Agenda-Setting on the Online News Network: Identifying Structural Mechanisms That Influence Public Opinion

• In Event: Political Engagement and Agenda Setting in a New Media Ecosystem

Abstract

In this study we analyse the Spanish news media network to investigate to what
extend it enhances or limits the opportunity to set a public agenda. By means of a combination of two methods we aim to shed light on the structure of the Spanish news media network and on its influence on public opinion. Considering that public opinion is a multidimensional phenomenon we take the hierarchy of public issues as its measure.
Previous research has studied the significance of the structure of the news media web, but our research goes one step further by adding a new interpretation of this intrinsic part of the organization of the web.
Firstly, by means of social network analysis (SNA), we analyze the 50 most read Spanish online outlets to identify weak ties that function as bridges among media and facilitate audience overlapping. Those infrastructures play a crucial role in the dissemination of a public agenda as they guarantee a range of common information for society. The literature has already shown these shared experiences are necessary for deliberation in well-functioning democracies. Our study tests whether online Spanish news media provide a common media agenda which serves as focal point for online news consumers, and discusses the implications of these findings for fostering debate within democracy.
Secondly, we assess if individuals actually become aware of those similar bits of information. We use observational data from CIS studies to test the potential
outcomes of the online news network on public opinion. We use survey data asking people to report their online news media consumption behaviour and to list up to 4 most important problems for Spanish society. Analysing the relationship between individual’s hierarchies of public issues and its online news media consumption, we assess the limits of the power of news networks to guarantee what Sunstein (2009) called the “social glue” in deliberative democracy.

Author

• Silvia Majo-Vazquez, Internet Interdisciplinary Institute UOC