Abstract
This study examines whether agenda-setting effects occur along dual paths and what role motivated goals play in that process. Based on an experimental design that employed a specially constructed news website, this study examined whether dual paths of agenda setting – a casual path and deliberative path – depend on types of motivated goals, that is, whether individuals have motivations to look for accurate news or like-minded news. The role that motivated goals play in the agenda-setting process is important, especially in the new media environment, because audiences’ news consumption has become politically polarized and aligned with their prior beliefs, which may lead them to have perceptions that are contradictory to those of the media about what issues are important and how to think about those issues. Findings of this study showed that a deliberative path – that is, reading more articles – was likely to result in higher agenda-setting effects. A deliberative path also led to even greater agenda-setting effects for individuals with accuracy goals compared to individuals with directional goals. A casual path led to greater agenda-setting effects for individuals with directional goals than for those with accuracy goals.
Introduction
Since the agenda-setting theory made its debut in the early 1970s (McCombs and Shaw, 1972), more than 500 empirical studies have robustly supported the concept of agenda-setting effects (Johnson, 2013), that is, issues that are covered saliently in the media become issues that are perceived as most important by the public (McCombs, 2014). Recent studies have focused also on the agenda-setting process itself, that is, how and in what ways agenda-setting effects occur (Bulkow et al., 2013; Camaj, 2018; McCombs and Stroud, 2014; Pingree and Stoycheff, 2013). Those studies proposed that agenda-setting effects may occur along dual paths, accessible and deliberative depending on contingent conditions. For instance, Pingree and Stoycheff (2013) introduced ‘gatekeeping trust’ as one of the conditions for dual paths of agenda setting: agenda-cueing and agenda-reasoning. Bulkow and colleagues (2013) observed that agenda-setting effects occur in both a peripheral way (non-readers influenced by salient presentation) and a central way depending on individuals’ levels of interest about target issues.
Based on a comprehensive literature review on how and why agenda setting occurs, McCombs and Stroud (2014) suggest the agenda-setting process may be explained by ‘a dual path model’ which includes both a casual path and a deliberative path. By their definition, a casual path means that agenda-setting effects occur with less effortful media use as a byproduct of cognitive accessibility attributed to salience of media coverage, such as headlines. A deliberative path means that agenda-setting effects occur with more effortful media use, such as heavy reading.
Advancing this line of research, the current study examined whether and when a dual path model of agenda setting occurs by introducing motivated goals that guide individuals to attend to particular types of news. Specifically, theories of motivated reasoning suggest that individuals employ accuracy and directional goals when they seek news or information (Kunda, 1990; Taber and Lodge, 2006). When individuals employ accuracy goals, they are more inclined to process news or information deeply to arrive at a correct conclusion in order to be well-informed and to fulfill their civic duty (Groenendyk, 2013; Kam, 2007). By contrast, individuals who use directional goals are more likely to seek news that supports their preferred conclusions. By combining agenda-setting and motivated reasoning, this study explored whether for individuals with accuracy goals, a deliberative path – that is, more effortful media use – may lead to stronger agenda-setting effects, whereas for people with directional goals, a casual path – that is, cues that match their prior beliefs, such as headlines and prominence – may lead to stronger agenda-effects.
In short, this study examined whether a dual path model of agenda setting may be substantiated among those who process information in a casual way (non-readers) and those who process information in a deliberative way (readers and heavy readers) relative to the role that motivated reasoning goals play in that process. Based on an experiment that recorded participants’ news consumption on the study news website, two types of goals were manipulated and attribute agenda-setting effects were examined relative to the issue of the US economy. Specifically, this experiment manipulated three substantive attributes of the economy on the study news website: unemployment, federal budget deficits, and housing market.
Literature review
Agenda-setting effects and how they work
For more than 40 years, researchers in agenda setting have expanded agenda-setting effects from issue or first-level of agenda setting to attribute or second level of agenda setting and, finally, to the third level of agenda setting (McCombs, 2014). Issue agenda-setting effects – meaning that issues emphasized by the media are perceived to be most important by the public – have been substantially supported for more than 40 years (Johnson, 2013). Attribute agenda-setting effects goes a step further by suggesting that when the media focus, for example, on the subtopic or attribute of the economy (Ghanem, 1997), and unemployment is reported to be the most important attribute of the economy, then the public will likely consider that unemployment is the most important aspect of the economy. Attribute agenda setting addresses elements or aspects of an issue and the media’s function with regard to how the media can influence people’s thinking about an issue and objects (Alkazemi and Wanta, 2015; McCombs et al., 2000; Meraz, 2011; Takeshita, 2006).
