Abstract

Media influence how the public evaluates issues and candidates. Issues and attributes covered in traditional media tend to be the same issues and attributes the general public perceive to be important. Yet, at an individual level we all have certain preferences and biases that impact the salience of agendas. Motivated reasoning suggests that audiences are inclined to choose agendas that reinforce beliefs. Agendas that are not congruent are typically scrutinized and refuted. This study controls for those with prior negative beliefs, and those without. The moderate ideology of Mitt Romney is examined. Initially, through a macro-level analysis of all users on Twitter, the media coverage appears to influence the general public. From the data, “supporters” for each of the top five Republican candidates were pulled-out and put into test groups. The assumption was made that those who vocally support Romney the most, prior to the news coverage, would apply motivated reasoning and ignore the news coverage. This study finds that supporters who already opposed Romney accepted the attribute, while those who supported Romney ignored it almost completely. These findings are then compared against the Gallup daily tracking poll for the candidates. Here it is found that Twitter appears to agree with public opinion polls. Romney did not lose support from those with conservative ideologies. Instead, he appeared to gain support from those Republicans who identified themselves as moderate and liberal. In conclusion, it appears that motivated reasoning can work in concert with agenda-setting theory to explain media effects.

How to Cite

Vargo, C., Guo, L., McCombs, M., & Shaw, D. (2014). Network issue agendas on Twitter during the 2012 U.S. presidential election. Journal of Communication, 64(2), 296–316. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12089

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Version and Rights

This is the author preprint. For the final published version, see the DOI above.