Whose Agenda Wins Out? Comparing the Effects on Voters of Candidate and Media Issue Attention.

A large literature in political science and communications demonstrates that candidates and the news media can influence the importance voters ascribe to political issues. Little work, however, has sought to compare the agenda-setting influence of each group of actors -- candidates and journalists. Nor do scholars have a good understanding of how their influence varies in campaigns with different issue contexts, such as the extent to which candidates and the media emphasize the same issues. In this paper, I explore these matters using an experiment conducted during the early stages of the 2006 Texas gubernatorial election. I find the media to be more effective than candidates in affecting the salience individuals ascribe to political issues. Not surprisingly, the strongest effects emerge when news reports and campaign communications converge on the same agenda, suggesting the benefit to candidates when the media reflect their issue priorities. The findings point to the continued role of news coverage in shaping public opinion and the value in understanding the relationship between candidates and the media. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]