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Initial considerations about agenda-setting research on the blogosphere

Abstract: The paper seeks at discussing the relevance of the study on agenda-settingmodel paradigm from the perspective of customization of information which occurs on

the internet environment, and more specifically, on the blogosphere. In other words, thepaper discusses how forms of online communication which occur on the blogosphereaffect agenda-setting processes and vice-versa. This article seeks at reviewing someinitial considerations about empirical research methods and theoretical models onagenda-setting to map, analyze, investigate and systematize limited or potential modelsof influence of weblogs.

Jan Alyne Barbosa e Silva1

Keywords: Weblogs Agenda-setting Online Journalism

Web, digital communication and the fragmentation of audience

It has been argued the inconvenience of using the term audience to refer to the

web user, as they have a much more active role in the process of online communication,

not only by selecting the contents through hypertext, but also by creating their own

online environments. More than that, the Web provides suitable systems, environments

and softwares for personalizing information, which are quite different from most of

broadcast and printing models, which are known for being mass communication

models, that is, those dynamics of Web are also conformed to logics which are definedand situated by the user in zones of more or less centrality.

Bringing this statement to the Journalism field, personalization here refers to two

aspects, namely: a) Customization Bardoel and Deuze (1999 [online]) in which

journalistic products are set according to the users individual interest, and b) the

information published according to the authors choices, including subjects, point of

view, graphic elements, among others, which give personal view and analysis to the

reader. (Recuero, 2003 [online]).

We argue that different hypothesis could be offered to account for varied

agendas on the blogosphere2. Thus, it is useful to raise questions about how some of the1 Master in Contemporary Communication and Culture in Faculdade de Comunicao of UniversidadeFederal da Bahia. Doctorate student in the same post graduation program and Institution. This paper ispart of a broader research conducted in the doctorate research which seeks at understanding degrees andforms of agenda-setting within the blogosphere. This paper has been presented at Brazil Conference inPorto Alegre, Brazil, 2006.2 The word is a mixing between Blog and logos, which means, in Greek language, logic and reason.Another approach for the word blogosphere is of a mediatic ecosystem, composed by incorporatedsystems, which survive like any other biologic system. Available in:

. Access in: 04.nov.2002. See also the article named:Espelho Espelho Meu, published in 19.jun.2003. In: Access in:20.jun.2003. To know more about the blogosphere, see: SILVA, J. A.B. E. Mos na mdia: Weblogs,
http://www.iw3p.com/DailyPundit/8315120http://www.blogclipping.blogspot.com/http://www.blogclipping.blogspot.com/http://www.blogclipping.blogspot.com/http://www.blogclipping.blogspot.com/http://www.iw3p.com/DailyPundit/8315120http://www.blogclipping.blogspot.com/


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paradigms of mass communication research, and more specifically, the agenda-setting

model, might be used or re-thought when it comes to observe, analyze and understand

Web environments, and more specifically the blogosphere, as some phenomena have

been observed and some literature have been produced, focusing on the power of the

blogosphere to contextualize, and to provide ways of production, circulation and

consumption of news. The blogosphere has been seen as a social filter of opinions and

news or a system of control and critic of media, a new channel to the sources converted

in media, a new format applicable to electronic versions of traditional media coverage

or an environment for conversation between communities (Orihuela, 2002).

In this sense, at what point and how does the blogosphere can be correlated with

the public agenda? As the agenda-setting theory is concerned with issue salience

(Soroka, 2002), it is also useful to rise questions about what sort of dynamics should be

considered salient or typical of a public concern on Web environments. Perhaps, at

macro levels, a great number of accesses to a particular issue could partly explain why

an issue is typically of public interest, besides the set of norms which surround

journalistic process of production, which makes them to reach a consensus about what

is publicly relevant3.

However, the question reaches its difficulty when it comes to discuss the role of

agenda-setting paradigm at micro-levels, such as online communication and

personalization of information which occurs on the blogosphere. In this sense, what

methods could researchers use to verify and analyze those questions? By reviewing and

juxtaposing some considerations about empirical research methods and theoretical

models of agenda-setting theory, we are going to map limited or potential models of

influence of weblogs.

Mapping some of the theoretical concepts to analyze agenda- setting models on theblogosphere

The model of agenda setting emphasizes that the media set agenda for the public

debate and decision making, especially within politics, although there are several

empirical studies who observe other specific issues. Its tradition has helped to shift the

focus of the audience research, by stating that the media do not tell people what to

apropriao social e liberao do plo da emisso. Master dissertation. Facom/UFBA, 2003.3 See Wolf (1992) and Traquina (2004).


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think, but what to think about 4 (Cohen, 1963). In other words, there seems to be a

significant correlation between issues that are defined as important by the media and by

the public, as the audience tend to share the medias composite definition of what is

important. McCombs and Shaw (1972, p. 184). According to McCombs and Reynolds

(2002), the agenda-setting role of news can be translated into their ability to influence

the salience of topics on the public agenda, calling publics attention and turning to be

the initial stage to form the public opinion, as only a few issues succeed to reach the

public agenda5.