Considering ways in which the media environment has become networked, researchers in agenda setting have recently taken a new approach regarding the transfer of salience by introducing a third level agenda setting (Guo and Vargo, 2015; Vargo and Guo, 2017). Unlike the first two approaches – issue and attribute agenda-setting effects that propose the transfer of issue or attribute salience function in a disconnected manner – the third level of agenda-setting effects suggests that ‘the news media can actually bundle different objects and attributes and make these bundles of elements salient in the public’s mind simultaneously’ (Guo et al., 2014: 58).
In the new media environment, however, some have questioned the agenda-setting role (Bennett and Iyengar, 2008; Furey et al., 2017; Meraz, 2011; Vonbun et al., 2016). The argument is that in the current fragmented and polarized media context, a shared and homogeneous agenda, which is the basic assumption of agenda-setting theory, no longer exists, especially for attributes of issues or objects. However, McCombs et al. (2014) have noted that agenda-setting effects continue to occur when citizens choose like-minded media that they perceive to have issue importance based on what their selected media cover. Muddiman et al. (2014) suggest further there are a number of attribute agenda-setting paths, ranging from a traditional path in which mainstream sources set the public agenda to the highly selective paths of strong partisans who select partisan sources and hold more tailored impressions of issues. (p. 227)
Camaj (2018) found that attribute agenda-setting effects occur because individuals are more likely to select partisan media and, as a result, be affected by the coverage of individuals’ chosen media, although those effects are strongly associated with reinforcement of individuals’ previous attitudes.
How and why agenda setting works
Along with repeated confirmations of agenda-setting effects, earlier research on agenda setting addressed the question of how agenda setting works. Five years after the theory of agenda setting was introduced, Weaver (1977, 1980) proposed the concept of Need for Orientation (NFO), defined in terms of two lower-order concepts, relevance and uncertainty. That is, a combination of people’s relevance and uncertainty about those issues determines people’s desire for more information about those issues and thereby leads them to be susceptible to media coverage. Since its introduction, the concept of NFO has been employed as a primary psychological mechanism to explain individual differences in the agenda-setting process (Camaj and Weaver, 2013; Chernov et al., 2011; Matthes, 2008).
Much remains to be known about the agenda-setting process, yet researchers in agenda-setting research have given it little attention. Instead, from cognitive psychological perspectives, researchers have explained the agenda-setting process in terms of the accessibility-based model (Iyengar, 1991). According to this model, agenda-setting effects can be explained on the basis of accessibility or how easily information can be retrieved from memory. In other words, individuals’ exposure to recent news activates their knowledge so that particular issues highlighted by the media are thought to be important for society (Pingree and Stoycheff, 2013). From this perspective, the agenda-setting process is regarded as ‘an almost mindless, mechanical response based on rote learning from the media’ (Takeshita, 2006: 276).
Agenda-setting researchers, however, have counter-argued the idea that agenda-setting effects occur only in an accessible and automatic way (Miller, 2007; Miller and Krosnick, 2000; Wanta, 1997). For example, Wanta (1997) described agenda setting as the process by which individuals actively and intentionally learn about social issues. Miller (2007) argued that agenda setting is not due mainly to accessibility by showing that different versions of content – that is, increased crime rate versus decreased crime rate – resulted in different levels of agenda setting. If accessibility were the sole process by which agenda setting occurs, then the specific content of news coverage would play a less important role.
Takeshita (2006) officially set the stage for the discussion about dual paths of the agenda-setting process by suggesting a deliberate path that involves active inference and an automatic path that is explained by accessibility. Bulkow et al. (2013)’s research was the first empirical study that showed agenda-setting effects occur along two paths depending on the levels of individuals’ interest about a target issue – for example, nuclear waste disposal. By employing experiments based on data of recording participants’ behaviors on the study website, such as selecting and reading news articles, researchers measured how many articles about a target issue that participants read. Based on the number of articles read, participants were categorized into dual paths: those who process information in a peripheral way (non-readers) and those who process information in a central way (readers and heavy readers). In addition, findings showed that participants in a peripheral path were influenced by media cues, such as salient presentation (lead story vs short report), whereas readers in a central way were not influenced by media cues. Furthermore, the agenda-setting effects among heavy readers remained more stable than those in a peripheral way.
