Setting the Transgender Agenda: Intermedia Agenda-Setting in the Digital News Environment

• In Event: New Research on Agenda Setting

Abstract

Transgender issues have recently (and rapidly) emerged as highly salient topics of political contestation in the United States. But why? This paper investigates one relevant factor: intermedia agenda setting between digital-native and legacy press news entities. Through a content analysis of the top-five digital-native and top-five legacy press online news entities from 2014 to 2015, we investigate the dynamics of intermedia agenda setting in the context of transgender topics, both at the level of attention to transgender topics in general and at the level of attention to specific issues related to the transgender community (e.g., anti-transgender violence). Results indicate significant causal effects of digital-native coverage on legacy press coverage at the level of general attention to transgender topics. However, results also indicate that at the level of specific transgender issues, digital-native coverage drives legacy press coverage on some issues, which legacy press coverage drives digital-native coverage on others. Implications for intermedia agenda setting in the digital news media environment and for the future of transgender political rights movements are discussed.

Author

• Thomas J Billard, U of Southern California