Today’s news and tomorrow’s politics.
Comparing political agenda-setting on national, regional and local levels of government.Rainier Staal 5737400
University of Amsterdam
Graduate School of Communication Master thesis
31-01-2014
2 Abstract
This study has been conducted since no earlier research has compared political agenda-setting on the Dutch three different levels of government. The aim of this research is to find out to what extent political agenda-setting differs on these levels and which and how conditions affect agenda-setting? This has been done by means of quantitative content analysis of oral questions posed in the meetings of the representative bodies of the three levels. After analyzing the results, it was found that the most agenda-setting takes place at the national level, with regional and local levels displaying equally lower scores. On regional level, it was found that opposition party members were more influenced by media than their coalition members. In terms of type, newspapers are the most influential medium on national and local level. In terms of reach, the national level was found to be more influenced by national media while the local level was more influenced by local media.
3 Introduction
As Strömback (2013) noted, our society is becoming increasingly mediated: news media have become the most important source of information on societal, economic and political matters, and the primary communication channel between citizens and political actors. Being the most important source of information, the media have an influence on agendas: they can ‘tell’ people what to think about. This does not only concern the public agenda, but also political agendas. Politicians do not have an unlimited amount of time and attention. When a topic has been covered in the media, it is more likely to be discussed than when it has not been covered in the media.
This gives the mass media power: by choosing to cover one topic or another, they exercise influence over the agenda of the public and the agendas of political actors. This process is the focus of agenda-setting research. Agenda-setting research has resulted in many publications, investigating factors like which media are the most influential, or under what conditions agenda-setting effects most likely occur. Cohen once formulated it as in the following, much-cited, quote:
"The mass media may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about. The world will look different to different people, depending on the map that is drawn for them by writers, editors, and publishers of the paper they read." (Cohen, 1963, p.13).
This particular study examines agenda-setting in the Netherlands, a decentralized state. It has three main levels of government: the national government, the provinces at the regional level, and at the local level the municipalities. Each level has its own responsibilities, and its own issues.
4 However, there has been very little research done in this aspect, and in this specific case, the Dutch case, no earlier research was found. This study aims be scientifically relevant by
investigating to what extent the political agenda has been set on all three levels of government in the Netherlands. It could be a first step in uncovering whether there are differences in agenda-setting in the Netherlands between the levels of government and what the size of these differences is. The societal relevance of this agenda-setting research lies in the fact that it investigates what the influence of mass media is on the functioning of representatives, which are essential political actors in the representative democracy. They are responsible for
legislation and controlling the government. The desirability of media influence on their functioning is questionable: don’t the media focus too much on the news of the day?
The research question of this study is therefore as follows: “To what extent does agenda-setting differ on the national, regional and local levels of government in the Netherlands?”
A content analysis of oral questions posed in the general meetings of the representative institutions on each level is conducted in order to determine how many questions reference media as the origin of the question and what kind of media they reference.
Theoretical Framework
Agenda setting
Agenda setting is a classic political communication theory. Lots of research has been done accordingly. The famous quote in the introduction stems from 1963. In 1971, McCombs and Shaw conducted their famous Chapel Hill study. They hypothesized the following: “the mass media set the agenda for each political campaign, influencing the salience of attitudes toward the political issues” (McCombs & Shaw, 1971, p. 177). The idea was that for the most of the
5 voters, more than ever, the mass media were the dominant source of news on politics. The results they found support this hypothesis: their data suggest “a very strong relationship between the emphasis placed on different campaign issues by the media (reflecting to a considerable degree the emphasis by candidates) and the judgments of voters as to the
salience and importance of various campaign topics” (McCombs & Shaw, 1971, p. 181). The possibility that the journalists just covered the topics the audience prefers is less likely than the agenda-setting explanation, argue McCombs and Shaw since earlier research has indicated a sharp divergence between news values of journalists and their audiences. The classic study by McCombs & Shaw is an example of a study that indicates that the media play a part in setting the agenda. (McCombs & Shaw, 1971, p. 185)
McLeod and Byrnes (1974) are critical of the agenda-setting research that had been conducted until then. They identify several conceptual and methodological problems in earlier research. They state that the agenda-setting hypothesis, which they define as: “an audience member exposed to a given medium agenda will adjust his or her perceptions of the importance of issues in the direction corresponding to the amount of attention devoted to those issues in the medium used” is too simple, in that it lacks attention for conceptualization and measurement. (McLeod & Byrnes, 1974, p. 137) Their study finds mixed results: for some issues the media did in fact set the agenda, for other issues the media did not influence the agenda.
As McLeod and Byrnes found out, most of the empirical studies in agenda-setting are based on a comparison between a media agenda and a public agenda. To establish the media agenda, a content analysis of mass media outlets is usually conducted. The goal is to find out what issues the mass media cover. The public agenda is usually established by surveying citizens, with the goal of finding out what issues are on the minds of the citizens, and how important they deem these issues to be. The two are then compared in order to find out to what extent the issue agenda is a reflection of the media agenda, and thus conclude how successful the
6 media is in setting the issue agenda of citizens. However, in the last couple of years lots of research has been conducted in how media agendas influence the agendas of political actors. This line of work is called political agenda-setting, which will also be discussed.
Political agenda-setting
The idea of political agenda-setting is that the mass media have influence on the political agenda. It is used to describe how political actors determine their priorities, how they decide whether to give an issue attention or not, and whether and what decision or stance they take on the issue.
