Studies that examine the media-policy connection often neglect to fully explore the dynamic nature of this association over time. It is suggested that a conceptual framework that separates media effects on policy makers' attention to issues from effects on their actual behavior (or policy actions) may be key for studying the dynamic relationship between information in the media and policy response to this information. Employing this approach to the case of drunk driving between 1978 and 1995, it was found that heightened media attention to the drunk-driving problem at the beginning of the issue-attention cycle (the early 1980s) attracted greater policy attention to this issue and pressured policy makers to generate immediate, short-term solutions to the problem. Yet, once the volume of media attention to this issue started to wane (from the late 1980s onward), policy preferences gradually shifted to long-term solutions.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Allison, P. D.
(1997). Survival analysis using the SAS system. Cary, NC: SAS Institute.
2.
Baumgartner, F. R.
, & Jones, B. D. (1993). Agendas and instability in American politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
3.
Bennett, C.
, & Yanovitzky, I. (2000, September). Patterns of congressional news media use: The questions of selection bias and third person effect. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC.
4.
Borkenstein, R. F.
(1985). Historical perspective: North American traditional and experimental response. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 10, 3-12.
5.
Bybee, C. R.
, & Comadena, M. (1984). Information sources and state legislators: Decision making and dependency. Journal of Broadcasting, 28(3), 333-340.
6.
Cox, D. R.
(1972). Regression models and life tables (with discussion). Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 34, 187-220.
7.
Dearing, J. W.
, & Rogers, E. M. (1996). Agenda setting. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
8.
Diani, M.
(1996). Linking mobilization frames and political opportunities: Insights from regional populism in Italy. American Sociological Review, 61, 1053-1069.
9.
Diebold, F. X.
(1998). Elements of forecasting. Cincinnati, OH: Southwestern College Publishing.
10.
Downs, A.
(1972). Up and down with ecology: The issue-attention cycle. Public Interest, 28, 38-50.
11.
Edwards, G.
, Anderson, P., Babor, T. F., Casswell, S., Ferrence, R., Giesbrecht, N., et al. (1994). Alcohol policy and the public good. New York: Oxford University Press.
12.
Edwards, G. C.
, & Wood, B. D. (1999). Who influences whom? The president, Congress, and the media. American Political Science Review, 93(2), 327-344.
13.
Fan, D. P.
(1988). Prediction of public opinion from the mass media: Computer content analysis and mathematical modeling. New York: Greenwood.
14.
Fylstra, D.
, Lasdon, L., Waren, A., & Watson, J. (1998). Design and use of the Microsoft Excel Solver. Interfaces, 28(5), 29-55.
15.
Gamson, W. A.
(1992). Talking politics. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
16.
Gonzenbach, W. J.
(1996). The media, the president, and public opinion: A longitudinal analysis of the drug issue, 1984-1991. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
17.
Gonzenbach, W. J.
, & McGavin, L. (1997). A brief history of time: A methodological analysis of agenda setting. In M. McCombs, D. L. Shaw, & D. Weaver (Eds.), Communication and democracy: Exploring the intellectual frontiers in agenda-setting theory (pp. 115-136). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
18.
Granger, C.W.J.
(1969). Investigating causal relations by econometric models and cross-spectral methods. Econometrica, 37, 424-438.
19.
Gusfield, J.
(1981). The culture of public problems: Drinking driving and symbolic order. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
20.
Hertog, J. K.
, & Fan, D. P. (1995). The impact of press coverage on social beliefs: The case of HIV transmission. Communication Research, 22(5), 545-574.
21.
Hess, S.
(1984). The government-press connection: Press officers and their offices. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
22.
Hilgartner, J. R.
, & Bosk, C. L. (1988). The rise and fall of social problems: A public arenas model. American Journal of Sociology, 94(1), 53-78.
23.
Iyengar, S.
(1991). Is anyone responsible? How television frames political issues. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
24.
Iyengar, S.
, & Kinder, D. R. (1987). News that matters: Television and American opinion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
25.
Iyengar, S.
, & Simon, A. (1993). News coverage of the Gulf crisis and public opinion: A study of agenda setting, priming, and framing. Communication Research, 20, 365-383.
26.
Kingdon, J. W.
(1984). Agendas, alternatives, and public policies. Boston: Little, Brown.
27.
Krippendorff, K.
(1980). Content analysis. London: Sage.
28.
Kuhn, D.
(1991). The skills of argument. New York: Cambridge University Press.
29.
Lemert, J. B.
(1981). Does mass communication change public opinion after all? A new approach to effects analysis. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
30.
Linsky, M.
(1986). How the press affects federal policy making. New York: Norton.
31.
Mathews, J.
