The diffusion of the Internet is reaching a level between 80% and 90% in Western societies. Yet, while the digital divide is closing for young cohorts, it is still an issue when comparing various generations. This study focuses specifically on the so-called ‘grey divide’, a divide among seniors of age 65+ years. Based on a representative survey in Switzerland ( N = 1105), it is found that Internet use is strongly skewed in this age group leading to a partial exclusion of the old seniors (70+). Logistic regression shows that gender differences in usage disappear if controlled for education, income, technical interest, pre-retirement computer use and marital status. Furthermore, the social context appears to have a manifold influence on Internet use. Encouragement by family and friends is a strong predictor for Internet use, and private learning settings are preferred over professional courses. Implications for digital inequality initiatives and further research are discussed.

This study tests second-level agenda-building and -setting effects in the course of a referendum campaign. Personal standardized interviews with forty-seven different campaign managers and a content analysis of campaign material are linked to a content analysis of TV and newspaper coverage and a three-wave public opinion survey. The results demonstrate the dynamic flow of arguments in the agendabuilding and -setting process: top-down from the campaigners to the news media and the public. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/107769901008700207Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-50092 Accepted Version Originally published at: Wirth, Werner; Matthes, J; Schemer, C; Wettstein, M; Friemel, Thomas N; Hänggli, R; Siegert, G (2010). Agenda building and setting in a referendum campaign: Investigating the flow of arguments among campaigners, the media, and the public. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 87 (2) releases, this would be an alternative and even a more direct measure of attribute salience.Fourth and last, agenda setting research is dominated by cross-sectional settings. These Referendum Campaign 2 designs have provided rich insights with real world data and gathered convincing evidence for both agenda setting and agenda building. However, cross-sectional studies are unable to portray the dynamics of a campaign over time, and they are unable to meet the basic requirements for establishing causality in agenda setting and agenda building research.To address these four research gaps, this paper reports about an extensive real world study on a referendum campaign about the asylum law in Switzerland. More specifically, we have conducted interviews with elite campaigners from all major political camps and involved campaign organizations, collected data for a full content analysis of TV and newspaper coverage about those camps, and gathered public opinion data with a three-wave-panel survey. Unlike prior research in this field, our study is unique by covering second-level agenda building and setting effects in a single study using the same measures for all three data sets. Finally, it is the first study of its kind investing these kinds of effects for a referendum campaign. Literature Review First and Second Level Agenda Setting. In their seminal Chapel Hill study, McCombs andShaw observed a relationship between the pattern of news coverage of the 1968 presidential election and the key issues of the campaign that the public perceived as important. 3 The core concept of agenda setting research is issue salience. Issue salience has been described as the degree to which an issue is perceived as important, especially relative to other issues. 4Research over the past thirty-five years has supported the transferal of issue salience to public salience. In this process, agenda-setting is not operative in a universal fashion as a plethora of limiting and contributing variables qualify this media effect. These are, for instance, media Recently, ...

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