Pingree and Stoycheff’s (2013) study also empirically showed that the agenda-setting process may occur in dual paths, such as cueing and reasoning, depending on levels of trust toward journalists’ gatekeeping. In that study, the cuing path means that media cues, such as headlines, affect people’s perception of importance (agenda-setting effects), whereas the reasoning path means that actual content of news leads to agenda-setting effects. Their study was designed such that participants in the cueing path were provided only the Index of important issues in the news based on modified versions of The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism’s weekly report for the five most-covered issues in the news. By contrast, participants in the reasoning path group were provided the Index plus additional information that supported the importance of the top issues. Interestingly, findings suggested that for individuals with high trust toward journalists’ gatekeeping, the cueing path led to higher agenda-setting effects because media cues played a role as a useful shortcut or heuristics. By contrast, for individuals with low gatekeeping trust, agenda-setting effects were stronger in the reasoning situation in which individuals were provided the Index plus supporting information.
In short, two empirical studies showed that agenda-setting effects occur in two ways depending on individuals’ levels of interest toward specific issues or individuals’ levels of trust toward the journalists’ gatekeeping. Drawing on those studies, McCombs and Stroud (2014) suggested ‘a dual path model’ that includes a casual path and a deliberative path. According to the dual path model, a casual path suggests that individuals who passively use media lead to agenda-setting effects in certain conditions. By contrast, in a deliberative path, individuals engage in effortful media use, which produces high levels of agenda-setting effects.
Following the dual path model, this study categorized the agenda-setting process in two ways – a casual path and a deliberative path – and tested whether and in which conditions agenda setting occurs based on the dual path perspective. First, based on previous studies that suggest central path or heavy reading results in agenda-setting effects, this study predicted that a deliberative path – reading of more news articles – leads to stronger agenda-setting effects (H1).
H1. Participants in a deliberative path, that is, those who read more articles on the study news website, are more likely to have stronger agenda-setting effects than those who are in a casual path – that is, those who read fewer articles.
Motivational goals and dual paths of agenda setting
As one way of explicating the psychology behind agenda-setting effects, several previous studies in agenda setting have focused on the role of motivations, including NFO. Considering the recent new media context where many individuals select news stories aligned with their prior attitudes or beliefs, motivations that drive selective news consumption on the agenda-setting process have gained attention (Camaj, 2018; Camaj and Weaver, 2013; Lee, 2016). For example, the theory of motivated reasoning, which posits that individuals’ motivations affect their preference for one conclusion over another and, in addition, influence their reasoning toward a preferred conclusion (Kopko et al., 2011; Kunda, 1990), has emerged as a theoretical perspective employed in various types of communication research including science communication and political communication (Bolsen et al., 2014; Hart and Nisbet, 2012; Leeper and Slothuus, 2014; Redlawsk, 2002; Thibodeau et al., 2015). Kunda (1990) proposed that motivations for information affect the process of reasoning, including evaluation of evidence and a determination of one’s attitudes.
Scholars in motivated reasoning propose that individuals employ two types of goals in their news and information seeking (Kunda, 1990; Lodge and Taber, 2000). One of the goals, the accuracy goal, motivates individuals to seek news and information to reach an accurate conclusion (Kunda, 1990). Therefore, individuals motivated by accuracy goals are likely to update their perceptions based on what they read. The other goal, the directional goal, guides individuals to seek information that supports their preferred conclusion. Therefore, a theory of motivated reasoning addresses why individuals weigh or attend more heavily to information that is consistent with their preexisting beliefs and presuppositions than to contradictory information presented in the fragmented and polarized media environment (Bolsen et al., 2014; Hart and Nisbet, 2012).
Furthermore, the theory of motivated reasoning may explain under which condition attribute agenda-setting effects occur along dual paths (McCombs and Stroud, 2014). According to motivated reasoning, accuracy goals motivate people to maintain ‘objectivity’ in their perceptions or evaluation of information (Leeper and Slothuus, 2014) by encouraging people to have a desire to fulfill their civic duty (Kam, 2007) and as good citizens to be well-informed and aware of alternative viewpoints (Groenendyk, 2013), an approach that is closely related to the function of news media and agenda setting. In fact, Lee (2016) showed that, under accuracy goals, reading more news articles on the news website – the deliberative path – is more likely to result in an accurate perception of what the media report, that is, stronger agenda-setting effects.