One of the main questions in political agenda-setting research is: ‘Why do political actors embrace issues put forward by the media?’ There is no single answer for this question. One explanation relates to the public agenda-setting theory: since the issue is covered by the mass media politicians, much like citizens, attribute importance to the issue. This makes especially sense since most politicians are great consumers of news media. However, there is a
difference between public and political agenda-setting: whereas public agenda-setting is a cognitive process, political agenda-setting is a behavioral process. It matters what the politician does, not what he thinks. (Pritchard, 1992)
The second reason politicians react to media is because they use media to communicate with each other: cabinet ministers, heads of state, members of parliament, civil servants and political parties use media to communicate internally and with each other and consequently react on the coverage, seemingly adopting media issues. (Heffernan, 2004)
The third reason political actors seem to adopt media issues is because they associate media coverage with public opinion. It does not matter whether the public is leading the media or the media is leading the public, what matters is that politicians believe the media is an indicator of
7 public opinion. The political agenda-setting power of the media lies thus in the perception of politicians that the mass media influence the public agenda (Schudson, 1996).
Earlier research
There has been done a great amount of studies into the theory of political agenda-setting. In his overview Walgrave (2006) has found contradictory results. He analyzed 19 earlier studies concerned with political agenda-setting, and found that one study indicated that the media have no impact on the political agenda (Walker, 1977), while three studies indicated there was ‘hardly impact’ (Light, 1982; Kingdon, 1984; Kleinnijenhuis & Rietberg, 1995). Another three studies indicated the media had a weak impact on the political agenda (Pritchard, 1993; Wanta & Foote, 1994; Kleinnijenhuis et al., 2003), while a considerable impact was found in four studies (Cook et al., 1983; Protess et al, 1987; Cook & Skogan, 1991; Walgrave & Deswert, 2004). Finally, eight studies, almost half of the studies, found that the media had a strong impact on the political agenda (Gilberg et al., 1980; Protess et al., 1991; Trumbo, 1995; Bartels, 1996; Baumgartner et al., 1997; Wood & Peake, 1998; Edwards & Wood, 1999; Soroka, 2002). These differences are the result of methodological and conceptual choices made in the research design, Walgrave argues. Whether a researcher finds influence from media on politics depends on several factors. In his overview Walgrave mentions the issues, the media agenda, the political agenda, the method and the place as factors influencing the findings. Put in different words: political agenda-setting is contingent on several factors. Conditions for agenda-setting
While some research has been done in order to determine to what extent the media influence political agendas, some research has been done in order to determine what conditions favor agenda-setting processes.
8 The extent to which agenda-setting effects are found depends on whether or not there were elections in the timeframe of the study. In the campaign period, usually several weeks, political actors’ behavior, their reactions to media coverage and the logic behind media coverage differs from ‘regular’ times, when there is no election. (Walgrave & Van Aelst, p. 96)
In a longitudinal aspect, Van Noje, Kleinnijenhuis and Oegema found that the influence of the media on the parliamentary agenda is increasing over time, while the influence of the
parliament on the media agenda remains minimal or non-existent (Van Noije et al,. 2008).
Methods in agenda-setting research
Another contingent factor is the research design. In their research, Van Aelst and Walgrave found that there are two main outcomes: studies which find overwhelming evidence of political agenda-setting, and studies finding more modest agenda-setting. They relate this to the methods chosen: objective studies such as longitudinal behavioral studies, or subjective research like surveys investigating the preferences among MP’s, with the former finding the more modest effects and the latter finding more influence of the media. (Van Aelst & Walgrave, 2011)
Political agenda
How the political agenda is defined also affects the amount of influence found. Since every political actor has its own agenda, there is no such thing as the political agenda. The main difference in agenda-setting is between studies using a substantial political agenda and those using a symbolic political agenda. Examples of a substantial political agenda would be policy changes: political agendas which “have tangible regulatory, legislative or administrative consequences”, while examples of a symbolic political agenda would be a parliamentary debate (Walgrave, 2006, p. 94). When comparing the different political agendas the articles
9 used to relate with the media agenda, he found that studies using the parliamentary agenda as political agenda find more agenda-setting than studies using the governmental agenda. Usually this is because it takes more time for policy changes to occur, while a debate can be held far sooner.
Issues
Issue features are also an important factor in the media’s influence on the political agenda. Whether or not an issue has just been dealt with by the ministerial council, whether or not it is incorporated in the government agreement, whether parties incorporated in their party
manifesto’s, and whether or not it is a divisive and endogenous issue are all factors influencing the extent to which a study finds agenda-setting effects. (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2011)
The study by Palmgreen and Clarke (1977) looked into the difference between agenda-setting on local and national level in the United States. This was the first study to investigate the political system level as a variable in agenda-setting. They found differences between the levels: agenda-setting was weaker on the local level than on the national level.
The different political levels (local, state, national) differ from each other in many aspects. One aspect in which these different political levels differ is the type and scope of the political issues they have to deal with. National issues are perceived by individuals to have little direct impact on their personal lives. Local issues on the other hand can have far-reaching
consequences for the personal lives of individuals. Palmgreen and Clarke mention the busing of students as an example of a local issue which can have a big impact on the local
community. However, the grand scale of national issues such as inflation can mean citizens attach greater importance to such a national issue than to a local issue such as street repair.
10 Related to this difference is the divide between obtrusive and unobtrusive issues. Unobtrusive issues are issues people do not have direct personal experiences with. Thus, they have to rely more heavily on information and interpretation from mass media. Agenda-setting is more likely to occur in these cases. (Hester & Gibson, 2007 p. 301)
Another difference between issues on national and local level is the relative ‘immediacy’ of the issues on local level. Citizens and politicians are able to witness issues on the local level first hand: they do not need media to see that the streets are in need of repair for example. Using their interpersonal networks, citizens can communicate these issues to each other and to their local government or council, and in doing so the mass-media are bypassed.
