Setting Agendas in Cultural Markets

Organizations, Creators, Experiences

Philemon Bantimaroudis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317371014
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Scienze della comunicazione

This book draws on agenda setting theory to examine how cultural organizations relate to media in order to increase their visibility, valence, and eventually build their public image. Most organizations have a keen interest in their symbolic presence, as their media visibility influences public knowledge, perceptions and even behaviors. Diminished public funding, in combination with the global proliferation of cultural entities, creates a competitive environment, leading to a transformation of cultural industries. In the book, several questions are under scrutiny: How do cultural organizations acquire symbolic significance? How do they become prominent in media content? Which mechanisms and processes should be examined by cultural managers as they set out to achieve salience? Is there a relationship between media and public salience? In other words, if an organization becomes symbolically prominent, in what ways is the public influenced, both in terms of perceptions as well as behaviors?

1 Agenda-Setting Theory

A Brief History

The term “agenda setting” was coined by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw in their seminal article in Public Opinion Quarterly (1972). The theory was met with wide acceptance by media scholars, initially in the United States and later in many other parts of the world. The two theorists established a foundation for agenda-setting explorations, explaining the notion of salience in today’s mediated world. The ways people attribute significance to different issues has changed dramatically because of the advent of media industries and peoples’ understanding of the world through them. Influenced by the work of Walter Lippmann, McCombs & Shaw (1972) reinforced the idea that the mass media build symbolic hierarchies of different issues and teach consumers to recognize only a handful of these as significant. Early agenda-setting studies stressed the notion that people can process and recognize only a few issues from a relatively short list of available selections during a given period of time. Of the multitudes of developments around the world, we only give attention to the small fraction ranked highly by the media in terms of positioning as well as attention. Events or issues that the media do not deem newsworthy may be viewed as less significant than prominently ranked issues, or they may go totally unnoticed.

Those initial agenda-setting studies indicated the special role of the media in providing hierarchies of significance. Because people cannot process a multitude of information in a given period of time, the media point to the most significant topics. From those early days, researchers began comprehending the ramifications of the agenda-setting function of the media. If the mass media attributed significance and defined what the public thought about, as we were reminded by Bernard Cohen’s famous assertion, then symbolic, mediated notions of significance became more “salient” than any other non-mediated grasp of reality. Because of the media’s capacity for agenda setting, individuals, groups, organizations, corporations, governments and even international bodies have historically engaged in competitive struggles to be a part of the media’s hierarchies of salience. Arguably, the marketing and public relations industries, whose influence grew tremendously throughout the twentieth century, exist symbiotically with the media, as marketing and public relations firms offer, among many other services, the capacity to establish agendas for interested corporate and political clients.

The agenda-setting theory was initially applied to the political or civic domain of human activity. The theory’s founders have highlighted a grand array of agenda-setting applications in the context of journalism and political communication. Indeed, political parties and political personalities, by virtue of who they are and what they do, are dependent on various institutions, including the media, in order to establish their agendas, which eventually the public is expected to adopt, support and perhaps vote for. As the theory caught the attention of scholars worldwide, numerous studies started recognizing the multiplicity of applications related to mediated constructs of salience. Salience became a popular term among media theorists. Hundreds of studies were conducted worldwide, scrutinizing different aspects of the agenda-setting process and the supporting mechanisms that lead to salience (Carroll, 2010).

Agenda-Setting Influences at Different Levels

Agenda-setting theory has aroused the interest of researchers in different countries around the world. Apart from the United States, where the first studies were conducted, international teams of scholars from Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, Spain, Austria, Chile and even Greece—to name just a few—expressed interest in agenda-setting influences and effects. The success of agenda setting, which continues to sustain the interest of theorists, can be explained not only in terms of its original scientific inquiries, but its numerous applications in different fields: political communication, journalism, advertising, corporate and cultural communication. Communication professionals benefited from agenda-setting research as they acquired new understanding in regards to mediated notions of significance.

