Agenda‐setting functions of a media event: The case of “Amerika”

Abstract

This study investigates the agenda‐setting effects of the ABC miniseries “Amerika.” Addressing various conceptual and methodological issues that have been raised by the research in agenda‐setting, the study focused on the possibility of a major media event setting different types of agendas for different audience members. The two‐wave panel study results indicate that viewers and nonviewers of “Amerika “ discussed the program in distinctly different ways. Viewers focused their discussions on program‐specific topics (e.g., believability/accuracy of the program contents), while nonviewers were more likely to discuss topics that were extraneous to the central concerns of the program (e. g., social and political impact of the program and issues of the international politics). A follow‐up multiple discriminant analysis, however, shows that exposure to the peripheral news reports about the program is a better predictor than exposure to the program itself in determining different discussion agendas supposedly set by the program and peripheral events surrounding it.

Keywords:

• Agenda‐setting function
• “Amerika,” media event
• political impact of television
• post‐program discussion