Editing Agenda-setting theory (section)

===Theory development in agenda-setting research===
==== Second-level agenda-setting: attribute agenda setting ====
Over time, agenda-setting theory evolved to include additional dimensions outside of the initial object salience level (specific issues, public figures, etc.).<ref name="McCombs-2014" /> A second-level is now included which focuses on how the news media influences public opinion on the attributes of those objects.<ref name="McCombs-2014" /> This is based around the selection of what attributes to present when covering certain issues or people.<ref name="McCombs et al 1997">{{cite journal |last=McCombs |first=M. E. |author2=Llamas, J. P. |author3=Lopez-Escobar, E. |author4=Rey, F. |year=1997 |title=Candidate's images in Spanish elections: Second-level agenda-setting effects |journal=Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly |volume=74 |issue=4 |pages=703–717 |doi=10.1177/107769909707400404 |s2cid=145481877}}[http://www.aejmc.org/home/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Journalism-Mass-Communication-Quarterly1997-McCombs-703-17.pdf Pdf.]</ref> Balmas and Sheafer (2010)<ref>{{cite journal |last=Balmas |first=M |author2=Sheafer, T |date=June 2010 |title=Candidate Image in Election Campaigns: Attribute Agenda Setting, Affective Priming, and Voting Intentions |journal=International Journal of Public Opinion Research |volume=22 |issue=2 |pages=204–229 |doi=10.1093/ijpor/edq009}}</ref> argued that the focus at the first level agenda-setting which emphasizes media's role in telling us "what to think about" is shifted to media's function of telling us "how to think about" at the second level agenda-setting. The second level of agenda-setting considers how the agenda of attributes affects public opinion (McCombs & Evatt, 1995). Furthermore, Ghanem(1997)<ref name="Ghanem, S.">{{cite book |title=Communication and democracy: exploring the intellectual frontiers in agenda-setting theory |publisher=Lawrence Erlbaum Associates |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-8058-2555-8 |editor-last=Weaver |editor-first=Maxwell |edition=[Nachdr.]. |location=Mahwah, N.J. |editor2-last=McCombs |editor2-first=Donald L. |editor3-last=Shaw |editor3-first=David}}</ref> demonstrated that the certain attributes agendas in the news with low psychological distance, drove compelling arguments for the salience of public agenda. For example, media coverage of a political candidate's experience would be included in the substantive dimension of second-level agenda-setting, whereas the attitude toward the candidate's experience (positive, negative, or neutral) would be included in the affective dimension.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Coleman |first1=Renita |last2=Wu |first2=Denis H. |title=Advancing Agenda-Setting Theory: The Comparative Strength and New Contingent Conditions of the Two Levels of Agenda-Setting Effects |journal=Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly |date=December 1, 2009 |volume=86 |issue=4 |page=775 |doi=10.1177/107769900908600404 }}</ref>

===== Second-level agenda-setting vs. framing =====
There is a debate over whether [[Framing (social sciences)|framing theory]] should be subsumed within agenda-setting as "second-level agenda-setting". McCombs, Shaw, Weaver and colleagues generally argue that framing is a part of agenda-setting that operates as a "second-level" or secondary effect. [[Dietram Scheufele]] has argued the opposite. Scheufele argues that framing and agenda-setting possess distinct theoretical boundaries, operate via distinct cognitive processes (accessibility vs. attribution), and relate to different outcomes (perceptions of issue importance vs. interpretation of news issue).<ref>{{cite journal|last=Scheufele|first=D|title=Agenda-setting, priming, and framing revisited: Another look at cognitive effects of political communication|journal=Mass Communication & Society|year=2000|volume=3|issue=2|pages=297–316|doi=10.1207/s15327825mcs0323_07|s2cid=59128739}}</ref>

