Who sets the cyber agenda? Intermedia agenda-setting online: the case of Edward Snowden’s NSA revelations

Abstract

Since the early introduction of the notion of agenda-setting, researchers have attempted to determine the factors that shape media agendas. One of the key sources of media agenda has been identified as intermedia flow, which various studies revealed in the offline-to-online-to-SNS media context. While most of them focused on the offline-online flow, the present study examines agenda-setting within the new online platforms in various countries, thus allowing for cross-country and crossmedia comparisons. We applied time-series analysis to new online media and to traditional online media samples in the context of Edward Snowden's NSA revelations. Our findings of intermedia agenda-setting effects show a moderate but consistent flow from new online media to traditional online media. This highlights the importance of studying these new directions of agenda flow. Apart from that, no profound agenda-setting patterns can be found elsewhere. Possible reasons and implications are discussed.

Between Article and Topic: News Events as Level of Analysis and Their Computational Identification

“…Even though causal inferences from content analysis data are always problematic, when newspapers were issued only once a day, agenda-setting studies could reasonably argue that a time lag implied an agenda-setting influence. But notwithstanding some timestamp-based online intermedia agenda-setting studies (Haim, Weimann, and Brosius 2018), the fact that contemporary online outlets may publish on the same event within minutes or hours makes it much harder to draw such inferences. While many agenda-setting studies relied on rather broad categories (see, e.g.…”

Who is Influencing the #GDPR Discussion on Twitter: Implications for Public Relations

“…Journalists also turn to social media to identify sources and better understand citizens' voices, trending topics, and public opinion on different issues to enrich and inform their own reporting [15]. Traditional media and social media outlets have, thus, become largely interrelated and they reinforce each other in setting the news agenda [32]. Advocacy groups and activists: Non-profit organizations use social media for advocacy work and to influence the policymaking process.…”

The Media’s Conditional Agenda-Setting Power: How Baselines and Spikes of Issue Salience Affect Likelihood and Strength of Agenda-Setting

“…Also, studies of intermedia agenda setting have explored shorter time lags, e.g. daily intervals with regard to newspapers and TV news (Geiß, 2013;Haim, Weimann, & Brosius, 2018) and exact publication time stamps for online media and blogs. For instance, Leskovec, Backstrom & Kleinberg (2009) studied how phrases (quotes, text bites) diffuse through news media and blogs.…”

“…Generally, the audience’s search behavior responded much more quickly to media stimuli than responses to the MIP question change, within a few minutes or hours (Geiß et al, 2016). Also, studies of intermedia agenda-setting have explored shorter time lags, for example, daily intervals with regard to newspapers and TV news (Geiß, 2013; Haim, Weimann, & Brosius, 2018) and exact publication time stamps for online media and blogs. For instance, Leskovec, Backstrom, and Kleinberg (2009) studied how phrases (quotes, text bites) diffuse through news media and blogs.…”