Influence Dealers: A Path Analysis Model of Agenda Building during Richard Nixon's War on Drugs

Abstract

This agenda-building study employed a path analysis model to examine the three-way relationship among the public, the media, and the president on the issue of drug abuse during the Nixon administration. The path model also measured the extent to which these actors were influenced by real-world conditions about the number of drug-related arrests in the United States. Past studies have suggested a cyclical relationship should exist among the president, the press, and the public. This study, however, found a linear relationship with issues moving first, from real world to the media and the public, then from the media to the public, and finally from the public to the president.

The same old story? Continuity and change in Swedish print media constructions of cannabis

“…While it has been suggested that the relationship between media, political leaders and the public is complex (Gonzenbach, 1992;Hill, Oliver & Marion, 2012;Johnson et al, 1996;Snyder & Nadorff, 2010), several studies have shown that media attention can play an integral role in influencing drug policies (Beckett, 1994;Forsyth, 2012;McArthur, 1999;Olsson, 2008). Lancaster, Hughes, Spicer, Matthew-Simmons, and Dillon (2011) write more specifically that media coverage of illicit drug issues can lead to multifarious effects on drug policy, perceptions of users and public opinion.…”

Public Relations Theory: Past, Present and Future

“…Scholars have come to view the development of agenda building as a series of interrelated processes or stages (Zoch & Molleda 2006). For example, Johnson et al (1996) explain that the collective and reciprocal agenda-building process means that the press, the public, and public of-ficials influence one another and at the same time are influenced by one another. Zoch and Molleda conclude that framing is a tool that the practitioner can use to participate in the process of media agenda building.…”

Crime in Televised Presidential Campaign Ads: The Making of Visual Metaphor

“…Differentiators draw on symbolic imagery and rhetoric. For example, in reviewing campaign ads from 1952-1996, Sherr (1999 found that children were symbolically used to represent vulnerability on the one hand and amorality on the other, as stand-ins for an idyllic national past and a prosperous national future. Such symbols served to portray (i.e., brand) the candidate as protector, moral leader, and guide into a new era.…”

“…1968 saw the rise of the Southern Strategy, an attempt by Republicans to capture White Southern Democratic voters by exploiting their anxieties about the Civil Rights Movement and racializing crime (Beckett 1998;Mendelberg 2001). The Nixon administration ramped up the war on drugs, particularly starting with a June 1971 speech, and took that issue on the 1972 campaign trail (Johnson et al 1996). The 1988 campaign came on the heels of Reagan's war on drugs, the final throes of the Cold War, and a climb in violent crime (Mendelberg 1997).…”