One example that helps illustrate the effects of framing involves president Nixon's involvement in the watergate scandal. According to a study conducted by Lang and Lang, the media coverage at first belittled the watergate scandal and the President's involvement.<ref name="Lang & Lang-1981">{{cite journal |last1=Lang & Lang |date=1981 |title=Watergate: An exploration of the agenda-building process. |journal=Mass Communication Review Yearbook}}</ref> It was not until the story was framed as one of the highest political scandals in US history that the public opinion changed.<ref name="Lang & Lang-1981" /> This event depicts how the media personnel have a great deal of power in persuading the public's opinions. It also suggests that framing is a form of gatekeeping, similar to the agenda setting theory.<ref name="Lang & Lang-1981" /> 
 
According to Weaver,<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Weaver | first1 = D. H. | year = 2007 | title = Thoughts on Agenda Setting, Framing, and Priming | journal = Journal of Communication | volume = 57 | issue = 1| pages = 142–147 | doi = 10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00333.x }}</ref> framing and second-level agenda setting have the following characteristics:

Similarities are

# Both are more concerned with how issues or other objects are depicted in the media than with which issues or objects are more or less prominently reported.
# Both focus on most salient or prominent aspects of themes or descriptions of the objects of interest.
# Both are concerned with ways of thinking rather than objects of thinking

Differences are

# Framing does seem to include a broader range of cognitive processes – moral evaluations, causal reasoning, appeals to principle, and recommendations for treatment of problems – than does second-level agenda-setting (the salience of attributes of an object). <br /> Scheufele and Tewksbury argue that "framing differs significantly from these accessibility-based models [i.e., agenda setting and priming]. It is based on the assumption that how an issue is characterized in news reports can have an influence on how it is understood by audiences;"<ref name="Scheufele, D. A. 2007">{{cite journal |last1=Scheufele |first1=D. A. |last2=Tewksbury |first2=D. |year=2007 |title=Framing, agenda-setting, and priming: The evolution of three media effects models |journal=Journal of Communication |volume=57 |issue=1 |pages=9–20 |doi=10.1111/j.0021-9916.2007.00326.x |s2cid=11227652}}</ref> the difference between whether we think about an issue and how we think about it. Framing and agenda setting differ in their functions in the process of news production, information processing and media effects.
# '''News production''': Although "both frame building and agenda building refer to macroscopic mechanisms that deal with message construction rather than media effects", frame building is more concerned with the news production process than agenda building. In other words, "how forces and groups in society try to shape public discourse about an issue by establishing predominant labels is of far greater interest from a framing perspective than from a traditional agenda-setting one."
# '''News processing''': For framing and agenda-setting, different conditions seem to be needed in processing messages to produce respective effects. Framing effect is more concerned with audience attention to news messages, while agenda setting is more concerned with repeated exposure to messages.
# '''Locus of effect''': Agenda-setting effects are determined by the ease with which people can retrieve from their memory issues recently covered by mass media, while framing is the extent to which media messages fit ideas or knowledge people have in their knowledge store.

Based on these shared characteristics, McCombs and colleagues<ref name="McCombs">McCombs, M. E., Shaw, D. L., & Weaver, D. H. (1997). Communication and democracy: Explorining the intellectual frontiers in agenda-setting theory. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.</ref> recently argued that framing effects should be seen as the extension of agenda setting. In other words, according to them, the premise that framing is about selecting "a restricted number of thematically related attributes"<ref name="McCombs" /> for media representation can be understood as the process of transferring the salience of issue attributes (i.e., second-level agenda setting). That is, according to McCombs and colleagues' arguments, framing falls under the umbrella of agenda setting.

