Agenda setting and political advertising: Origins of the news agenda

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Abstract
The number of potential sources shaping the media's agenda is large, ranging from external sources in government and the private sector to the idiosyncrasies of individual journalists. The focus in this study is intermedia agenda setting. Commonly defined in terms of the influence that the news agendas of different news organizations have on each other, the concept of intermedia agenda setting is expanded to include another key element of mass communication: advertising. Advertising agendas occasionally have been examined as an influence on the public agenda, an alternative test of the basic, agenda‐setting hypothesis. Here, however, the advertising agenda established by political candidates through their television political commercials is added to the model of the agenda‐setting process to answer more fully the question, who sets the media's agenda? The study examines the direction of influence or intermedia convergence of issue agendas during the 1990 Texas gubernatorial campaign. Content analysis was utilized to determine the issue agendas of newspaper coverage, television coverage, and political advertising. By cross‐lag analysis, the findings show a strong correlation (+.734) between the newspaper agenda at time 1 and the television agenda at time 2. A second influence on the television news agenda has been identified: televised political advertising (+.524). The findings also show a strong correlation of the political advertising agenda at time 1 with the newspaper agenda at time 2 (+.638).