The final difference between local and national issues Palmgreen and Clarke identify is the level of mass media coverage. Mass media are far more interested in covering ‘momentous national issues’. National affairs receive the most attention in newspapers with a possible exception of local weeklies, and even more on television, which is usually tied to a national network. Palmgreen and Clarke explain this using economic considerations: it is cheaper to rely on wire copy than to invest in local news gathering.
Levels of government
These different levels of government have different levels of responsibilities. Local
governments are concerned with a variety of matters, including licensing, permits, providing social welfare, supervising housing and local infrastructure such as sidewalks. 1 Regional governments are concerned with matters like city- and town-expansion, regional infrastructure such as roads, the planning of industrial areas, nature, environmental law enforcement and supervising the local governments.2 The national government is concerned with the entire scope of governmental activity. However, some responsibilities are being transferred: child
1
http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/gemeenten/taken-gemeente 2http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/provincies/taken-provincie
11 services, participation and support services are being transferred from the national
government to the local government. 3
Considering that the national government is responsible for many unobtrusive issues, that citizens in most cases cannot rely on their interpersonal networks for information on national issues and that mass media prefer to cover national issues, the following is hypothesized: H1: The most political agenda-setting will take place at the national level, followed by the regional level and the least amount of political agenda-setting at the local level.
This hypothesis can be divided in three sub hypotheses:
H1A: The average number of media references on the national level will be higher than on the regional level.
H1B: The average number of media references on the national level will be higher than on the local level.
H1C: The average number of media references on the regional level will be higher than on the local level.
Political parties
Whether the media set certain issues on the political agenda also depends on the political parties. Parties are only interested in news on issues which they ‘own’ (Green-Pedersen & Stubager, 2010). For example, a social democrat party is more likely to react on news concerning labor, which usually is an issue social democratic parties own, than on news concerning cars, which usually is an issue owned by the more liberal parties.
3
http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/bestanden/documenten-en-
publicaties/kamerstukken/2013/02/19/kamerbrief-aanpak-decentralisaties-op-terrein-van- ondersteuning-participatie-en-jeugd/kamerbrief-aanpak-decentralisaties-op-terrein-van-ondersteuning-participatie-en-jeugd.pdf
12 Walgrave and Van Aelst found that both in Belgium and Denmark opposition-party members of parliament use mass media “as a searching device that brings to the fore issues that nurture their attacks on the government” (Walgrave & Van Aelst, 2011, p. 1054). However, not only members of opposition parties rely on mass media for information. Members of majority parties in both countries pose an increased amount of questions on issues after the media has covered them, albeit less than members of opposition parties. Members of opposition parties pose more questions in general as well. This difference is explained by the opposing interests: opposition parties challenge governments and can use whatever media coverage available to them, while coalition parties have to be cautious not to destabilize their government.
Thesen researched how tone and policy responsibility affected political-agenda setting, and found that when news is positive, the party responsible for policy concerning that issue is the most likely to give attention to that news. Vice versa, when the news is negative, the
opposition parties are more likely to give attention to that news (Thesen, 2013).
Considering the design of this research, which will be explained further in the next chapter, the contingencies put forward by Green-Pedersen, Stubager and Thesen will not be tested. The opposition versus coalition divide does fit the design. Considering that Walgrave & Van Aelst found that media influence the behavior of opposition party members more than those of coalition or majority party members, the following is hypothesized:
H2: Members of opposition parties reference more media than members of coalition parties on all three levels.
This hypothesis is divided in three sub hypotheses:
H2a: On national level members of opposition parties reference more media. H2b: On regional level members of opposition parties reference more media.
13 H2c: On local level members of opposition parties reference more media.
Media agenda
How the media is defined also affects how much agenda-setting is found. Returning to their 2006 literature review by Walgrave & Van Aelst, it can be noted there is quite some debate on what kind of media is dominant in political agenda-setting. Some research has focused on newspapers, some on television and some on both. The findings are contradictory. Walgrave & Van Aelst provide a few reasons why newspapers might be more influential than television: newspapers provide complete and in-depth coverage, while television news is usually rather short. Also, the more flexible nature of paper material allows easier processing, could mean political actors are more exposed to newspapers than to television. In 2008, Walgrave, Soroka & Nuytemans (2008) conducted a longitudinal analysis in Belgium into the agenda-setting effects of both newspapers and television. He found that newspapers have more influence on political agenda’s than television, which had no influence whatsoever.
The study by Eilders (2000) discovered that issues do not only need to be covered frequently by mass media, only when different newspapers assign relevance to certain issues the political system responds, and political agenda-setting effects occur.
Most of these findings are concerned with agenda-setting on the national level, not on the local level. Palmgreen and Clarke state that compared to television, newspapers have a bigger ‘newshole’: they have more space for news-stories than television broadcasts, allowing for more stories on local issues. This makes it even more likely for newspapers to be the
dominant kind of media. However, in their research they found television to be the dominant medium on the national level. On the local level, newspapers were found to be the dominant agenda-setting medium. However, since the Walgrave study is more recent, the following is hypothesized:
14 H3: Newspapers are the most referenced type of medium in the oral questioning on all three levels.
This hypothesis is divided in three sub hypotheses:
H3a: Newspapers are the dominant kind of media in setting the agenda on national H3b: Newspapers are the dominant kind of media in setting the agenda on regional level H3c: Newspapers are the dominant kind of media in setting the agenda on local level
Considering that mass media prefer to cover national issues, it is unlikely that national media cover many local issues. When agenda-setting effects on local or regional level occur, it is far more likely they were covered by local media, since national media probably will not cover it. Therefore the following is hypothesized:
H4: On the national level, national media are the most often referenced media, while on the local and regional level local media will be most referenced media.
