The primary focus of this study is to conceptualize and to develop a series of empirical models testing various mechanisms that might explain how a public information campaign and the resulting media coverage led to changes in the level of importance the public ascribes to air quality. The expressed purpose of the public information campaign was to focus attention on the issue of air quality and to change: (1) the publics perception of the importance of air quality; (2) attitudes about the social problem; and (3) specific behaviors, such as single occupancy driving. The issue advocates also sought to focus media attention on air quality, with the expectation that media coverage about the social problem would influence public concern. Therefore, public concern may change in response to the issue advocacy or the media coverage. In each paper of this manuscript, a mechanism or moderator that may account for changes in issue importance was hypothesized. The first paper, entitled The Mechanism of Transference: Projection and Conformity in the Agenda-Setting Process, tests two competing theories (projection and conformity) that may mediate the relationship between media coverage and public concern. The second paper, entitled Testing the Homogeneity Assumption of Public Opinion, tests two competing theories (heterogeneity and homogeneity) that may moderate the relationship between media coverage and public concern. Finally, the third paper, entitled Talk Back: The Impact of Social Communications on Media Coverage and Issue Importance, tests the importance of a mechanism that permits a feedback loop from the public to the media, through social communications. In all cases, the mechanism or moderator was hypothesized at the aggregate or mass level, but the findings shed light on where researchers should look for individual-level effects.

Abstract This study examines the television drama ¡§Taiwan Pili Fire¡¨ produced by SET TV¡¦s Taiwan Channel, and the process in which the nation¡¦s three major newspapers ¡V China Times, United Daily News, and Liberty Times ¡V set out to report it, from the time it began on June 22 of 2002 to the three months after it ended on July 22 of 2003, and construct the media issue, the Pili Fire phenomenon. SET TV¡¦s drama ¡§Taiwan Pili Fire¡¨, which went on air in June of last year, aired a total of 285 episodes. In less than a year, its rating surged five folds from 2.5 to 13.5. It not only defeated the 8 o¡¦clock dramas of the four wireless television stations, it also broke the 8 o¡¦clock ratings record of recent years ¡V coming in second behind the rating record of 14 held by FTV¡¦s ¡§Dragon Flight¡¨ ¡V to become the second longest running 8 o¡¦clock drama in television history. As a result, it prompted this attempt to examine the process of how the media reported and constructed the entire frenzy surrounding the show. The goal was to examine, through the construction process of the Pili Fire issue, whether the media is the main force behind why a show, which began with a poor rating, expanded into a social phenomenon and explore the role the media played in the building of the show¡¦s success. Initially, the show ¡§Taiwan Pili Fire¡¨ began as a simple news event about its plot development and actors. Later, the Government Information Office penalized the show for its plot of spilling dog blood. However, the show not only reached the highest 200-episode record in Taiwan¡¦s television history, but its rating continued to climb higher. Eventually, the show became a controversial social education issue. Newspaper coverage played an important role and displayed the power of the media. The intense coverage built up the issue and created the Pili Fire hysteria in society. As study samples, this study looked at a total of 266 Pili Fire related articles from three newspapers ¡V ¡§China Times¡¨, ¡§United Daily News¡¨, and ¡§Liberty Times¡¨ ¡V from the period when the show began on June 19 of 2002 to Dec. 31 of 2003. The content analysis method was used to examine the connection between the source of show information and the media issue in order to explore the complete construction process of the show¡¦s popularity. This study discovered that the media frenzy constructed through different sources (including SET TV, academic experts, and the viewers) of information was already a given fact. Through the process of building the issue, it was apparent that an initially unimportant news event could be turned into a noteworthy social incident that roused morale and popular opinion. Without the media coverage, the Pili Fire series was merely an ordinary television show promoting its beginning that would surely cease when it was through. Without the media coverage of viewers¡¦ response and the opinions of sociology experts, other Pili Fire resulted social phenomenon would not have occurred. On the other hand, this transfer of power also influenced the nation¡¦s television shows, which in the past only placed importance on ratings. Viewers¡¦ feedback on the shows could now dictate television-programming decisions. The plot, of course, was an important factor behind the popularity of the drama, Taiwan Pili Fire. However, without the strong media presence, the Pili Fire issue would not have spread. Overall, through the development of the Pili Fire hysteria, this study allowed us to understand the role that the media played. Aside from a better understanding of the process and the result of news production, we also grasped the relationship between the media frenzy created by the Pili Fire show and fad. We also hope that it can serve as a reference for the future development of other television programs.