(1982, May 18). An angry grandmother leads drive against child molesters. The Washington Post, pp. A-2-A-2.
32.
McCarthy, J. D.
(1994). Activists, authorities, and media framing of drunk driving. In E. Larana, H. Johnston, & J. R. Gusfield (Eds.), New social movements: From ideology to identity (pp. 133-167). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
33.
McCleary, R.
, & Hay, R. A. (1980). Applied time series analysis for the social sciences. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
34.
McGuire, W. J.
(1989). Theoretical foundations of campaigns. In R. E. Rice & C. K. Atkin (Eds.), Public communication campaigns (2nd ed., pp. 43-65). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
35.
Myers, D. J.
(1997). Racial rioting in the 1960s: An event history analysis of local conditions. American Sociological Review, 62, 94-112.
36.
Nacos, B. L.
, Shapiro, R. Y., Young, J. T., Fan, D. P., Kjellstrand, T., & McCaa, C. (1991). Content analysis of news reports: Comparing human coding and a computer-assisted method. Communication, 12, 111-128.
37.
Nass, C. I.
, & Reeves, B. (1991). Combining, distinguishing, and generating theories in communication: A domains of analysis framework. Communication Research, 18(2), 240-261.
38.
Neuman, W. R.
(1990). The threshold of public attention. Public Opinion Quarterly, 54, 159-176.
39.
Ostrom, C. W.
(1990). Time series analysis: Regression techniques (2nd ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
40.
Pan, Z.
, & McLeod, J. M. (1991). Multilevel analysis in mass communication research. Communication Research, 18(2), 140-173.
41.
Petty, R. E.
, & Cacioppo, J. T. (1986). Communication and persuasion: Central and peripheral routes to attitude change. New York: Springer-Verlag.
42.
Price, V.
, Ritchie, L. D., & Eulau, H. (1991). Cross-level challenges for communication research: Epilogue. Communication Research, 18(2), 262-271.
43.
Price, V.
, & Tewksbury, D. (1997). News values and public opinion: A theoretical account of media priming and framing. In G. A. Barnett & F. J. Boster (Eds.), Progress in the communication sciences (pp. 173-212). Greenwich, CT: Ablex.
44.
Reinarman, C.
(1988). The social construction of an alcohol problem: The case of Mothers Against Drunk Driving and social control in the 1980s. Theory and Society, 17, 91-120.
45.
Riffe, D.
(1990). Media roles and legislators' news media use. Journalism Quarterly, 67(2), 323-329.
46.
Roberts, C. W.
(1997). Text analysis for the social sciences. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
47.
Roessler, P.
(1999). The individual agenda-designing process: How interpersonal communication, egocentric networks, and mass media shape the perception of political issues by individuals. Communication Research, 26(6), 666-700.
48.
Rogers, E. M.
, Dearing, J. W., & Chang, S. (1991). AIDS in the 1980s: The agenda-setting process for a public issue. Journalism Monographs, 126.
49.
Salton, G.
, & McGill, M. J. (1983). Introduction to modern information retrieval. New York: McGraw-Hill.
50.
Scott, W. A.
(1969). Reliability of content analysis: The case of nominal scale coding. Public Opinion Quarterly, 19, 321-325.
51.
Siebert, F. S.
, Peterson, T., & Schramm, W. (1956). Four theories of the press. Chicago: University offices Illinois Press.
52.
Trumbo, C.
(1995). Longitudinal modeling of public issues: An application of the agenda-setting process to the issue of global warming. Journalism and Mass Communication Monographs, 152.
53.
Voas, R. B.
, & Tippetts, A. S. (1999). The relationship of alcohol safety laws to drinking drivers in fatal crashes. Bethesda, MD: Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation.
54.
Walker, J. L.
(1977). Setting the agenda in the U.S. Senate: A theory of problem selection. British Journal of Political Science, 7, 433-445.
55.
Weiss, C. H.
(1974). What America's leaders read. Public Opinion Quarterly, 23(1), 1-23.
56.
Wray, R.
, Maxwell, K., & Hornik, R. C. (1998, July). Validation of on-line searches of media coverage: An approach to evaluation with an example of reporting on domestic violence. Paper presented at the 48th International Communication Association Annual Conference, Jerusalem, Israel.
57.
Yanovitzky, I.
, & Bennett, C. (1999). Media attention, institutional response, and health behavior change: The case of drunk driving, 1978-1996. Communication Research, 26(4), 429-453.
58.
Yanovitzky, I.
, & Blitz, C. L. (2000). Effect of media coverage and physician advice on utilization of breast cancer screening by women 40 years and older. Journal of Health Communication, 5(2), 117-134.
59.
Zaller, J. R.
(1992). The nature and origins of mass opinion. New York: Cambridge University Press.