This hypothesis is divided in three sub hypotheses:
H4a: On the national level, the national media are more referenced than local media. H4b: On regional level, local media are more referenced than national media.
H4c: On local level, local media are more referenced than national media.
Methods Research design
The goal of this research is to provide an answer to the question ‘what is the difference in agenda-setting between local, regional and national levels of government?’ in terms of the
15 proportion of media-inspired questions on each level of government, what type of
representative is influenced by media and what kind of media influence them. The data needed to answer this question will be gathered using a quantitative content analysis of oral questions posed by the representative institutions on the three specified levels of government. Riffe, Lacy and Fico (2005) define a quantitative content analysis as following: “the
systematic assignment of communication content to categories according to rules, and the analysis of relationships involving those categories using statistical methods”. (Riffe, Lacy & Fico, 2005, p.3) An advantage of conducting a content analysis is that it makes it possible to process large amounts of data in a reasonable time frame. This makes it the right method because in order to answer the research question, media references have to be found. Since it is uncertain how many references will be made in the oral questions, a large amount of data will be processed.
Political agenda
The political agenda in this study is defined as the oral questions posed in the general
meetings of the Tweede Kamer, Provinciale Staten and municipal councils. Vliegenthart and Walgrave also used parliamentary questions as unit of analysis. “The main instance of parliamentary control, and the focus of this article, is MPs asking questions of specific ministers or the cabinet as a whole” (Vliegenthart and Walgrave 2011, p. 1033) They even state that parliamentary questioning is the ‘only truly parliamentary activity’. The difference between oral and written questioning is that the answers to oral questions have to be given immediately.
Defining the political agenda as the oral questioning of ministers and the cabinet means defining the political agenda symbolically. It is not substantive because oral questioning usually does not result in any tangible consequences, like a policy change. Agenda-setting
16 effects are usually found in studies which defined the political agenda symbolically instead of substantially, so this increases the likelihood of finding references to media.
Media Agenda
Most quantitative agenda-setting research compares a media agenda with a political agenda in order to determine to what extent these agendas influence each other. However, this particular study uses a different research design. Instead of comparing the two agendas, only the
political agenda will analyzed and coded for references to the media. This limits the scope of the study considerably: political agenda-setting is reduced to politicians explicitly referencing media in their question for the executive power. However since the aim of this study is to compare agenda-setting on the national, regional and local level, this is not problematic as the operationalization of agenda-setting is the same on all three levels, ensuring comparability.
Definition of question
A question is considered the introduction of the question, the question itself and potential follow-up questions asked on the same topic by the initial questioner or a new questioner. For example: “is the minister aware of this? And what is he planning to do about it?” is defined in this research as a single question.
Sample
The research units in this research will be oral questions posed between 19-11-2012 and 18-11-2013 by council members in the general meetings of local councils, regional councils and the national parliament. These dates have been chosen because they represent a full year, without any elections on any of the three levels. The most recent election is the national election which was held in September 2012. After two months of negotiations, on November 5th, the Rutte – Asscher administration was confirmed by oath. The most recent elections on
17 regional level were held in 2011, and the most recent local elections were held in 2010, with the exception of nine municipalities which had elections in November 2013 because of administrative reforms. These municipalities have been excluded from the sample because of these elections. As described in the theoretical framework, whether or not elections took place in the time frame might influence the agenda-setting effects found. Making sure no elections took place in any of the polities in the sample eliminates this as a potential cause of
differences. A period of one year has been chosen in order to include enough questions on the national and regional level.
National level: For the national level there is only one relevant institution, which is the parliament. The Dutch parliament consists of two chambers, the Tweede Kamer and the Eerste Kamer, also referred to as the senate. Since the Eerste Kamer is primarily charged with checking the work of the Tweede Kamer, the Tweede Kamer is considered to be the relevant institution on national level for this research. All oral questions posed in the plenary sessions of the Tweede Kamer in the specified time frame are selected for coding. Questions posed in the more specialized subcommittees are not selected. The total number oral questions is 180, of which the transcripts can all be found on the website of the Tweede Kamer.
Regional level: On the regional level, there are 12 provinces, which are all but one selected for the sample. The province Friesland is left out due to a language barrier, the main language in the meetings is Frisian. The representative institution on the regional level is the
Provinciale Staten. Out of those 11 other provinces, all questions posed during the plenary session of the Provinciale Staten in the specified time frame are selected. This comes down 92 oral questions asked in the provinces. The questions are obtained through the website of each province, either through the written transcripts of the meetings or if these are summarized or otherwise unavailable, through the audio transcripts.
18 Local level: On the local level the Netherlands count 408 municipalities. Out of those 408 municipalities, a proportionate stratified sample of 40 municipalities has been drawn. The stratification is based on the number of inhabitants: out of the four biggest municipalities in the Netherlands one has been randomly selected, two municipalities have been randomly drawn from a list of the other cities which have more than 100,000 inhabitants, and a random sample of 37 has been drawn from a list of municipalities which have less than 100,000 inhabitants. This has been done to make sure that the sample includes both small and big municipalities. In these municipalities, only questions posed in plenary meetings are selected, thus excluding questions posed in the more specialized smaller subcommittees. The total number of oral questions posed in the selected municipalities during the specified time-frame is 912.
To come to a more feasible number of questions, all questions will be put in chronological order per municipality. Then, every uneven question per municipality will be coded. This means every first question, every third question and so on will be coded. By drawing the sample this way, the proportions of the municipalities remain almost exactly the same. A bias in time is also unlikely to occur, since this way of sampling ensures questions posed
throughout the whole timeframe are selected. Doing so narrows the sample of oral questions for the local level down to 433. The questions are obtained through the website of each province, either through the written transcripts of the meetings or if these are summarized or otherwise unavailable, through the audio transcripts.