In spite of the fact that there have been more than 350 empirical studies

conducted on the agenda-setting influence of the news media (McCombs and Reynolds,

2002), few indications of methods could be taken and adapted to investigate models ofagenda-setting or other relations of influence to explain processes and changes which

involve the blogosphere and traditional media6. There have been some theoretical

arguments which see the influence of weblogs in micro-levels as it is evident that the

public access to broadcast and print media is greater than internet.

Other researches point that theres a variation in agenda-setting direction, which

means that agenda-setting can and should be investigated in a multidirectional

perspective, according to attribute issues, as well as inter and intra-agendas (Soroka,2002). In this sense, this multidirectional perspective could be observed on the

blogosphere, as its hypertextual structure is a central element which connects sources

and information, providing the possibility of more choices, control, links and flexibility.

Moreover, public affairs have distinct agenda-setting dynamics which are linked to

some attributes, such as: obtrusiveness7, concreteness8, question period9, among others.

The blogosphere can be seen as an environment to measure public opinion

4

To know more about the beginning of agenda-setting model and research, see McCombs and Shaw(1972).5 About public opinion, Lippmann (1922) argues that public opinion responds not to the environment, butto the pseudo environment constructed by the news media. Moreover, McCombs and Reynolds (2002)argue that because news media have neither the capacity to gather all information nor the capacity toinform the audience about every single occurrence, they rely on a traditional set of professional norms toguide their sampling of the environment (p. 6).6 In October, 2004, Cornfield, M. (et al) [online] published the results of a research which compared thepolitical impact of conservative and liberal weblogs with the coverage of conventional media, onlineforums and webpages of presidential candidates in the North American elections of 2004. Through aquantitative method, the research has shown that the interest and level of influence of each informationchannel is more directly linked with the framing and importance of the published material than of thechannel itself. The researchers have highlighted also that weblogs only could call publics attention only

after conventional media had spread out what they were publishing. The research concluded that weblogswere not able to influence exclusively on the voters and that they behaved more like agenda followers thatas creators of new facts. (Cornfield, M. et.al, 2004).


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resonance on the Internet about most of issues, as it is an important indicator of

relevance of news which are published by the electronic versions of traditional media,

playing also an important role on transmission of the social consensus and culture. In

this sense, weblogs form an environment of interpersonal communication, and as such

can reinforce the media agenda-setting effects on the public agenda when the

conversation deals with the same issue that the media have emphasized (Wanta and Wu,

1992).

Agenda-setting model is part of a much broader approach of media-effect

research10, whose independent variables are connected to structural aspects of media

messages, which, according to Jefres (apudEveland Jr., 2003) can be divided into three

categories: media/channel differences, media use and framing. Regarding mediachannel differences, Eveland Jr. (2003) proposes six initial attributes to study media

effects, which could be extended to micro-levels of agenda-setting models: interactivity,

organization, control, channel, textuality and content (p. 398). In the context of the

blogosphere and agenda-setting research, we would add the personalization of

information, which has been explained further. The benefits of the mix of attributes

approach, according to the author. are empirical and theoretical, as they include (among

others):

(a) more clear explication of each new medium; (b) the facilitation of theorizingregarding the effects of media; (c) identification of new dependent variablesthrough the identification of new independent variables; (e) the ability toexplain prior and future null finding for media effects; (f) the ability tounderstand and incorporate atypical applications of media technologies in ourtheories; (g) the elimination of the need to recreate the theoretical wheel withthe introduction of each new medium; (Eveland Jr., 2003, p.403).

In the context of weblogs, personalization of information (either in the context of

production or reception of weblogs content) is related to the mass communication

researchs concept of selective perception, which provides evidences to explain minimal

media effects, as users minimize or maximize their exposure to either nonsuportive or

supportive information. In this sense, there are several factors other than media

coverage that influence publics perception, emphasizing that the public mind is not a

7Zucker, 1978.8Yagade & Dozier, 1990.9Downs, 1972.

10 According to Jensen (2002), the question of effects has largely been stated in terms of relatively short-term cognitive and behavioral impacts of different media and their contents on mass audiences, whichhave been studied by quantitative social-scientific methodologies. (p. 138).


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blank slate waiting to be written on by the mass media (McCombs and Reynolds,

2002), which means that a particular issue may be a focus of interest according to

individuals interest, personal or group experience, general culture or exposure to mass

media.

The concept of need of orientation (McGuire, 1974; Tolman, 1932, 1948 apud

McCombs and Reynolds, 2002) can also be applied to personalization of information, as

it suggests that we form maps in our minds to help us navigate our external

environment (McCombs and Reynolds, 2002, p. 8), according to the relevance or

uncertainty about an issue11.