This study utilized content analysis of newspaper articles in the month following Hurricane Ike's landfall to evaluate the presence of agenda setting and framing. Three national newspapers were analyzed to determine the existence and order of news frames. The results indicate that Semetko and Valkenburg's (2000) news frames changed in order of importance in this study. The order of news frames varied among the three national newspapers. The newspaper with mostly human interest frames was determined to be more sensational than the other two, more serious newspapers with predominantly responsibility frames. This study then compared the five ordered frames to previous framing research on Hurricane Katrina. The two hurricanes differed greatly in amount of news coverage and varied slightly in the order of the news frames. An evaluation of news coverage of major U.S. events occurring in the month after Hurricane Ike was conducted, with results indicating that news attention of the hurricane was hindered by other major national events.

Democracy is best described as a struggle over competing ideals and values. One of the most important places where this struggle takes place is in the electoral arena. My dissertation examines the struggle between candidates and their respective messages in this arena. Focusing on fourteen Senate races from 1998 and 2000, I examine, in depth, how the struggle over competing ideals takes place (or in some cases, does not take place) and whether some candidates are more successful than others at navigating their message through the political environment to voters. This study examines the impact of candidate skills and resources as well as state characteristics on the strategies candidates employ when emphasizing campaign issues. In addition, my dissertation focuses on the impact interest group advertising has on the candidates’ campaign dialogue and analyzes media coverage in Senate races by comparing each candidate’s core message to the campaign information transmitted by the media to voters. The analysis presented here reveals that candidates employ both multi-dimensional and unidimensional strategies. State party competition appears to offer the most plausible explanation for the variation in strategy across the states. Competition, rather than encouraging a multi-dimensional campaign strategy, appears to promote convergence towards the median voter and a unidimensional strategy. Furthermore, this study suggests that candidates face a number of obstacles in trying to transmit their campaign message to voters. In addition to struggling against their opponent, candidates have to struggle against both interest groups and the media to get their message to the electorate. Just under one-half of the advertisements interest groups ran were successful at interjecting issues into the campaign debate. Furthermore, in over seventy percent of the Senate races included in this study, the media emphasized issues other than what the candidates were focusing on. While this may have the positive benefit of infusing more issues into the debate, it may also blur the lines of accountability—particularly if candidates have no intention of acting on issues emphasized exclusively by the media.

Zugl.: München, Univ., Diss., 2009

When setting the agenda for policy change, does the president convince Congress to pay attention to an issue or vise versa? Does the level of influence vary by chamber in Congress? Scholars of American political institutions have long struggled over questions regarding the directionality of agenda setting influence. This paper examines presidential and congressional action on Social Security from 1946 to 2008 to see if one branch has a significant effect on the other in regard to placing an issue on the institutional agenda. Additionally, this paper considers how the two houses of Congress may differ at the agenda setting stage on an issue. Using Vector Autoregression, I test the directionality of agenda setting influence in a social policy area to get a better picture of agenda setting dynamics. / text