The total sample thus consists of 705 oral questions.
Operationalization
The coding is done on question level, using the codebook. The codebook contains all the variables for which the question should be coded. The variables date, place, level of
19 government, and political party are concerned with when, where and by whom the question was posed. Related to the political party variable is the variable concerning the position of the party: is the party in the respective governmental coalition or is it in the opposition? Since coalitions vary per polity, the governing coalition of every polity is checked. This information can be found on the website of the respective polity. The following variable focuses on the topic of the question: what is the question about? The next variable is concerned with media references: how many media does the questioner refer to in his question? The subsequent variables are used to determine the type of medium: newspaper, television, online, magazine or other, the name of the medium and its reach: local or national. In case a question refers to more than one medium, the variables concerning type, name and reach of the medium are replicated to allow the coding of those additional media references as well.
When a question refers to the website of a newspaper or a television station, the type of medium variable is coded as online. When a medium is referenced in a way that does not specify the type, title, or reach, an option ‘unspecified’ is included. This way, a reference such as ‘in today’s newspaper’ can still be used in the comparison between types of media, but not in the comparison between the reach of media. A reference such as ‘in the national media’ can vice versa still be used in the comparison between local and national media, but not in the comparison between the types. The codebook is included as in the appendix.
Since there is only one coder, no inter-coder reliability test has been conducted.
Results
The content analysis of 705 oral questions posed in the timeframe specified in the methods chapter has resulted in 316 references to media. This means an average of 0.45 media
20 reference per oral question posed. The means of the different levels of government are
displayed in table 1.
Tweede Kamer Provinciale Staten Gemeenteraad Total Sum of references 203 23 90 316 Number of questions 180 92 433 705 Mean number of references per question 1.13 (SD = 0.68) 0.25 (SD = 0.44) 0.21 (SD = 0.43) 0.45 (SD = 0.64) Table 1.
As can be seen in table 1, the average number of references per question is far higher on the national level than on the regional and local level. However, these results have to be tested to see if they differ significantly.
Looking at the average numbers of references per question, the difference between the national level and regional level is remarkable, with the number at national level (M=1.13, SD= 0.677) being almost 5 times higher than that at the regional level (M=0.25, SD= 0,435) . At the local level the average number of references is 0.21 (SD=0.428), far lower than at the national level.
To see if these means differ significantly, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) is performed. The results indicate that the differences are significant (F = 219,627, df = 2, p=<.001).
However, a look at the bonferoni post-hoc test shows that the differences between the regional and local level are not significant. The mean difference between national and regional is 0.878, the mean difference between national and local is 0.920, both p < .001.
Hypothesis H1A and H1B can therefore be confirmed: the mean number of reference per question is significantly higher on the national level than on the regional and local level. H1c
21 cannot be confirmed, since the difference between the regional and local level is not
significant. Political parties
In order to test the second hypothesis and its sub hypotheses, the coalition and opposition means are displayed in table 2.
National Regional Local Total
Coalition M = 1.30 SD = 0.91 n = 47 M = 0.07 SD = 0.26 n= 28 M = 0.22 SD = 0.44 n= 191 M= 0.39 SD= 0.68 n= 266 Opposition M = 1.07 SD = 0.57 n = 133 M = 0.33 SD = 0.47 n = 64 M = 0.20 SD = 0.42 n= 242 M = 0.48 SD = 0.62 n= 439 Table 2. Media references per question: means, standard deviations, sums.
The mean number of references in questions posed by coalition and opposition party members is displayed in table 2. Looking at the total, the sample seems to confirm the main hypothesis: opposition members made more references (M=0.48, SD= 0.68) to media in their questions than members of parties forming the governing coalition (M=0.39, SD= 0.68). However, an independent samples t-test indicates these differences are not significant, t (703) = -1.73, p = 0.085.
National level
A look at table 2 shows that, contrary to the theory, on the national level coalition party members made more references to media (M = 1.30, SD = 0.91) than members of parties in the opposition (M = 1.07, SD = 0.57). These results are however not significant, as an
22 independent samples t-test shows, t (59,179) = 1.6, p = .108. It should be noted that equal variances could not be assumed due to a significant Levene’s test. In any case, hypothesis H2a: “On national level members of opposition parties reference more media” has to be rejected.
Regional level
The results on regional level are conform expectations: coalition members hardly make any references to media (M = 0.07, SD = 0.26), while opposition members make more references (M = 0.33, SD = 0.47). The independent samples t-test shows these differences to be
significant, t(90) = -2.69, p = .009. Hypothesis H2b, “On regional level members of opposition parties reference more media” can therefore be confirmed.
Local level
The results on local level are similar in one aspect to those on national level: members of coalition parties made more references to media (M = 0.22, SD = 0.42) than their colleagues from opposition parties (M = 0.20, SD = 0.42). However, another independent samples t-test shows that the difference is not significant, t(431) = 0.519, p= .604. This means hypothesis H2c:” On local level members of opposition parties reference more media”, can not be confirmed.
Type of medium
In order to test the second hypothesis, the means of references to each medium will be
compared with each other, in order to determine which medium is the most referenced in each level of government. The differences will be tested for significance, this is done using paired t-tests. Usually these tests are used in experiments with a pretreatment and post treatment
23 measure, to test if the two means significantly differ from each other. While the measures in this test are no before and after measures, the test still reveals whether or not the mean number of references to, for example newspapers and television, are significantly different from each other. Due to the nature of the data, the basic unit of analysis being a question which can reference multiple and different media, there are no independent samples. The results are displayed in table 3.