According to Orihuela (2005), the capacity developed on the blogosphere to setagendas can be observed in three levels: a) The general agenda, observed through

weblogs portals, references and metablogs. In this case, we could observe, through

online systems of indexation, such as Technorati, a large field of research to investigate

online issue salience12. b) The communitarian agenda, by which groups of reference

interact with each other and through those interactions, we could understand processes

of correlations between issues and its relevance on these communities; and 3) The

personal agenda, through individual access or RSS systems.

The online environment, thus, has become more and more a great source of

information or orientation to issues of public concern. Weblogs and its ability to set the

media agenda can be arrayed along a continuum ranging from obtrusive (those issues

we experience personally, like catastrophes or disasters) to unobtrusive (issues that we

know about only through traditional sources of news, through citizen journalism, for

instance13). Despite the fact that many studies on the agenda-setting role of the media

11 McCombs and Reynolds (2002) explain that among individuals who perceive a topic to be highlyrelevant, their level of uncertainty also must be considered. Is a person already has all the information heor she needs about an issue, uncertainty is low. Under conditions of high relevance and low uncertainty,the need of orientation is moderate. When relevance and uncertainty are high, however need fororientation is high.(p. 9).12 Together with content analysis, one of the methods we suggest to be used for measuring correlationsbetween blogospheres and the mass medias agenda is by using one of the perspectives of McCombsAcapulco Typology, called competition perspective, which includes the entire agenda and uses aggregatemeasures of the population (in this case, the weblogs themselves) to establish the salience of these itemsto find if there is a significant correlation between the traditional medias and weblogs agendas. One ofthe aggregate measures is the indexing online systems, such as Technorati (http://www.technorati.com/),

which, among other functions, measures the salience of issues published on weblogs.13 About citizen journalism or journalism 3.0, see Varela (2005).
http://www.technorati.com/http://www.technorati.com/http://www.technorati.com/


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reveal strong effects for unobtrusive issues and no effects for obtrusive issues, perhaps it

is the case of some phenomena on the blogosphere to be an exception, as it plays an

important role on the agenda-setting from the obtrusive continuum, as it is the case of

Asian Tsunami 14.

The correlation between agendas of the blogosphere and media can also be

analyzed at a second level of the agenda-setting theory, that is, not only in terms of the

object (public issue) itself, but also in terms of attributes of the issues, which includes

several aspects and perspectives of the issues, as well as the framing and priming15, as it

has been said earlier, weblogs has a great repository of opinion and information. In this

sense, McCombs and Reynolds (2002) explain that the priming can be observed through

the link between the salience of objects and their attributes in the mass media and thevery existence of opinions among the audience. Media salience primes the creation and

expression of opinions. (p. 14)

Conclusion

The paper is an attempt to highlight some of the theoretical concepts and models

related to agenda-setting theory to understand forms of correlation between medias and

blogospheres agendas. We believe it is important to establish these correlations due to

the phenomena of appropriation of weblogs as well as the personalization of

information which has been growing even more on Web environments, and specifically,

on the blogosphere. The phenomena of personalization of information on the Web

demands a reviewed cartography of Journalism and Public Opinion theories, which

include processes of agenda-setting at micro-levels, as well as inter and intra-agendas

on Web environments.

By juxtaposing concepts of agenda-setting paradigm to the phenomena of

personalization of information on the blogosphere, we believe its possible to explain

how there could be correlations and symbiotic relationships between mediaspheres and

blogospheres agendas. The activities of mapping, analysis, investigation and

systematization of limited or potential models of influence of weblogs imply the

14 To know more about the role of weblogs in the spread of news about Asian Tsunami, see Lemos (2005

[online] . Access in: 15.Jun.2006.15 To know more about the concept of priming, see Roskos-Ewoldsen, Roskos-Ewoldsen, and Carpentier(2002).
http://www.novae.inf.br/pensadores/cibercultura_e_tsunamis.htmhttp://www.novae.inf.br/pensadores/cibercultura_e_tsunamis.htm


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creation of appropriated methodological instruments, since new elements have to be

considered, especially due to the loss of established roles of producer and consumer of

information. Besides, the agenda setting research has been considered as a core of

partial knowledge, susceptible to be articulated and integrated to a general theory about

symbolic mediation and about effects of reality, practiced by media, instead of being a

stable and definite paradigm.

The use of appropriate methods, in this sense, has to be articulated with different

qualities of influence, through a correct analysis of the confrontation between the

agenda-setting possibilities of mediasphere and blogosphere, according to particular

characteristics of each media (including phenomena of appropriation, uses and framing)

to produce effects (influence) instead of according to an absolute capacity (or

incapacity) to produce them (Wolf, 2003).

We believe our research has to go deeper in those concepts to establish an

empirical corpus by the means of phenomena of uses and appropriation on the

blogosphere. In first place, this paper is an attempt to gradually build an approach to

understand correlations of effects and influence between mediasphere and blogosphere.

Besides that, it should contribute to further mass communication research, since there is

very little research concerned with the problem from empirical basis, as well as very

little research about public opinion and Journalism theory from the perspective of

personalization of information and agenda-setting.

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