By contrast, directional goals motivate people to attend to political cues or heuristics, such as party identity and their own predispositions (Bolsen et al., 2014). In agenda setting, readers’ focusing on media cues, such as headlines, instead of paying attention to content, may play an important role for those with directional goals in their perceptions of the importance of attributes about issues. As previous studies pointed out (Camaj, 2018; McCombs and Stroud, 2014), attribute agenda-setting effects, which are related to how to think about objects, are more strongly associated with prior beliefs and attitudes. Therefore, under directional goals, agenda-setting effects may occur not only in a deliberative path but also in a casual path when individuals are exposed to news that matches their previous perceptions, so that they are less inclined to spend more time seeking and processing news.
Interestingly, agenda-setting scholars have conducted research on the relationship between NFO and motivated reasoning. In that research, one component of NFO, relevance, may be positively associated with accuracy goals. Specifically, McCombs and Stroud (2014) suggested that people with High NFO who have high levels of relevance and uncertainty are similar to people with accuracy goals because high levels of relevance about a specific issue may lead them to look at a range of sources and process information more deeply. In this perspective, how relevant an issue is may determine whether individuals employ accuracy goals in their information seeking and process. Furthermore, individuals’ high levels of relevance may lead them to a central processing – to read more articles – that results in more persistent agenda setting effects (Bulkow et al., 2013). Therefore, under certain conditions, people motivated by accuracy goals are likely to have higher levels of agenda-setting effects than people driven by directional goals who rely on media cues or heuristics.
Based on previous studies of motivated reasoning and agenda setting, under the condition of accuracy goals, the relationship between a deliberative path and agenda-setting effects may be positive (H2). However, under the condition of directional goals, findings on the relationship between types of dual paths (such as deliberative and casual) and agenda-setting effects are rather mixed, depending on the congruency of content (RQ1). Therefore, the following hypothesis (H2) and research question (RQ1) were set forth:
H2. For individuals with accuracy goals, a deliberative path will be more positively associated with agenda-setting effects than for individuals with directional goals.
RQ1. For individuals with directional goals, will a causal path be positively associated with agenda-setting effects?
Methods
This study examined whether a dual path of agenda setting occurs and what role motivated goals play in that process. To test the hypotheses, this study used a 2 × 2 between-subjects factorial design. Based on previous research on agenda-setting effects (Chernov et al., 2011; Kiousis et al., 1999; Valenzuela, 2011), this study also employed a post-test only design with random assignment. Campbell and Stanley (1966) pointed out that ‘with randomized assignment to experimental and control groups, the subjects will be initially comparable on the dependent variable’ (p. 25).
Participants
A total of 164 subjects in the Southwest in the United States participated in this study including undergraduate students who majored in communication at a large university and high school teachers who attended two summer workshops at that university (M = 27.7, SD = 12.4). More than 70 percent of the participants were young adults in their 20s (115, 70.5%). Participants were paid a US$5 Starbucks card for their participation: women participants (110, 67.1%) were about twice the number of men participants (54, 32.9%).
Web-behavioral recording system
This study designed a news website on the US economy. The site employed a web-behavior recording system, based on a previous study (Kim, 2007). The web-behavioral recording system, developed by an expert on computer programing, was able to measure individuals’ news consumption behaviors, such as which articles they chose and how long they read each news story (details in Stimuli). 1
Procedures
Participants who applied to participate in the experiment were scheduled to visit a computer lab and were randomly assigned to either the accuracy goal group (73) or the directional goal group (91). 2 When participants arrived at the lab, they were given an ID to logon and browse the news website. Participants were told that the purpose of the study was to evaluate a news website about the US economy. Different instructions regarding guidelines for evaluation of the website were given to participants in the accuracy goal group and in the directional goal group because those instructions were directly related to the manipulation of types of goals (details in Manipulations). While participants read news stories on the news website, their behaviors were electronically recorded thanks to the web-behavioral recording system.
