You Can’t Always Get What You Want: How Majority‐Party Agenda Setting and Ignored Alternatives Shape Public Attitudes

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurel Harbridge‐Yong ◽  
Celia Paris
Keyword(s):  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Majority Party

Partisan agenda control in the US house: A theoretical exploration

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 555-570 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffery A Jenkins ◽  
Nathan W Monroe
Keyword(s):  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Median Voter ◽  
Voter Model ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Agenda Control ◽  
Majority Party ◽  
Party Government ◽  
The Us ◽  
Median Voter Model ◽  
Party Members

While a number of scholars have focused on the importance of partisan agenda control in the US House, few have examined its uneven consequences within the majority party. In this paper, we explore ‘counterfactual’ utility distributions within the majority party, by comparing policy outcomes under a party-less median voter model to policy outcomes under party-based positive and negative agenda control models. We show that the distribution of policy losses and benefits resulting from agenda control are quite similar for both the positive and negative varieties. In both cases, moderate majority-party members are made worse off by the exercise of partisan agenda control, while those to the extreme side of the majority-party median benefit disproportionately. We also consider the benefit of agenda control for the party as a whole, by looking at the way changes in majority-party homogeneity affect the summed utility across members. Interestingly, we find that when the distance between the floor and majority-party medians decreases, the overall value of positive and negative agenda control diminishes. However, we also find support for the ‘conditional party government’ notion that, as majority-party members’ preferences become more similar, they have an increased incentive to grant agenda-setting power to their leaders.

From Rolls to Disappointments

2016 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew J. Clarke ◽  
Jeffery A. Jenkins ◽  
Nathan W. Monroe
Keyword(s):  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Spatial Model ◽  
The Other ◽  
Agenda Control ◽  
Majority Party ◽  
Reconstruction Era

Much of the literature on partisan agenda setting in Congress focuses on the majority’s ability to exercise negative agenda control. As a result, the empirical emphasis has been on “rolls,” or how often the majority of the majority party opposes legislation that nonetheless passes. Although interesting, rolls are only one source of majority party failure. The other source, largely unexplored in the literature, is when the majority of the majority party supports legislation that is subsequently defeated. These cases represent “disappointments,” and are a means to determine how effective the majority party is at exercising positive agenda control. Making some basic modifications to a standard spatial model of agenda setting, we articulate why and where we might expect the majority party to fail to exercise positive agenda control effectively. We then derive hypotheses regarding (1) which members should vote “no” on roll calls that result in a disappointment and (2) why disappointments vary on a Congress-by-Congress basis across time, and test them using a dataset of final-passage votes on House bills in the post-Reconstruction era.

scholarly journals Key Words Associated with the COVID-19 Pandemic. Comparing the Media and the Public Agenda

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2 (40)) ◽  
pp. 5-25
Author(s):  
Dana Raluca BUTUROIU ◽  
Mihai GAVRILESCU
Keyword(s):  
Key Words ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Online News ◽  
The Public ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Public Agenda ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
The Media ◽  
Setting Theory

Based on recent ramifications of the traditional agenda-setting model, this paper aims at analyzing the convergence of the media and the public agenda in times of crisis. Specifically, drawing upon the network agenda-setting theory, this article explores the main key words associated with COVID-19—related topics in both the media and the public agendas. Main findings suggest that the media used context dependent key words to refer to the pandemic. At the beginning of the pandemic, in March 2020, both television and online news stories referred to issues related to the vi- rus itself, to the measures taken to limit its spread, and to some medical conditions, while in January 2021 media focused on key words related to vaccination and immunization. In terms of public agenda, results show that people tended to refer to pandemic-related issues mainly in negative terms, due to both media exposure and, presumably, personal experiences. These results offer valuable insights into the dynamics of both media and public agenda in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, providing fertile ground for better understanding how media shape several public attitudes and behaviors.

scholarly journals Media Coverage in Times of Crisis. Intermedia Agenda-setting of COVID-19 – related Topics

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Dana Raluca Buturoiu ◽  
Ana Voloc
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Television News ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
Online News ◽  
Media Environment ◽  
News Stories ◽  
Intermedia Agenda Setting ◽  
The Media

In times of crisis, the media play a crucial role in offering people information and updates related to the ongoing events. Thus, the media implicitly shape public opinion on the issues they cover and, as a result, influence public attitudes and behaviors. In this context, this paper aims at analyzing the media coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, by means of quantitative content analysis (N=1511) conducted on both television and online news stories released during March 18-31 2020, this study sheds light on the agenda-setting effects of the media and the phenomenon known as intermedia agenda-setting. Main results show that, in spring 2020, both television and online news stories extensively covered COVID-19 topics, focusing on domestic issues such as decisions taken by the authorities in order to manage the pandemic, effects of the virus, and statistics. Furthermore, results show a relatively high intermedia agenda-setting effect within the Romanian media environment. Content published online (either in the form of social media content or online stories) is frequently “borrowed” and cited in both online and television news stories, leading us to the idea that digital media might have become mainstream information sources.

Agenda-Setting Effects of Sun-Related News Coverage on Public Attitudes and Beliefs About Tanning and Skin Cancer

2013 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen Dixon ◽  
Charles Warne ◽  
Maree Scully ◽  
Suzanne Dobbinson ◽  
Melanie Wakefield
Keyword(s):  
Skin Cancer ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Public Attitudes ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Attitudes And Beliefs

Parties, agendas, and roll rates

2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 348-359
Author(s):  
Shawn Patterson ◽  
Thomas Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Combinatorial Problem ◽  
Agenda Control ◽  
Majority Party ◽  
The Us

For the US House of Representatives, Cox and McCubbins discover tiny majority-party roll rates and offer them as evidence of majority-party agenda control. However, the observed roll rates are approximately what would result from chance alone or from chance constrained in several natural ways. Besides that, we show that rolls themselves are not evidence of any lapse in partisan agenda control and may even occur as the intended consequence of agenda setting by the majority party. Innovations include a solution to the combinatorial problem of counting all possible rolls, the associated computations, hypothetical examples of strategically advantageous self-induced rolls, and a review of likely real examples of the same.

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