In the early 1990s, agenda-setting researchers coined the term “object” to deal with expanded possibilities for research on various symbolic structures that different stakeholders promote in media content. This theoretical evolution added to agendas of “issues,” originally introduced by McCombs and Shaw in the 1970s. “Issues” dealt primarily with news stories and journalistic endeavors in general. “Objects” encompassed enlarged categories of symbolic structures: political figures, consumer products, social groups and corporate firms. In other words, any combination of recognizable and measurable symbols could be identified as an “object” or “issue,” depending on the elements that comprised it. Empirical investigations of the salience of “objects” or “issues” revealed their mediated attention in relation to their public salience.

Of special importance for agenda-setting considerations is the hierarchy of “issues” or “objects.” This hierarchy can be assessed through both quantitative and qualitative investigations. For example, the volume of coverage constitutes a record of relative media attention, indicative of significance. A greater amount of coverage attributed to an issue is considered “more important” than less media attention attributed to a different issue. This record does not reveal anything about the essence of information or about its sense of value derived from other socially constructed perspectives. But there are also qualitative indicators of salience: a topic that is on the front page of a newspaper is considered “more important” than another that is on the last page of the newspaper, appearing in fine print. McCombs & Shaw (1972) examined the following seminal relationship: Is a hierarchy of issues in media content correlated with a corresponding hierarchy of those issues in the public mind? This seminal correlation in the original investigation—a parallel hierarchical relationship between media content and public perceptions—was scrutinized, while suggesting that one hierarchy influences the other. These initial, exploratory attempts led to the creation of new terminology. Specifically, the hypothesized relationship led to the concept that became known as “the transfer of salience.”

Researchers concluded that the public prioritizes issues as people’s perceptions are influenced by the media’s attention to those issues. The Chapel Hill study provided researchers with the basic theoretical tools to study the transfer of salience as a process. Later on, other significant questions were answered, such as the question of time-order—which type of hierarchy preceded the other—the media or the public. Nowadays, the available literature, without significant disagreements, converges in terms of the mechanisms that lead to salience. Furthermore, the way media content is organized, in a specific hierarchical form, is indicative of its salience while it influences the relative significance of topics in the public mind. Progressively, numerous other factors have been scrutinized; for example, researchers discussed the nature of issues that are directly related to the daily experience of people. These issues were described as obtrusive, in contrast to issues that cannot be easily encountered in daily, ordinary settings by ordinary individuals; those issues were described as unobtrusive. This division of topics advanced the initial explorations, as researchers showed that certain issues are more easily elevated in the public agenda than others (Zucker, 1978). Furthermore, researchers reached a deeper understanding of intervening factors that explain the process of salience.

Although researchers agreed that the media play a domineering role in establishing salience and therefore various public players depend on the media in order to build their own agenda, this is more than simply a one-way relationship. As the years went by, researchers utilized various methodological tools to examine agenda-setting questions. They did not confine themselves to scholarly pursuits using only public opinion polls, but expanded their sphere of explorations through experimental designs. Different types of content—print, audio and television—became the focus of these investigations that established the foundations of the theory (Iyengar, Peters & Kinder, 1982). Agenda-setting researchers went beyond the initial relationship that assessed media and public salience. They observed that often the media set agendas for other media within national or international media ecosystems. In many cases, regional media replicate the major headlines of national media for their own public. At the international level, certain media were globally recognized as elite gatekeepers, influencing content selections in different national markets and in different languages. CNN, The New York Times, the BBC and many other organizations of global appeal impact significantly the agendas of various media outlets around the globe. Reese and Danielian (1989) used the term “intermedia agenda setting” to describe how elite media with global recognition influence the agenda of local and regional media. For example, the content of The New York Times is often reprinted by major Greek newspapers, as some of its articles may have a regional or local appeal. In the late 1990s, a study of Greek newspaper editors in Athens demonstrated differentiated levels of gatekeeping practices, demonstrating explicitly their reliance on international media sources and therefore inter-media agenda-setting influences (Roberts & Bantimaroudis, 1997).