Manipulations
Stimuli
Following the guidance of previous research, this study regarded subtopics as one attribute of the economy (Ghanem, 1997; McCombs, 2014). Specifically, Ghanem (1997) noted that subtopics constitute one major type of attribute and McCombs (2014) noted that ‘Sometimes the prominent attribute of the economy is inflation; at other times it is unemployment or budget deficits’ (p. 49). This study selected three important attributes of the economy by analyzing news articles on front-page articles about the economy published in the New York Times in 2013. That is, unemployment was manipulated as the most salient by being posted most often on the study website: unemployment (10 articles) versus the federal budget deficit (6 articles) versus the housing market (2 articles). Previous research on inter-media attribute agenda setting in the United States have demonstrated the leading role of the New York Times in setting the attribute agenda (Denham, 2014) as well as the issue agenda (Reese and Danielian, 1988). For example, the Times affects how other news organizations report the characteristics of issues. The news website for this study was designed to look like an economic news website with the title of ‘Economics Today’ and the subtitle of ‘In-depth economic coverage’.
Goals
Based on previous studies in communication and psychology, directional and accuracy goals were manipulated (Bolsen et al., 2014; Isbell and Wyer, 1999; Kim, 2007; Redlawsk, 2002; Taber and Lodge, 2006; Tetlock, 1983). In those previous studies, participants in the experiments were asked to consider alternative perspectives for inducing accuracy goals. For example, Taber and Lodge (2006) asked participants to ‘view information in an evenhanded way’ (p. 759). Instructions in other studies informed participants that their decision was important (Bolsen et al., 2014; Tetlock, 1983). Based on those previous studies, accuracy goals in the current study were manipulated by including (1) an emphasis on accuracy in the evaluation, (2) attention to pro- and con- viewpoints of their decisions by considering various aspects of the target issue, and (3) attention to the possible influence of the participants’ prior beliefs. Specifically, participants in the accuracy goal group were told that ‘It is extremely important to pay attention to various aspects of the economy as well as positive and negative viewpoints. In addition, be careful that your responses are not influenced by your prior beliefs’.
In many previous studies, individuals with strong beliefs or attitudes, such as partisanship, were regarded as having directional goals (Bolsen et al., 2014; Camaj, 2018; Redlawsk, 2002; Taber and Lodge, 2006). Therefore, focusing on consistency with their prior beliefs, directional goals in the current study were also manipulated by instructing participants to find information that was congruent with their prior beliefs or perspectives about the future trend of the US economy. For example, ‘decide your position on the prediction about the future trend of the U.S. economy, such as whether you think it is becoming better or worse. You can collect information to support your position on the website’.
Manipulation checks
The manipulation check of stimuli was conducted by asking participants whether they correctly perceived the main subtopic of the articles. A total of 82 participants were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk), an online labor system. MTurk is known to recruit high-quality, low-cost participants for empirical studies, although participants from MTurk are more demographically diverse than typical college samples (Berinsky et al., 2012; Thibodeau et al., 2015). Statistical tests showed that the manipulation was successful: the participants distinguished the main subtopic of the articles and their levels of interest in the news articles were not significantly different among the three subtopics.
The manipulation check of goals was conducted in a computer lab at a large university in the Southwest of the United States. A total of 62 undergraduates who attended that school were recruited. Subjects in the accuracy goal group were asked to read about various aspects of the US economy and were instructed to select articles in significantly more categories than participants in the directional goal group. Goal manipulation was found to be successful: individuals in the accuracy goals group (M = 3.80, SD = 1.37) chose articles in significantly more categories than those who were instructed to use directional goals (M = 2.40, SD = 1.61), t(43) = 3.04, p < . 01.
Measurement
A dual path model of agenda setting: Deliberative vs casual
Based on previous studies (Bulkow et al., 2013; Wanta and Hu, 1994), the current study operationalized a deliberative path as ‘spending more time in reading articles on the news website’. Bulkow et al. (2013) distinguished the central route from the peripheral route based on participants’ reading of articles. In addition, McCombs and Stroud (2014) regarded ‘heavy reading’ as a deliberative path. Considering the exploratory characteristics of this study, a deliberative path was measured in two ways: Reading Time of Salient Attribute that refers to time spent in reading articles about the most salient attribute, unemployment in this study, and Total Reading Time that refers to time spent in reading articles about the overall aspects of the economy.
