Agenda Trending: Reciprocity and the Predictive Capacity of Social Networking Sites in Intermedia Agenda Setting across Topics over Time

Abstract

In the contemporary converged media environment, agenda setting is being transformed by the dramatic growth of audiences that are simultaneously media users and producers. The study reported here addresses related gaps in the literature by first comparing the topical agendas of two leading traditional media outlets (New York Times and CNN) with the most frequently shared stories and trending topics on two widely popular Social Networking Sites (Facebook and Twitter). Time-series analyses of the most prominent topics identify the extent to which traditional media sets the agenda for social media as well as reciprocal agenda-setting effects of social media topics entering traditional media agendas. In addition, this study examines social intermedia agenda setting topically and across time within social networking sites, and in so doing, adds a vital understanding of where traditional media, online uses, and social media content intersect around instances of focusing events, particularly elections. Findings identify core differences between certain traditional and social media agendas, but also within social media agendas that extend from uses examined here. Additional results further suggest important topical and event-oriented limitations upon the predictive capacit of social networking sites to shape traditional media agendas over time.

The Rise of Twitter in the Political Campaign: Searching for Intermedia Agenda-Setting Effects in the Presidential Primary

“…Time series analysis shows Twitter and traditional news media appear to have a symbiotic relationship that varies in intensity and duration depending on the issues being analyzed. The reciprocal relationship between political Twitter feeds and news media is similar not only to previous intermedia agenda‐setting studies (Dunn, ; Ku et al, ; Lancendorfer & Lee, ; Sweetser et al, ; Walgrave & Van Aelst, ), but also a growing line of research examining the relationship between social and traditional media (Groshek & Groshek, ; Metzgar & Maruggi, ; Sayre et al, ). It suggests traditional media and Twitter feeds of politicians, campaigns, and parties are involved in a source cycle.…”

“…Studies examining political discussions across the entire Twittersphere suggest the relationship between social and traditional media is generally reciprocal, with social media having limited to moderate influence on news (Groshek & Groshek, ; Metzgar & Marrugi, ; Neuman, Guggenheim, Jang, & Bae, ). Teasing out such influences is challenging, but there is evidence that social media are being used to circulate information “without having to rely on traditional media to act as gatekeeper or fact‐checker or moderator” (Metzgar & Marrugi, , p. 152).…”

“…Much research has investigated the incorporation of social media into the campaign package (Adams & McCorkindale, ; Conway, Kenski, & Wang, ; Golbeck, Grimes, & Rogers, ; Graham, Broersma, Hzelhoff, & van 't Harr, ; Grant, Moon, & Grant, ; Gueorguieva, ; Johnson & Perlmutter, ; Towner & Dulio, ). A growing line of research has also examined the complex relationship between topics “trending” in the Twittersphere and issues in traditional media (Groshek & Groshek, ; Metzgar & Maruggi, ; Sayre, Bode, Shah, Wilcox, & Shah, ). This study focuses on the relationship between the latter and the Twitter feeds of political candidates and parties.…”

Twitter and Political Campaigning

“…The agenda setting approach assesses to what extent the attention (salience) given to certain political issues is correlated with two other agendas – the media agenda and the public agenda. This agenda setting approach is a reaction to the perspective of the all‐powerful mass media succinctly voiced by Cohen (in McCombs and Shaw , 177) : ‘(…) the press “may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about.” ’ Even though a reasonable amount of studies analyzed the topics of political tweets, only a handful of them related the distribution of these topics along different agendas (politics, media, public; Conway et al ; Gros and Clough Groshek ). Particularly, Twitter data are special data because they allow for a very detailed analysis.…”

A permanent campaign? Tweeting differences among members of Congress between campaign and routine periods

“…For instance, Ott (2017) argues that televised news now follow the lead of Twitter. In contrast, Groshek and Groshek (2013) found Twitter to be more likely to follow traditional media than the other way around. Yet other studies point to a more complicated agenda-setting relationship between Twitter and traditional media, characterized not by a simple one-way pattern but instead by a dynamic and complex interaction (Neuman, Guggenheim, Mo Jang, & Bae, 2014;Conway et al, 2013).…”