Initially in the 1970s, but with a renewed attention in the 1990s, McCombs and his colleagues turned their attention to what they described as the “second level” of the theory. To better understand the mechanisms of salience, they had to look deeper into the structure of different categories of content. Although they had already explored various facets of the transfer of salience, such as the obtrusivity factor, people’s need for orientation, differences among media as well as time-frames necessary to reach salience, they realized that the question of salience can be explored further if media content is studied at the particle level. The way information is built—in other words, the particle structure of every message—could reveal some of the secrets of salience. Progressively, they moved away from “issues” and started discussing “objects,” a term that encompasses a wider variety of information, not just confined within the sphere of news items. As we have already seen, “objects” represent different types of media messages that different stakeholders seek to advance in the public mind. Researchers became particularly interested in political personalities, as they often seek recognition to advance their symbolic significance. Naturally, they started wondering what symbolic elements of a personality would render him or her more likely to become salient. For example, what specific attributes of political personalities should be scrutinized in relation to their capacity to render the personality salient? The term “attribute,” referring to specific semantic elements, of which “objects” are comprised, became a trademark terminology of second-level agenda setting. Ghanem (1997) outlined new typologies of attributes, both affective and cognitive. The affective category became synonymous with valence or the tone of coverage toward political personalities, displaying a positive, negative or neutral stance toward politicians. The cognitive category encompassed multitudes of traits, such as the ideology adopted by politicians, their qualifications and personality characteristics (Kiousis, Bantimaroudis & Ban, 1999; Kiousis & McDevitt, 2008; McCombs, 2004). As researchers found numerous political communication applications investigating attributes of personalities and their capacity of salience, the entire field of political communication became richer both in scholarly as well as applied terminology. This literature on political personalities, mediated political discourse, public perceptions and voting behavior continues to expand at different levels, leading toward exciting discoveries in the context of the current digital media ecosystem (McCombs, 2014; Stroud, 2011).

Fragmentation of Agendas and Specialized Interests

As the twentieth century drew to a close, the vast proliferation of digital media platforms and social media changed the global media landscape and raised new questions about possible applications of agenda setting. The mass media, which had emerged as the premier gatekeepers and the dominant agenda setters of the twentieth century, faced unprecedented challenges. Newspapers’ downward spiral intensified. Television started losing its mass appeal as the internet gained ground. Cinema and the music industry started facing new pressures from emerging industries such as the video game industry. Laptops, smartphones and tablets provided new relays for content reception in versatile ways and at a reasonable cost. But most importantly, mass audiences of the twentieth century were transformed from receivers to users. Today, individual consumers of digital content enjoy enhanced interaction with digital cultural content; among various possibilities, they can be communicators, searchers, visitors, gamers, readers, viewers, mobilizers, shoppers and creators.

According to Takeshita (2006), “the new media landscape affects the agenda-setting process because mainstream media have a weakened capacity for consensus-building, while losing their ability to establish a “common public agenda” (p. 286). Furthermore, different agendas are subject to audience group profiles and preferences. Although digital media technology enhanced the degree of fragmentation in terms of the availability of outlets linked to group or segment proliferation, certain thematic domains like the field of culture are subject to segmentation by virtue of their specialized interests (Weidman, 2016). In the news domain, Takeshita (2005) argues that “the mass audience is fragmenting, with fewer and fewer people dependent on traditional mass media such as terrestrial television networks or newspapers” (p. 286). In segmented domains, fragmentation is the norm. Takeshita’s observations signify an environmental shift that affects the nature of agenda setting, such as the concept of salience and the way the public satisfies its need for orientation. Naturally, as the environment changes, new discussions develop as to the nature of influences and effects. The central discussion is focused on the topic of salience. How is this process affected in the digital world? Although salience is recognized as a significant media influence, and in corporate settings as a mediated asset, there are questions related to its mechanisms as well as to the concept itself. Both can be affected when paradigms shift significantly. Initial evidence shows that the agenda-setting function remains a potent process with its basic influences unchanged in the digital world of the current century. Different types of media maintain a central role in this process and salience remains a valuable and sought-after asset. Nevertheless, the proposition for a process of agenda melding is indicative of the changing media terrain and new conditions that lead to salience (McCombs, Shaw & Weaver, 2014). As processes change, new research is expected to shed new light. Nevertheless, the quest for salience has not been diminished in the new media landscape, as more players see more opportunities in the digitally mediated global environment (McCombs, 2014).