==== Third-level agenda-setting: network agenda setting model ====
The most recent agenda-setting studies explore "the extent to which the news media can transfer the salience of relationships among a set of elements to the public".<ref name="McCombs-2014">{{Cite journal|title = New Directions in Agenda-Setting Theory and Research |last1 = McCombs |first1 = Maxwell E. |last2 = Shaw |first2 = Donald L. |last3 = Weaver |first3 = David H. |date = November 2014 |journal = Mass Communication & Society | pages = 781–802 |doi=10.1080/15205436.2014.964871 |volume=17|issue = 6 |s2cid = 144332317 }}</ref> That is, researchers assume that the media can not only influence the salience of certain topics in public agenda, but they can also influence how the public relate these topics to one another. Based on that, Guo, Vu and McCombs (2012)<ref name="Guo-2012">{{Cite journal|title = An Expanded Perspective on Agenda-Setting Effects. Exploring the Third Level of Agenda Setting |last1 = Guo |first1 = Lei |last2 = Vu |first2 = Hong Tien |last3 = McCombs |first3 = Maxwell |date = December 2012 |journal = Una Extensión de la Perspectiva de los Efectos de la Agenda Setting. Explorando el Tercer Nivel de la Agenda Setting | pages = 51–68}}</ref> bring up a new theoretical model called Network Agenda Setting Model, which they refer to as the third-level agenda-setting. This model shows that "the news media can bundle sets of objects or attributes and make these bundles of elements salient in the public's mind simultaneously".<ref name="Guo-2012" /> In other words, elements in people's mind are not linear as traditional approaches indicate.<ref name="Guo-2012" /> Instead, they are interconnected with each other to make a network-like structure in one's mind, and if the news media always mention two elements together, the audience will "perceive these two elements as interconnected".<ref name="Guo-2012" />

===== The dimension of emotion =====
According to the theory of affective intelligence, "emotions enhance citizen rationality". It argues that emotions, particularly negative ones, are crucial in having people pay attention to politics and help shape their political views.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Marcus |first1=George E. |title=Affective Intelligence and Political Judgment |last2=Neuman |first2=W. Russel |last3=MacKuen |first3=Michael |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-226-50469-8 |location=Chicago}}</ref> Based on that, Renita Coleman and H. Denis Wu (2010)<ref name="Coleman-2010">{{Cite journal |last1=Coleman |first1=Renita |last2=Wu |first2=H. Denis |date=Summer 2010 |title=Proposing Emotion as a Dimension of Affective Agenda Setting: Separating Affect into Two Components and Comparing Their Second-Level Effects |journal=Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly |volume=87 |issue=2 |pages=315–327 |doi=10.1177/107769901008700206 |s2cid=144596947}}</ref> study whether the TV portrayals of candidates impacts people's political judgment during the [[2004 United States presidential election|2004 U.S. presidential Election]]. They find that apart from the cognitive assessment, which is commonly studied before, emotion is another critical dimension of the second-level affects in agenda-setting.<ref name="Coleman-2010" /> Three conclusions are presented: the media's emotional-affective agenda corresponds with the public's emotional impressions of candidates; negative emotions are more powerful than positive emotions; and agenda-setting effects are greater on the audiences' emotions than on their cognitive assessments of character traits.<ref name="Coleman-2010" />

====Hierarchy of effects theory====
Coleman and Wu (2009) emphasized the similarities between the hierarchy of effects theory and agenda-setting theory, and how the latter can be used to analyze the former.<ref name="Coleman-2009">{{cite journal |last1=Wu |first1=H. Denis |last2=Coleman |first2=Renita |title=Advancing Agenda-Setting Theory: The Comparative Strength and New Contingent Conditions of the Two Levels of Agenda-Setting Effects |journal=Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly |date=December 2009 |volume=86 |issue=4 |pages=775–789 |doi=10.1177/107769900908600404 }}</ref> The hierarchy of effects theory has three components: knowledge, attitude, and behavior, also known as "learn, feel, do."<ref name="Coleman-2009" /> The first level of agenda-setting, such as a policy issue gaining public attention, corresponds to the "knowledge" component of the hierarchy of effects theory.<ref name="Coleman-2009" /> The second level of agenda-setting, such as how the public views or feels about a policy issue, corresponds to the "attitude" component. Coleman and Wu's study is not so much focused on the order of these components, but instead on which component, knowledge (level one) and attitude (level two), has a greater effect on public behavior.<ref name="Coleman-2009" />