Agenda Setting in a Digital Age: Tracking Attention to California Proposition 8 in Social Media, Online News and Conventional News

Abstract

This study compares the agenda‐setting cues of traditional media alongside those of online media in general and social media in particular. The main line of inquiry concerns (a) whether people posting content to openly accessible social media outlets may be acting in response to mainstream news coverage, possibly as a “corrective” to perceived imbalances in that coverage, or (b) whether such posts seem to have influenced professional media coverage of the issue, possibly reflecting broader opinion dynamics. We do not view these as competing hypotheses, as this relationship may run in both directions and shift at different points in the evolution of an issue. Our goal is to establish important preliminary findings by addressing these questions in the context of a particular issue that is (a) prominently covered in professional media, and (b) contentious enough to inspire individuals to “take the media into their own hands” by producing and publishing their own “coverage.” Proposition 8 in California, which amended the state constitution to define marriage as the exclusive right of opposite‐sex couples, provides this context. Our analysis focuses on the thousands of videos posted to YouTube and coverage of Proposition 8 in professional news media, tracing the relationships among them.

Agenda Trending: Reciprocity and the Predictive Capacity of Social Networking Sites in Intermedia Agenda Setting across Topics over Time

“…Altogether, there is fairly clear evidence from previous studies that the SNSs can be important intermedia agenda-setting agents, particularly because of their capacity to quickly and easily share stories and break news as it occurs [21,23,28,29]. Considering the intersection of these findings with that of previous work on focusing events [30] and live-event news [31], it seems clear that agenda setting has reached a conceptual and empirical juncture [24].…”

“…Accordingly, as Sayre and colleagues reported, "the Internet is at the center of this change, expanding the definition of news sources and news producers" [21]. Without question, the rise of the media "produser," as described by Bruns [9] has altered conceptions of where media agendas begin and end in relation to the public agenda.…”

“…Without question, the rise of the media "produser," as described by Bruns [9] has altered conceptions of where media agendas begin and end in relation to the public agenda. Considering the vast array of options for online media consumers to engage, share, and create with varying levels of commitment and intensity [22], it is clear that media agendas can now regularly intersect and cross amateur and professional boundaries [11,21,23], which introduces a reinvigorated conception of intermedia agenda setting that requires additional examination.…”

“…Particularly due to the speed with which many social media outlets such as YouTube and Twitter function, they may actually have the ability to influence the agenda of traditional news outlets" [21]. Though developing for decades, this potential is now further augmented by mobile devices that have the ability to not only immediately capture but also share breaking stories through social media [32,33].…”

The Powers that Tweet

“…Groshek and Clough Groshek maintain "that there are still fairly clear intermedia agendasetting effects of traditional media on social networking sites, but that influence is not uniform across topics or the social media channels." (Groshek and Clough Groshek 2013, 21; see also Sayre et al 2010) Even during occurrences in which the role of social media was deemed to be of immense importance, as were the events of the so-called Arab Spring, a closer look showed that routine sources prevailed in reporting (Knight 2012, 68;Bashri et al 2012) The potential of new media to set the agenda thus appears to be circumscribed by the conservative forces in journalism, be it workplace routines or the values of editors, i.e. the aspects of journalism as a profession.…”