Political agenda-building under the conditions of a hybrid media system - a comparison across countries and issues

这项研究解决了在线传播如何改变当代民主政治传播的问题，希望互联网能够为那些无法参与政治决策的人提供一个动员问题和意见的平台，并为记者、政客和广大公众设定议程。在这一框架下，我们的研究重点是媒体议程建设。我们认为，在线交流的民主潜力在于挑战者的问题网络溢出到传统媒体和政治辩论中。特别是，我们预计挑战者的在线问题网络的特点，即占主导地位的联盟、帧强度和帧赞助商的类型，会影响向传统媒体突破的可能性。我们的经验项目是评估特定问题的在线网络，并分析它们的问题和框架在什么条件下出现在传统的印刷媒体中。在项目的第一阶段，我们使用环境政策(二氧化碳排放)和消费者/健康政策(食品安全)中的两个问题。虽然这些问题代表了左翼挑战者的原因，但在项目的第二阶段，我们将选择两个右翼问题，并额外追踪在线问题动态对政治议程的影响。该项目采用比较研究设计，对四个国家(德国、瑞士、英国、美国)的政治和媒体机会结构进行控制。在经验上，我们使用内容和网络分析来评估互联网和传统新闻媒体中针对特定问题的辩论。

This study addresses the question of how online communication changes political communication in contemporary democracy with respect to the hopes that the internet can grant those without access to political decision making a platform to mobilize issues and opinions and set the agenda for journalists, politicians and a broad public. Within this framework, our study focuses on media agenda-building. We assume that the democratic potential of online communication lies in spill-over of challengers’ issue networks into traditional media and political debate. In particular we expect that the characteristics of challengers’ online issue networks, i.e. dominant coalitions, frame strength and type of frame-sponsors, affect the likelihood of a breakthrough to traditional media. Our empirical program is to assess issue-specific online networks and analyze under what conditions their issues and frames appear in traditional print media. In the first period of the project we use two issues in environmental policy (Co2 emissions) and consumer/health policy (food safety). While these issues represent left wing challenger’s causes, in the second period of the project we will choose two right wing issues and trace additionally the consequences of online issue dynamics with respect to the political agenda. The project applies a comparative research design to control for political and media opportunity structures in four countries (Germany, Switzerland, UK, US). Empirically, we use content and network analysis to assess the issue-specific debates in the internet and in traditional news media.