National level Regional level Local level Total Newspaper references (% within column) M = 0.43 SD = 0.57 Sum: 78 (38.4%) M = 0.08 SD = 0.27 Sum: 7 (30.4%) M = 0.15 SD = 0.39 Sum: 66 (73.3%) M = 0.21 SD = 0.447 Sum: 151 (47.8%) Television references (% within column) M = 0.23 SD = 0.50 Sum: 42 (20.7%) M = 0.03 SD = 0.18 Sum: 3 (13.0%) M = 0.01 SD = 0.01 Sum: 4 (4.4%) M = 0.07 SD = 0.286 Sum: 49 (15.5%) Online media references (% within column) M = 0.33 SD =0.47 Sum: 60 (29.6%) M = 0.02 SD = 0.15 Sum: 2 (8.6%) M = 0 SD = 0.05 Sum: 1 (1.1%) M = 0.09 SD = 0.285 Sum: 63 (19.9%) Magazine references (% within column) M = 0.04 SD = 0.19 Sum: 7 (3,4%) M = 0.02 SD = 0.15 Sum: 2 (8,6%) M = 0 SD = 0.07 Sum: 2 (2,2%) M= 0.02 SD = 0.124 Sum: 11 (3,5%) References to other media (% within column) M = 0.04 SD = 0.207 Sum: 8 (3,9%) M = 0 SD = 0 Sum: 0 (0,0%) M = 0 SD = 0 Sum: 0 (0,0%) M = 0.01 SD = 0.106 Sum: 8 (2,5%) Unspecified references (% within M = 0.04 SD = 0.207 Sum: 8 M = 0.10 SD = 0.30 Sum: 9 M = 0.04 SD = 0.19 Sum: 17 M = 0.05 SD = 0.214 Sum: 34
24 column) (3,9%) (39,1%) (18,9%) (10.8%) Total references M = 1.13 SD = 0.68 Sum: 203 M = 0.25 SD = 0.44 Sum: 23 M = 0.21 SD = 0.43 Sum: 90 M = 0.45 SD = 0.64 Sum: 316
Table 3. Media references per question: means, standard deviations, sums and percentages within level of government.
As can be seen, newspapers are the dominant type of medium, 47,8% of all references found in the questions are made to newspapers. On the national level, 38,4% of the references made was to newspapers. This makes it the most dominant medium compared to the other media, television, online and magazines. The second most dominant type of medium is online. However, some remarks have to be made. 37,3% of the references to online media were to the website of the NOS, the Dutch public broadcaster, and 20,3% of the references were made to the websites of Algemeen Dagblad, NRC Handelsblad, De Telegraaf, Trouw and De
Volkskrant. So online media may be more popular than television, the websites referred to are more often than not those of news media which have their origins in other media, such as television or newspaper.
National level
When looking at the national level, the results seem similar to those of the total sample. Paired t-tests indicate that newspapers are not significantly more referenced (M = 0.43, SD = 0.57) than online (M = 0.33, SD = 0.47), t (179) = 1,65, p = .100. However newspapers are significantly more referred to than television (M = 0.23, SD = 0.50), t (179) = 3.50, p = .001, and therefore also differ significant from magazines and other media, since these were less referred to than television. Hypothesis H3a: ‘Newspapers are the dominant kind of media in setting the agenda on national level’ is partially supported: no other medium is referred to more than newspapers, along with online media.
25 Regional level
However, on the regional level only 23 references were found. Of those 23, nine references were made without specifying what type of media was concerned. Seven references, 30,4% of the total, were made to newspapers, versus 13% television, 8,6% online and another 8,6% to magazines. Paired t-tests indicate that newspapers (M = 0.08, SD = 0.27) are not significantly more referenced than television (M = 0.03, SD = 0.18), t (91) = 1.27, p = .208. The average number of references to online media and magazines (both M= 0.02, SD = 0.15) are also not significantly different from the average of newspapers, t (91) = 1.68, p = .096. The only significant difference is between newspapers and other media, which was referenced 0 times, t (91) = 2.74, p = .007. Hypothesis H3b: ‘Newspapers are the dominant kind of media in setting the agenda on regional level’ can therefore not be confirmed.
Local level
As was expected, newspapers are virtually the only important medium on the local level: 73,3% of the references made on the local level referred to newspapers, while only 7,7% referred to other media. Paired T-tests of the means of newspapers (M = 0.15, SD = 0.39) and television (M= 0.01, SD = 0.01), the second most referenced medium on local level confirm that the difference is significant, t (432) = 7.45, p = < .001. The other 18,9% of the references did not specify the type of medium. Hypothesis H3c can therefore be confirmed.
Reach of media
In order to test the hypotheses regarding the reach of media, the process is similar to the previous section, which was concerned with the type of media. The means, standard deviations, sums and percentages within level of government are displayed in a table, and paired t-test will show whether or not the differences between the means are significant.
