The Media Agenda-Setting Effect of Concrete versus Abstract Issues

This exploratory study matches a content analysis sample of Time magazine coverage of two “concrete” issues (drug abuse, energy) and two “abstract” issues (nuclear arms race, federal budget deficit) with Gallup Poll data over a lengthy period to find confirmation of the hypothesis: The media set the agenda with news about specific news events which readers/viewers can visualize, but the effect does not hold for news abstractions hard for readers/viewers to relate to. The study develops measures, tested independently in a separate, second study reported, to divide issues into either concrete or abstract categories. In agenda-setting terms, the study concludes, concreteness increases news media agenda-setting power; abstractness decreases agenda-setting power.