Journalism 614: Communication and Public Opinion
Download
Report
Transcript Journalism 614: Communication and Public Opinion
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 &
Shaw’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