I was doing research for my master’s degree group “think tank” project this week, and came across this article by Corwin Smidt: “Not All News in the Same.” It had some conclusions that I think should make many people on blogs I follow feel a whole lot better.
Smidt uses a study of news cycles on various issues to see how different political actors and events position an issue’s importance in the public agenda (p 72).
People assume greater news coverage means greater influence. Major political figures have reporters assigned to them consistently. Unofficial activists and grassroots organizations don’t have that access. And yet, Smidt notes the seeming ineffectiveness of many presidents to establish their favorite issues as public priorities. (73-75)
Through analysis of the coverage of gun violence issues in 2000 under Clinton and the 2009 health care debate Smidt observed that activist news was more influential that event-news or political figure news (88-89).
He concludes that the activities of the citizen activist group has a greater influence on public opinion than the actions of the president or the occurrence of random event-coverage news items. Even though public officials have more access to the news, they do not have the greater influence – that belongs to the citizen activist en masse (72-73).
So the next time you disagree with the president, or member of congress, remember, they may be more visible, but that doesn’t mean they are more persuasive of public opinion.
Reference
Smidt, C. “Not all News is the Same: Protests, Presidents, and the Mass Public Agenda, Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol, 76, No. 1 Spring 2012 ( pp 72-94).
At The Rainbow 