Reading time of salient attribute
First, this study divided the participants into three groups based on their reading time for articles on the salient attribute (M = 251 seconds, SD = 207 seconds). The three groups were fairly well divided depending on their reading time of news articles about unemployment: low group (n = 55, M = 75 seconds, SD = 48 seconds), middle (n = 55, M = 202 seconds, SD = 46 seconds), and high (n = 54, M = 481 seconds, SD = 197 seconds). The high group, who spent more time in reading news articles on the salient attribute on the study website, was operationalized as ‘a deliberative path’ while the low group, who spent less time, was defined as ‘a casual path’.
Total reading time
Second, findings of agenda-setting research (Lasorsa and Wanta, 1990; Wanta and Hu, 1994) suggest that increased media use leads to stronger agenda setting. Therefore, Total Reading Time was measured by how much time participants spent on the study news website; M = 391 seconds, SD = 272 seconds. Based on total reading time, participants were categorized into three groups: low group (n = 54, M = 143, SD = 69), middle (n = 55, M = 358, SD = 56), high (n = 55, M = 668, SD = 272). The high group, who spent more time reading news articles (heavy reading) about the economy, was presumed to be ‘a deliberative path’ while the low group, ‘a casual path’.
Attribute agenda-setting effects (Perceived attribute salience)
Guided by previous research (McCombs et al., 2000), the current study measured attribute agenda-setting effects with an open-ended question by asking participants: ‘Suppose that a friend comes to see you from another nation and doesn’t know about the economy in the U.S. What would you tell your friend about the economy as specifically as possible?’ Agenda-setting effects were operationalized in terms of whether participants perceived the most important attributes (or aspects) of the US economy to be unemployment, as this study manipulated. For each response, mentions of unemployment, the federal budget, and the housing market were coded, respectively, on a scale of 0–2: 0 = no mention, 1 = topic was present in the response, and 2 = topic was dominant or only mentioned without other topics. The higher scores indicate higher attribute agenda-setting effects.
Two trained graduate students coded open-ended responses. Initially, the two coders and the researcher of this study coded the pretest responses together (40 responses). Through this process, the two coders set up guidelines for the rules of coding. Intercoder reliability for each subtopic was above the acceptable level (unemployment, Krippendorff’s α = .86; the federal budget, Krippendorff’s α = .84; and the housing market, Krippendorff’s α = .90).
Results
Descriptive data
Overall, participants in this study spent about 391 seconds reading news articles on the study website and clicked 4.37 number of news articles. Average reading time for articles on unemployment was 251 seconds, on the federal budget 111 seconds, and on the housing market 28 seconds (Table 1).
Activities on the news website (N = 164).
A deliberative path and attribute agenda setting
Based on previous research, this study predicted that a deliberative path (heavy reading) would lead to stronger agenda-setting effects (H1). To examine this relationship, two types of deliberative paths were employed, Reading Time of Salient Attribute and Total Reading Time.
First of all, this study found that participants who were in a deliberative path – that is, those who read more articles about the most salient attribute – showed higher agenda-setting effects; F(138) = 9.70, p < .001, high group (or deliberative path), M = 1.20, SD = 0.75, middle group, M = .68, SD = .78., and low group (or casual path), M = .55, SD = .70.
In addition, with regard to the relationship between Total Reading Time and agenda-setting effects, as Table 2 shows, there was a significant difference among the three groups; F(138) = 3.90, p < .05. Specifically, the high group, which spent more than 668 seconds reading news articles about the economy, showed a significantly higher level of agenda-setting effects (M = 1.02, SD = 0.79) than the low group (M = 0.58, SD = 0.73). Therefore, H1 was supported.
A Dual Path and attribute agenda-setting effects.
Using Scheffe’s post hoc test found the significant mean difference between a and b at the 0.05 level.
p < .05, ***p < .001.
A dual path of agenda setting and two types of goals
Next, this study examined whether the positive relationship between heavy reading and agenda-setting effects was stronger for participants in the accuracy goal group (H2). With regard to Reading Time of Salient Attribute, as Table 3 shows, among participants with accuracy goals, there was a significant difference in attribute agenda-setting effects depending on casual path and deliberative path; F(63) = 9.32, p < . 001. For participants in the accuracy group, those who consumed news in a deliberative way had significantly stronger agenda-setting effects than those who processed information in a casual way: high (M = 1.36, SD = 0.70), middle (M = 0.61, SD = 0.77), and low group (M = 0.52, SD = 0.73).
