An often debated and studied question is the degree to which the modern media influence and impact governmental policy-making. One major area examining these questions revolves around the agenda-setting theory of the press: that the press may not influence specific actions or policies, but does influence which policies will be placed on the public agenda for consideration. / This study examines these issues in the context of a state government policy structure, specifically examining statewide newspapers and the policy process of the Florida Legislature prior to, and during, the 1981 legislative session. The study posits that the agenda of state newspapers, by a count of stories about a specific set of issues, will correlate with the agenda rank of those same issues as expressed in questionnaire results from legislators. / Building upon the work of Drs. William Gormley, Jack Walker, McClure and Patterson, as well as Shaw and McCombs, and Caspi, the results indicate a very strong relationship between the two sets of agendas, strongly reinforcing the notion of press impact on policy development, and largely confirming the hypothesis of the study. / The study found a Spearman rho rank order correlation between legislators and newspaper content of issues of .73 (at a Confidence Level of .05). Perhaps more importantly, the study found a similar correlation of .72 between the newspaper content in the two months prior to the imposition of the questionnaire, and legislators' ranks based on those questionnaires. / The study raises significant issues regarding the relationships between policy makers and news institutions, as well as the processes and persons who gather the news about policymaking events. It also raises questions about the nature of previous agenda-setting research which heavily depended upon front page content. / The results develop a model of behavior between the institutions and actors in the media and policy/potential processes, placing greater emphasis upon the kind and type of media information, or cues, legislators receive in preparation for political and policy decisions. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-10, Section: A, page: 3415. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74951 |
| Contributors | LITZ, ERNIE TED., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 227 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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