Agenda Control in the 2008 CNN/YouTube Debates

Abstract

This article examines the evolving dynamic between citizens, journalists, and politicians—what we call agenda control—using the CNN/YouTube presidential primary debates as a case. A systematic content analysis of questions asked and candidates’ answers as compared with standard journalist-as-questioner debates hosted by MSNBC reveals that the dynamic between politicians, journalists, and citizens suggests that journalists do a better job of getting candidates to answer questions than do citizens in the YouTube video format, not by virtue of being journalists, but by virtue of asking the right form of question. Results also indicate that the CNN/YouTube debate questions from citizens failed to reflect the broad set of issues of interest to those who submitted questions, and instead included a disproportionate number of culture–war issues and campaign strategy questions. Findings suggest that journalists maintain the upper hand in agenda control.

Keywords:

• Debates
• New Media
• Political Communication

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Michael Mussman for his assistance with content analysis.

Notes

We use spectacle in the same way as Erickson (1998) in his characterization of presidential travel as spectacle.

The CNN/YouTube debates, like other debate formats, likely also provided opportunities for citizens to learn about the candidates’ issues and their characters, although that is a hypothesis worth testing.

Coding allowed for multiple codes for a category per turn, given that there could be multiple questions asked. For the sake of brevity in the analysis, only the first code was analyzed and results reported. Analysis of third and fourth question types produced no obvious patterns that merited further analysis.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jennifer Stromer-Galley

Jennifer Stromer-Galley (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 2002) is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at the University at Albany–State University of New York.

Lauren Bryant

Lauren Bryant (M.A., University at Albany–State University of New York, 2008) is a graduate student in the Department of Sociology at the University at Albany–State University of New York.