The Agenda-Setting-Effects of News Factor Exposure: A Field Study Comparing the Transmission Paths and Impact of Issue Exposure and News Factor Exposure

Abstract

This study explores how strongly and through which mechanisms issue exposure (amount and emphasis of coverage) and news factor exposure (content of coverage that provides newsworthiness reasons) stimulate individual-level agenda-setting effects. Based on a three-wave panel survey that was linked with fitting content analysis data, this is the first field study that comprehensively shows that exposure to news factors in news coverage exert agenda-setting effects at the individual level. Issue exposure and news factor exposure about equally contribute to agenda-setting effects. Their effects are fully cognitively mediated through media salience perceptions (MSP) and news factor perceptions (NFP). Mediation analyses suggest gradual differences between the mediation routes of the two types of exposure, but no clearly distinct paths. The results resonate with recent theorizing and experimental evidence that news consumers consider both amount and content of coverage to appraise and update issue salience. The study also contributes to the theorizing about the psychological processes that underlie agenda-setting effects. The mediation routes and the heuristic inferences they involve reveal high latent trust in journalists’ news selection.