1991– Media tend to present social problems in

episodic terms (individual, short-term) instead of thematic terms (collective, long-term)

– This patterns encourages audiences to attribute responsibility for solving the problem to the individual instead of the collective

Strategy vs. Policy

News coverage tends to focus on the game of politics, and the competition between players, instead of the features of policy– Particularly true during elections

Leads to audience cynicism and may contribute to the erosion of efficacy

Ethical vs. Material

News media tend to construct issues in

terms of opposing rights / moral principles,

as opposed to economics or pragmatics

Encourages simplified electoral decision

making and character attributions

Individual vs. Societal

News media tend to frame issues at the individual level, as opposed to the societal level, due to dominant news values

This frame distinction interacts with other coverage elements to influence the complexity of thought, tolerance judgments

News Norms and Frame Effects

These dominant news norm of focusing on specific episodes over broader themes, political strategy over policy, matters of principle over pragmatics, and individuals over groups all reduce citizen competence– What does this say about the work of

journalists? How might they change?

Frames and Cognitive Processing Message frames interact with:

– Audience predispositions and knowledge– Framing effects are not uniform

• Different for different people

Cognitive structures (schemas):– Constellations of knowledge used to organize

processing of new info (e.g., news stories)• Organized into associated networks of information

• Developed through past experiences, information exposure, and social interactions

Associative Networks

Networks of interrelated constructs

– Frames/cues activate mental constructs

Construct activation from interconnected network

– Spread of activation through associated nodes

Complexity of activated thoughts

– Concerned with form, as opposed to content, of memory

– Complexity as an indicator of political sophistication?

Model of Framing Effects

Source and Language Cues

Source cues - who is making the comment?– Conservative or Liberal– Black or White– Different leaders

Language cues - what labels are used?– Urban sprawl vs. Suburban development– Pro-Choice vs. Abortion Advocates– Insurgent vs. Terrorists

Powerful Cues Recast Debates

Get in Groups of three to four:– Pick a set of cues that has defined the debate

about a specific policy or product– Pick a policy debate or product category and

discuss how the cues have defined this choice

Ex. Partial Birth Abortion vs. Late Term Abortion

Frames and Cues Interact

Organizing devices and source or language cues work together to influence judgment– Tolerance judgments affected by individual frame

combined with “othering” cues

How might they work together to influence tolerance and the desire to speak out?

Get Back in Groups: Come up with an example of how a news frame and elite cue might work together to sway opinion in particular ways.– Can stick to the cue you had in mind or pick new one