Concept
media agenda
The ordering of issues by importance in newspapers, bulletins and websites: which issue gets how much space, airtime and priority.
The media agenda is the ordering of issues by importance in newspapers, television bulletins, websites and other news sources: which issue gets how much space, airtime and priority. To measure it, content analysis is done. In the Chapel Hill study the definition of a “major” item varied by medium: on television, an item of 45 seconds or longer or one of the three lead items; in a newspaper, a front-page headline or an item with a three-column headline with at least a third devoted to political news; in a news magazine, an item longer than a column or the opening item.
The media agenda is also a research subject in its own right: who sets it? Roberts and McCombs found that, in the 1990 Texas gubernatorial election, the newspaper agenda influenced the television agenda, and political ads influenced both the television and the newspaper agendas. Vargo and Guo showed in 2015 data that online partisan media led the agenda while the New York Times and the Washington Post followed it. Nor is the media agenda a single list: in Algül’s study of the 2015 coalition talks, the agendas of six newspapers differed from one another.
For the selection process that shapes the media agenda, see gatekeeping; for the main concept, see agenda-setting.
Example
In the Chapel Hill study, the content of nine sources between 12 September and 6 October 1968 was coded; 35% of Wallace’s major items were devoted not to issues but to the analysis of the campaign (“does he have a chance of winning?”).