Submitted by Fabio Sobreira Campos da Costa (fabio.sobreira@ufpe.br) on 2017-08-01T14:44:54Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) Dissertação CORRETA 2- com-ficha-catalográfica-e-ata-de-aprovação (1).pdf: 912058 bytes, checksum: e60327bb0a3e4e49e0bbb19c4d7f2696 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-01T14:44:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) Dissertação CORRETA 2- com-ficha-catalográfica-e-ata-de-aprovação (1).pdf: 912058 bytes, checksum: e60327bb0a3e4e49e0bbb19c4d7f2696 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-09-15 / A partir da Constituição de 1988, novas experiências de descentralização política desencadeadas pelos municípios, a exemplo da institucionalização de conselhos gestores de políticas públicas, entre outras iniciativas, foram apontadas como relevantes fatores para democratização do Estado e da sociedade, assim como para o enfrentamento da exclusão social no Brasil pós-regime autoritário. Novos arranjos institucionais são incorporados com a multiplicação de atores e arenas de decisão coletiva. Embora reconhecidas as limitações de ordem estrutural e política do país pós-regime militar, é possível observar alguns avanços a partir das novas institucionalidades de gestão partilhada. Entre eles a priorização dos direitos sociais na agenda pública e a inclusão de atores sociais, historicamente excluídos, no debate destas políticas. No entanto, buscamos identificar, aqui, a partir da análise comparativa das agendas (pautas) de dois Conselhos Municipais de Saúde: o das cidades de Paulista e Olinda, durante o período de quatro anos (a partir de 2010 ao final de 2013, início de 2014) e à luz dos estudos sobre Agenda Setting dentro do campo das Políticas Públicas, em que medida tais incentivos da legislação teriam produzido, nas realidades locais, instituições que correspondessem, de fato, às intenções de participação previstas na norma. Quais seriam os fatores a implicar tanto na ampliação quanto na restrição ao debate nesses espaços deliberativos? O manuseio da pauta por diferentes agentes, de diferentes setores, implicaria no debate e na participação democrática dentro das instâncias colegiadas? / Since the Constitution of 1988, new experiences of political decentralization triggered by municipalities, such as the institutionalization of management boards of public policy, among other initiatives, have been identified as relevant factors for democratization of state and society, as well as to confront the social exclusion in Brazil post-authoritarian regime. New institutional arrangements are incorporated with the multiplication of actors and arenas of collective decision. Although recognized the limitations of structural and post-military regime country's politics, you can see some progress from the new institutions of shared management. Including the prioritization of social rights on the public agenda and the inclusion of social actors, historically excluded, the discussion of these policies. However, we seek to identify, here, from the comparative analysis of the agendas (guidelines) of two Municipal Health Councils: the cities of Paulista and Olinda, during the four-year period (from 2010 to the end of 2013, beginning Of 2014) and in the light of the studies on Agenda Setting within the field of Public Policy, to what extent such incentives of legislation would have produced, in local realities, institutions that corresponded to the intentions of participation foreseen in the norm. What are the factors that imply both the expansion and the restriction of debate in these deliberative spaces? Would the handling of the agenda by different agents from different sectors imply debate and democratic participation within the collegiate?

Policymakers need a wide array of information for multiple purposes. Acquiring information often is costly, so it is assumed that incentives must be provided to overcome these costs and stimulate information gathering. It is further assumed that increasing the number of actors engaged in acquiring information creates free-rider problems. In 2007 the U.S. House of Representatives created a select committee to address energy and environment issues, but did not give that committee legislative authority. The new committee could not compete with others for the ability to write or amend legislation, so its presence should not have changed the standing committee’s information gathering patterns. In fact, committees did alter their hearing patterns in response to the select committee’s work. Information has jurisdictional and reputational value to policymakers in addition to the incentives it can help them obtain, and policymakers will act to acquire information even without explicit incentives to do so. / text

The main aim of this thesis is to examine the agenda setting effects of Twitter users by exploring the use of hashtag #UgandaDecides and the retweet (RT) activity during the 2016 presidential election. I do this by applying the first level agenda setting theory which holds that the news media sets the public agenda. I apply a qualitative analysis using #UgandaDecides as a unit of analysis to collect tweets that received the most retweets to establish the actors tweeting during the study period. I conduct content analysis to establish the key issues/topics that received the most attention as per their level of frequency and prominence received through their retweet activity. Results in this thesis show that different actors were involved in determining the topics/issues on the twitter public agenda during the 2016 Uganda presidential election. For the pre-election period, the news media set the agenda by influencing the topics/issues for discussion as seen by the number of the retweets from their tweets. However, on Election Day, the public mainly ordinary citizens were more active in determining what topics/issues were discussed on Twitter, manifesting signs of reverse agenda setting. In this thesis, I thus conclude that Twitter can be empowering as it provides a space for ordinary citizens to participate in political discourse and that in a restrictive media environment, both media and public can use twitter as a participatory platform. The aspects of reversed agenda setting shown in this study are indicative of the changing media environment and how new power relations between different actors calls for the revision of the traditional agenda setting theory that the news media sets the public agenda.

With regards to the potential severity of increased antibiotic resistance around the world it is puzzling that the global response to this issue has not been more comprehensive. In this thesis I will examine the political frames on ABR formulated by the global network ReAct in an attempt to understand why this is the case. The frames of an issue, that is how it is described politically in different ways, are crucial for agenda-setting. Moreover, framing is an important part of the work of transnational advocacy networks. Since the acknowledgement of an issue in terms of agenda-setting is an important part of a global response, the frames of transnational advocacy networks make up the focus of this thesis. My findings suggests that the existence of multiple frames on ABR to some extent helps us understand the lacking response to ABR. The construction of the frames in terms of causality, and inparticular a general vagueness in terms of responsibility, is however the main finding.