Agenda-Setting Dynamics during the Campaign Period
- Author(s)
- Julia Partheymüller
- Abstract
It is widely believed that the news media have a strong influence on defining what are the most important problems facing the country during election campaigns. Yet, recent research has pointed to several factors that may limit the mass media’s agenda-setting power. Linking news media content to rolling cross-section survey data, the chapter examines the role of three such limiting factors in the context of the 2009 and the 2013 German federal elections: (1) rapid memory decay on the part of voters, (2) advertising by the political parties, and (3) the fragmentation of the media landscape. The results show that the mass media may serve as a powerful agenda setter, but also demonstrate that the media’s influence is strictly limited by voters’ cognitive capacities and the structure of the campaign information environment.
- Organisation(s)
- External organisation(s)
- Universität Mannheim
- Pages
- 13–42
- No. of pages
- 30
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198792130.003.0002
- Publication date
- 2017
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 506012 Political systems
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Social Sciences(all)
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/agendasetting-dynamics-during-the-campaign-period(7968921d-a5cf-4c2f-b707-a68cd64b39fd).html