New Avenues for the Study of Agenda Setting

Abstract

Existing literature on the agenda‐setting process is grounded and well cited in studies of U.S. national institutions, but emerging scholarship has taken the fundamental principles of agenda setting—attention, information, and learning—and has extended their applicability to understudied participants and institutions. This essay highlights three areas of study that have undergone particular growth during the last few years and best represent the trend of applying the well understood dynamics of agenda setting to a broader swath of participants in the policy process. We first examine how scholars have focused on agenda setting within U.S. state and local governments and the way these institutions balance their agenda‐setting needs internally, while still trying to be heard within a federal system. Second, we highlight policy scholars' contributions to create better definitions and measures of the relationship between the media and policy process. Finally, we explore the contributions to the broader agenda‐setting literature made by scholars examining non‐U.S. institutions. These three categories are but a part of the growing trend in the subfield to expand the scope of agenda‐setting research.

Punctuated Equilibrium and the Information Disadvantage of Authoritarianism: Evidence from the People's Republic of China

“…Institutions introduce friction against more efficient, incremental patterns of attention allocation. Without taking into account the issue of context‐specificity in operationalizing institutional friction, it is generally understood that the tendency of attention allocation to punctuate is the dynamical manifestation of minority obstruction realized in one way or another (Eissler, Russell, & Jones, ). Focusing on liberal democracies, Jones et al (, p. 167) argue that democracies may actually be purposively tuned toward “regular disruptions,” entailing processes that are punctuated by occasional “dislocations” but free from the “catastrophe.”…”

Information and Arena: The Dual Function of the News Media for Political Elites

“…Observing the media-reactive behavior of political actors, this literature strongly suggests that politicians derive information from media coverage and that they profit from the momentum generated by the information to use it in their work. When the media address an issue, politics follows suit and politicians increasingly start to talk about it (Eissler, Russell, & Jones, 2014;Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2006). This literature, falling under the header of "political agenda-setting and the media," has showed that the media affect the political agenda in many countries, both in majoritarian and in proportional democracies (e.g., Bonafont & Baumgartner, 2013;Edwards & Wood, 1999;Soroka, 2002;Van Noije, Oegema, & Kleinnijenhuis, 2008;Walgrave, Soroka, & Nuytemans, 2008).…”

The 2015 Public Policy Yearbook: Tracking Research in Public Policy

“…We aim to cycle review articles within each substantive area listed in the Yearbook approximately every 3 years. In five of the policy research areas categorized in the Yearbook, we have now cycled two articles, written 3 years apart: policy process theories (Nowlin, 2011, Petridou, 2014, policy analysis (Blume, Scott, & Pirog, 2014;Carlson, 2011), agenda setting (Eissler, Russell, & Jones, 2014;Pump, 2011), public opinion and public policy (Bachner & Hill, 2014;Mullinex, 2011), and education policy (Conner & Rabovsky, 2011;Galey, 2015).…”