26 National level Regional level Local level Total
National media (% within column) M = 1.01 SD = 0.63 Sum: 181 (89,2%) M = 0.08 SD = 0.27 Sum: 7 (30,4%) M = 0.03 SD = 0.17 Sum: 11 (12,2%) M = 0.28 SD = 0.55 Sum: 199 (63.0%) Local media (% within column) M = 0.06 SD = 0.25 Sum: 10 (4,9%) M = 0.08 SD = 0.27 Sum: 7 (30,4%) M = 0.11 SD = 0.32 Sum: 48 (53,3%) M = 0.09 SD = 0.30 Sum: 65 (20.6%) Unspecified media (% within column) M = 0.07 SD = 0.31 Sum: 12 (5,9%) M = 0.10 SD = 0.30 Sum: 9 (39.1%) M = 0.07 SD = 0.26 Sum: 31 (34,4%) M = 0.07 SD = 0.28 Sum: 52 (16,5%) Total references per question M = 1.13 SD = 0.68 Sum: 203 M = 0.25 SD = 0.44 Sum: 23 M = 0.21 SD = 0.43 Sum: 90 M = 0.45 SD = 0.64 Sum: 316 Table 4. Media references per question: means, standard deviations, sums and percentages within level of government
National level
As can be seen in table 4, the reach of the media referenced in the meetings differs a lot per level of government. An average of 1.01 (SD = 0.63) references per question posed in the national parliament was to media with a national reach, while an average of 0.07 (SD = 0.68) of the references being made to local media. An paired t-test indicates the difference is significant, t (179) = 17.73, p = < .001 thus confirming hypothesis H4a: on the national level, the national media are more referenced than local media.
Regional level
On the regional level, the average number of references per question to both national and local media are 0.08 (SD = 0.27). Since no differences were found, there is nothing to be tested. Also should be noted that 39,% of the references made did not specify what the reach
27 of the medium was. On the basis of these results hypothesis H4b: “on regional level, local media are more referenced than national media” cannot be confirmed.
Local level
On the local level, 53,3% of the references made were to local media, more than half. 12,2% of the references was made to national media, while 34,4% of the references did not specify whether the source was a national or local medium. Another paired t-test indicates that the difference is significant t(432) = -4,946, p = < .001. Therefore, hypothesis h4c: “on local level, local media are more referenced than national media”, can be confirmed.
Conclusion
The aim of this study was to answer the following question: “To what extent does agenda-setting differ on the national, regional and local level in the Netherlands?” Four hypotheses were formulated and tested, and generated four conclusions.
The first hypothesis, “The most political agenda-setting will take place at the national level, followed by the regional level and the least amount of political agenda-setting at the local level” is partially supported since two of the three sub hypotheses were confirmed: the national level is more influenced by media than the regional and local level, which did not differ significantly from each other.
The second hypothesis, “Members of opposition parties reference more media than members of coalition parties in all three levels” is also partially supported, although only one sub hypothesis was confirmed: only the regional level showed the expected difference between opposition and coalition members. The regional level is different in this aspect: on national level the opposition and coalitions number of references were equally high, and on local level
28 equally low. to more. On basis of the literature, it was hypothesized that opposition members use more media in their questions than coalition members, since it is in the opposition’s interest to ask critical questions, for which the media provide ammunition. The findings could be explained by the difference in ‘immediacy’ between local and national issues: members of local councils are more likely to be able to witness the local issues themselves and therefore have to rely less on media coverage, even the members of opposition parties. On national level the contrary could be an explanation: national issues lack the ‘immediacy’, meaning even coalition parties have to rely on media for information.
The third hypothesis, “Newspapers are the most referenced type of medium in the oral questioning on all three levels” is also partially supported. Together with online media, it was the most important type of medium . On the local level, newspapers were virtually the only medium referenced. On the regional level no real conclusions can be drawn, since the results were not significantly different from each other.
The last hypothesis, “On the national level, national media are the most often referenced media, while on the local and regional level local media will be most referenced media”, is also partially supported: only the sub hypothesis concerning the regional media could not be confirmed. On the national level, national media were found to be the dominant agenda-setting media while on local level the local media were the dominant agenda-agenda-setting. On the regional level, no conclusions could be drawn.
Returning to the research question, the following can be answered: the national level has the most agenda-setting effects, only at the regional level the opposition-coalition divide is of influence on agenda-setting, and municipalities reference local media while in the national parliament the most references are made to national media. The regional level is the only level where newspapers are not the most important type of news medium.
29 Discussion
This study has contributed to the political agenda-setting research tradition by drawing a comparison between the national level, which is the focus of almost every other agenda-setting study, and the regional and local level. Only two earlier studies comparing local and national agenda-setting processes, but both were conducted in the United States. By studying the local and regional political agendas, this research hopes to inspire further research into these levels of government.
An interesting suggestion for further research is to conduct a survey among members of local, regional and national representative bodies: this could provide a more in-depth look at what exactly causes the differences found in this study.
Also the influence of online media has not been frequently topic of research. This is probably because of the longitudinal nature of most agenda-setting studies, these studies have long time frames while online media is relatively new in comparison to newspapers and television. However, the importance of online media in the national parliament shows it will make an interesting topic for further research.