Organizations and Agenda Setting

At the turn of the twenty-first century, agenda-setting research expanded toward different directions. Researchers often describe this trend with two terms: “a centrifugal trend, expanding to domains beyond the original focus on public affairs,” and “a centripetal trend of research, further explicating agenda-setting theory’s core concepts” (McCombs, Shaw & Weaver, 2014, p. 783). This small book is focused primarily on the centrifugal trend, but includes some suggestions or inferences regarding the centripetal one.

A focus on corporate firms and the business domain produced a variety of useful lessons with numerous applications. Corporate salience was scrutinized in various international settings and not just in relation to media and the various publics (Carroll, 2010). Scholars displayed a primary interest in corporate capacities to disseminate their content while influencing media content. This relationship resembles inter-media or, more accurately, inter-organizational agenda-setting influences. Several studies emphasize the capacity of corporate firms to establish and progressively build their own agendas, strategically influencing media content for their own benefit as well as the benefit of critical stakeholders. This inter-organizational transfer of salience clearly displays elements of marketing and public relations and therefore, this line of research draws from other disciplines such as management and strategy studies (Illia, Bantimaroudis & Meggiorin, 2016). The aim of corporate agendas is centered on key terminology derived from the aforementioned fields, such as brand, esteem, image and reputation.

Researchers started investigating new domains with multiple applications and the theory was adopted by different academic fields. Carroll and McCombs (2003) signaled this shift in interests. Focusing on corporations as “objects,” they display an overall interest in the agenda-building capacity of corporate entities. Corporations collaborate with different stakeholders toward establishing their public presence at different levels. Marketing scholars discuss the differentiated levels of image, brand and reputation for different types of business organizations and, as the literature documents, agenda setting is considered, in this context, a significant paradigm (Rindova, et al., 2007). In several studies of corporate agenda setting, both substantive and evaluative attributes were scrutinized by scholars to assess agenda-setting effects. Overall scholars converge in their findings as “images transmitted by the media to the public prime the attitudes and opinions that various publics hold about a firm” (p. 45). Management scholars have explored the concept of corporate reputation, a multifaceted construct related to corporate perceptions by various stakeholders, including the media. Van Riel & Fombrun (2002) have argued that the reputation of corporate entities is very strongly related to media visibility. One core output of researchers who have consistently employed agenda setting in corporate reputation assessments was the design of useful measurement instruments, which empowers researchers to measure organizational salience in reliable ways, while revealing the complexity of this particular construct (Meijer & Kleinnijenhuis, 2006). Deephouse (2000) reached similar conclusions about corporate agenda-setting effects, focusing on the banking sector. In this study, he identifies media reputation, which constitutes one aspect of corporate reputation. This is a distinct reputation dimension drawn from the agenda-setting tradition, providing theoretical bridges between the different traditions of media and management (p. 1,108). Scholars notice an interdisciplinary link between media studies and impression management, encompassing agenda setting, priming and framing, a process acknowledged by management scholars as they study the evolving mediatization phenomenon (Illia, Sonpar & Bantimaroudis, 2014).

A Shift toward ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Foreword: Setting Agendas in Cultural Markets
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Agenda-Setting Theory: A Brief History
• 2 Cultural Markets, Organizations and Experiences
• 3 Cultural Segmentation and Media Agendas
• 4 Cultural Agendas, Digital Technologies and Media Platforms
• 5 Agenda-Setting Influences and Effects in the Cultural Domain
• Epilogue
• Bibliography
• Index