Page 21 - Media Effects Advances in Theory and Research

10 McCOMBS AND REYNOLDS

SECOND-LEVEL EFFECTS AND FRAMING

In most discussions of the agenda-setting role of the mass media, the unit
of analysis on each agenda is an object, usually a public issue. But public
issues are not the only objects that can be analyzed from the agenda-
setting perspective. In the party primaries, the objects of interest are the
candidates vying for the presidential nomination of their political party.
Many other objects can define an agenda as well. Communication is a
process, which can be about any object or set of objects competing for
attention. In all these instances, the term object is used in the same sense
that social psychologists use the term attitude object. We direct our atten-
tion to an object, or we have an attitude or opinion about an object.
Beyond the agenda of objects, there is another level of agenda-setting.
Each of the objects on an agenda has numerous attributes—characteristics
and properties. Just as objects vary in salience, so do their attributes. Both
the selection of objects for attention and the selection of attributes for pic-
turing those objects are powerful agenda-setting roles. An important part
of the news agenda and its set of objects are the attributes that journalists
and, subsequently, members of the public have in mind when they think
about and talk about each object. How these news agendas of attributes
influence the public agenda is the second level of agenda-setting. Explicit
attention to the second level of agenda-setting further suggests that the
media not only tell us what to think about (Cohen, 1963), but they can also
tell us how to think about some objects.
The theoretical distinction between agendas of objects and agendas of
attributes, which is diagrammed in Fig. 1.1, is especially clear in an elec-
tion setting. The slate of candidates vying for an office are the agenda of
objects. The descriptions of each candidate in the news media and the
images of the candidates in voters’ minds are the agendas of attributes.
The second level of agenda-setting, attribute agenda-setting, is the influ-
ence of these media presentations on the public. Voters’ perceptions of
the presidential candidates in 1976 illustrate the second level of agenda-
setting. The Republicans had incumbent Gerald Ford, whereas the
Democrats had 11 potential candidates competing for the nomination.
Comparisons of upstate New York Democrats’ descriptions of this large
group of candidates with Newsweek’s attribute agenda in its early
sketches of the candidates showed significant evidence of media influ-
ence (Becker & McCombs, 1978). Similar media effects on voters’ images
of political candidates have been found in such diverse settings as the
1994 mayoral election in Taipei, Taiwan (King, 1997), the 1995 local elec-
tions in Pamplona, Spain (McCombs, Llamas, Lopez-Escobar, & Rey,
1997), and the 1996 Spanish general election (McCombs, Lopez-Escobar,
& Llamas, 2000). Attribute agenda-setting effects on candidate images