Mutual Influences in Economic Agendas: Assessing Dynamics and Conditionality in Longitudinal Relationships Between Media, Politics, and Public

Abstract

This study examined agenda-setting relationships across the media, politics, and the public, while accounting for contextual boundaries from 1978 to 2018 in the United States. Our findings indicate that (1) for the overall model, the media and the public influence the prominence of economic concerns on the political agenda, but the political agenda has no agenda-setting power; (2) under a Republican president, the prominence of economic topics in the media and political agendas influence each other, the media and the public agendas influence each other, and the public influences the political agenda; and (3) under a Democrat president, attention paid toward economic topics in the media and political agendas influence each other, as do the political and public agendas. Of particular note for agenda-setting theorists is our finding that the media significantly sets the agenda for the public under a Republican presidential condition and not under other conditions. Additionally, these relationships differ longitudinally; for example, the media responds to economic changes quicker and for more prolonged periods under a Republican than a Democrat. This study advances the agenda-setting theory by presenting novel findings about agenda-setters in action and by demonstrating the unique complexities of modeling longitudinal nonlinear relationships.