Policy Agenda-Setting Theory Revisited: A Critique of Howlett on Downs, Baumgartner and Jones, and Kingdon

Canadian Journal of Political Science

Volumn 32, Issue 4, 1999, Pages 763-772

  Soroka, Stuart ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 85010151325     PISSN: 00084239     EISSN: 17449324     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S000842390001698X     Document Type: Article

References (24)

1. Michael Howlett, “Issue-Attention and Punctuated Equilibria Models Reconsidered: An Empirical Examination of the Dynamics of Agenda-Setting in Canada”, this Journal 30 (1997), 3–30;
2. “Predictable and Unpredictable Policy Windows: Institutional and Exogenous Correlates of Canadian Federal Agenda-Setting”, this Journal 31 (1998), 495–524.
3. The sources of the three theories Howlett analyzes are as follows: Anthony Downs, “Up and Down With Ecology: The ‘Issue Attention Cycle,’” The Public Interest 28 (1972), 38–50;
4. Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones, Agendas and Instability in American Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993)
5. John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies (New York: Harper Collins, 1984).
6. Cross-correlation functions (CCFs) are a product of correlations between two series at various lags and leads. They are usually used to help identify causal links between two time series. For a more detailed description of CCFs and their uses, see C. Chatfield, The Analysis of Time Series: An Introduction (4th ed.; London; Chapman and Hall, 1989).
7. For suggestions regarding ways in which public agenda-setting effects might be affected by the nature of the issue, see Aileen Yagade and David M. Dozier, “The Media Agenda-Setting Effect of Concrete Versus Abstract Issues,” Journalism Quarterly 67 (1990), 3–10;
8. Harold G. Zucker, “The Variable Nature of News Media Influence,” in B. D. Ruben, ed., Communication Yearbook, Vol. 2 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1978), 225–245.
9. Theories discussed in the preceding articles have been considered and tested, with varied results, by Roy L. Behr and Shanto Iyengar, “Television News, Real-World Cues, and Changes in the Public Agenda,” Public Opinion Quarterly 49 (1985), 38–57;
10. David P. Demers, Dennis Craff, Yang-Ho Choi and Beth M. Pession, “Issue Obtrusiveness and the Agenda-Setting Effects of National Network News,” Communication Research 16 (1989), 793–812;
11. Wayne Wanta and Yu-Wei Hu, “The Agenda-Setting Effects of International News Coverage; An Examination of Differing News Frames,” International Journal of Public Opinion Research 5 (1993), 250–264;
12. James P. Winter, Chaim H. Eyal and Ann H. Rogers, “Issue Specific Agenda-Setting: The Whole Is Less than the Sum of the Parts,” Canadian Journal of Communication 8 (1982), 1–10.
13. There are no countries with an accumulated body of public opinion data comparable to that in the US. One well-suited dataset was collected in Germany, and this generated a number of fascinating agenda-setting articles (see, for example, Hans-Bernd Brosius and Hans Mathias Kepplinger, “The Agenda-Setting Function of Television News: Static and Dynamic Views,” Communication Research 17 [1990], 183–211;
14. Hans Bemd Brosius and Hans Mathias Kepplinger, “Beyond Agenda-Setting; The Influence of Partisanship and Television Reporting on the Electorate's Voting Intentions,” Journalism Quarterly 69 [1992] 893–901). For the most part, however, useful longitudinal public opinion data for agenda-setting researchers outside the US remains slight at best.
15. Baumgartner and Jones. Agendas and Instability, 16.
16. The citation Hewlett uses from Baumgartner and Jones comes directly from the section where authors clarify what they mean by cyclical views of politics (Agendas and Instability in American Politics, 244–245;
17. Howlett, “Issue-Attention and Punctuated Equilibrium Models Reconsidered,” 24).
18. Baumgartner and Jones cite a number of examples of cyclical models, including Samuel P. Huntington, American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981)
19. Andrew S. McFarland, “Interest Groups and Political Time; Cycles in America,” British Journal of Political Science 17 (1991), 257–284.
20. This is also true of Jones's more recent work (Reconceiving Decision-Making in Democratic Politics: Attention, Choice, and Public Policy [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994]).
21. Howlett, “Predictable and Unpredictable Policy Windows,” 500.
22. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, 152–172.
23. Agendas, Alternatives., 156.
24. See, for instance, Everett M. Rogers and James W. Dearing, “Agenda-Setting Research; Where Has It Been, Where Is It Going?” in James A. Anderson, ed., Communication Yearbook, Vol. 11 (London: Sage, 1988), 555–594.