Limitations
The scope of this study is of course limited by the operationalization of political agenda-setting: only manifest, explicit references to media are recognized as agenda-setting, while the process of political agenda-setting is far more complex. However, the aim of this study is to make a comparison between local, regional and national levels and the same
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35 Appendix A: Codebook
V1. Case number
For identifying purposes V2. Date of the meeting
Dd.mm.yyyy V3. Level of government 1 Local 2 Regional 3 National V4. Place 1. Gemeente Alphen-Chaam 2. Gemeente Amsterdam 3. Gemeente Baarn 4. Gemeente Beemster 5. Gemeente Beverwijk 6. Gemeente Culemborg 7. Gemeente De Ronde Venen 8. Gemeente Diemen 9. Gemeente Drechterland 10. Gemeente Drimmelen 11. Gemeente Giessenlanden 12. Gemeente Haaren 13. Gemeente Haarlemmerliede en Spaarnwoude 14. Gemeente Heerhugowaard 15. Gemeente Hellevoetsluis 16. Gemeente Het Bildt
17. Gemeente Haarlemmermeer 18. Gemeente Hoogezand-Sappemeer 19. Gemeente Hoorn 20. Gemeente Houten 21. Gemeente Katwijk 22. Gemeente Lansingerland 23. Gemeente Losser
24. Gemeente Millingen aan de Rijn
25. Gemeente Nijkerk 26. Gemeente Noordwijk 27. Gemeente Nuenen, Gerwen
en Nederwetten 28. Gemeente Nunspeet 29. Gemeente Oisterwijk 30. Gemeente Oldenzaal 31. Gemeente Ommen 32. Gemeente Onderbanken
36 33. Gemeente Rijnwaarden 34. Gemeente Rijssen-Holten 35. Gemeente Roosendaal 36. Gemeente Sint-Oedenrode 37. Gemeente Tilburg 38. Gemeente Vianen 39. Gemeente Woerden 40. Gemeente Zwijndrecht 41. Provincie Drenthe 42. Provincie Flevoland 43. Provincie Gelderland 44. Provincie Groningen 45. Provincie Limburg 46. Provincie Noord-Brabant 47. Provincie Noord-Holland 48. Provincie Overijssel 49. Provincie Utrecht 50. Provincie Zeeland 51. Provincie Zuid-Holland 52. Tweede Kamer V5. Political Party
What political party is the questioner a member of? 1. Christen-Democratisch Appèl 2. ChristenUnie
3. Democraten 66 4. GroenLinks
5. Partij van de Arbeid 6. Partij voor de Dieren 7. Partij voor de Vrijheid
8. Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij 9. Socialistische Partij
10. Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie 11. 50Plus
12. Regional party 13. Local party 0. Other
V6. Government
37 1. Coalition
2. Opposition V7. Topic
What is the topic of the question?
1. Internal politics (elections, resignations, fall of government) 2. Military and defense
3. Internal order (judicial decisions, demonstrations, terrorism, crime levels, police etc. ) 4. Economy (economic indexes, job market, fiscal measures, budget issues, labor and
industrial relations, business, commerce, industry, etc.) 5. Transportation (roads, public transport, etc.)
6. Health, welfare, social services (health policy, poverty, drugs problems) 7. Population (immigration, emigration)
8. Education
9. Communication (journalism, media, technical aspects of communication, etc.) 10. Housing (supply, mortgages, city planning, etc.)
11. Environment (pollution, conservation, garbage) 12. Energy (supply, costs)
13. Science and technology
14. Social relations (gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, etc.) 15. Accidents and disasters
16. Sports
17. Culture (music, theatre, museums, festivals, etc.)
18. Ceremonies (government/political ceremonies, commemorations, etc.) 19. Religion
20. International politics (activities of international political organizations, politicians, parties, diplomatic visits, wars, international terrorism, etc.)
21. Other
V8. Media reference
How many media does the question, initial or follow-up, reference? Items on television, radio or in newspapers are considered to be media. Items in online media are only considered
38 relevant when they are produced by a news organization. For example, corporate press
releases and governmental reports are not considered to be media. When the reference is to the media in general, it will be seen as being unspecified, but is still seen as a media reference.
# V9. Type medium 1 1 Newspaper 2 Television 3 Online 4 Magazine 5 Other
6 Unspecified (referred to as media in general) 0 No media reference
V10. Title medium 1 1. NOS-journaal 2. RTL Nieuws
3. Hart van Nederland 4. 1 Vandaag 5. Nova 6. Buitenhof 7. Algemeen Dagblad 8. NRC Handelsblad 9. De Telegraaf 10. Trouw 11. De Volkskrant 12. Metro
39 13. Spits
14. Local medium 15. Other
16. Unspecified (no title given) 0. No media reference
V11. Reach medium 1 1 National 2 Local
3 Unspecified (no title given) 0 No media reference V12. Type medium 2 1 Newspaper 2 Television 3 Online 4 Magazine 5 Other
6 Unspecified (referred to as media in general) 0 No media reference
V13. Title medium 2 1. NOS-journaal 2. RTL Nieuws
3. Hart van Nederland 4. 1 Vandaag
40 5. Nova 6. Buitenhof 7. Algemeen Dagblad 8. NRC Handelsblad 9. De Telegraaf 10. Trouw 11. De Volkskrant 12. Metro 13. Spits 14. Local medium 15. Other
16. Unspecified (no title given) 0. No media reference
V14. Reach medium 2 1 National 2 Local
3 Unspecified (no title given) 0 No media reference V15. Type medium 3 1 Newspaper 2 Television 3 Online 4 Magazine 5 Other
41 0 No media reference
V16. Title medium 3 1. NOS-journaal 2. RTL Nieuws
3. Hart van Nederland 4. 1 Vandaag 5. Nova 6. Buitenhof 7. Algemeen Dagblad 8. NRC Handelsblad 9. De Telegraaf 10. Trouw 11. De Volkskrant 12. Metro 13. Spits 14. Local medium 15. Other
16. Unspecified (no title given) 0. No media reference
V17. Reach medium 3 1 National 2 Local
3 Unspecified (no title given) 0 No media reference
V18. Type medium 4 1 Newspaper
42 2 Television
3 Online 4 Magazine 5 Other
6 Unspecified (referred to as media in general) 0 No media reference
V19. Title medium 4 1. NOS-journaal 2. RTL Nieuws
3. Hart van Nederland 4. 1 Vandaag 5. Nova 6. Buitenhof 7. Algemeen Dagblad 8. NRC Handelsblad 9. De Telegraaf 10. Trouw 11. De Volkskrant 12. Metro 13. Spits 14. Local medium 15. Other
16. Unspecified (no title given) 0. No media reference
V20. Reach medium 4 1 National
43 2 Local
3 Unspecified (no title given) 0 No media reference