For Accuracy Goals, the relationship between dual paths and attribute agenda-setting effects.
Using Scheffe’s post hoc test found the significant mean difference between a and b at the 0.05 level.
p < .05, *** p < .001.
In addition, with regard to Total Reading Time, a significant moderating role of motivational goals was found. As Table 3 shows, among participants with accuracy goals, the high group showed significantly stronger agenda-setting effects than the low group; F (63) = 4.87, p < .05. In other words, participants who spent more time reading articles on the study news website (M = 1.10, SD = 0.78) showed higher levels of agenda-setting effects than those in the low group who spent less time (M = 0.38, SD = 0.69). Therefore, H2 was confirmed.
Finally, this study examined when a casual path might lead to stronger agenda-setting effects (RQ1). With regard to Reading Time of Salient Attribute, this study showed that, among participants with directional goals, a deliberative path did not always lead to stronger agenda-setting effects; F(2, 72) = 1.74 p > . 05, high (M = 1.00, SD = 0.79), middle (M = 0.72, SD = 0.79), and low group (M = 0.57, SD = 0.70). In addition, in terms of Total Reading Time, as Table 4 shows, there was no significant difference among the three groups; F(2, 72) = 0.46, p > .05.
For directional goals, the relationship between dual path and attribute agenda-setting effects.
Furthermore, among participants in the directional group, the results of this study showed the possibility that agenda-setting effects occurred in a casual path, t(47) = 1.89, p = .066. As seen in Figure 1, in a casual path group, individuals in the directional goal group showed higher levels of agenda-setting effects (M = 0.68, SD = 0.73) than those in the accuracy goal group (M = 0.38, SD = 0.69). That finding may indicate a casual path of agenda-setting effects occurs among participants with directional goals.
Dual paths of agenda setting and attribute agenda-setting effects.
Discussion
Although the history of agenda-setting research is more than 40 years old, the mechanisms by which agenda-setting effects occur remain unclear. Addressing this research question, more and more studies have recently suggested that agenda-setting effects occur along dual paths depending on contingent factors (Bulkow et al., 2013; Pingree and Stoycheff, 2013; Takeshita, 2006). Based on those studies, McCombs and Stroud (2014) proposed a dual path model of agenda setting by suggesting that motivated reasoning is one of the ways to explore how dual paths of agenda setting work. Following that line of research, this study empirically examined whether a dual path of agenda setting occurs and what role motivated goals play in that process.
Based on a previous study (Bulkow et al., 2013), which categorized a central and a peripheral path by recording participants’ reading news articles on the study website, the current study categorized dual paths of agenda setting based on how long participants read articles on the study news website: referred to as a deliberative path versus a casual path. In addition, reading time in this study was measured by two methods: ‘Reading Time of Salient Attribute’ and ‘Total Reading Time’. Findings of this study showed that a deliberative path is positively associated with stronger agenda-setting effects (H1). Specifically, congruent with findings of a previous study (Bulkow et al., 2013), participants who read more articles about the most salient attribute on the news website showed higher agenda-setting effects than those who spent less time. That result may be coincident with findings of previous studies that showed a positive relationship between increased media use and stronger agenda-setting effects (Lasorsa and Wanta, 1990; Wanta and Hu, 1994). Especially previous studies on NFO – that is, closely related to individuals’ need for more information (Camaj, 2018; Lee, 2016) – have implied that the extent of reading time is positively related to stronger agenda-setting effects.
Next and more importantly, this study explored not only whether a dual path of agenda setting occurred but also what role motivated goals played in that process. First, this study found that under accuracy goals, which encourage people to maintain ‘objectivity’ in their perceptions or evaluations of information (Leeper and Slothuus, 2014) based on their desire to be informed citizens (Kam, 2007), heavy reading of news articles on the study website led to stronger agenda-setting effects (H2). Therefore, for participants with accuracy goals, stronger attribute agenda-setting effects occurred in a deliberative path. By contrast, for participants with directional goals, heavy reading was not found to lead to stronger agenda-setting effects. This particular finding may have occurred because participants in the directional goal were guided to seek news based on their prior beliefs regardless of what attribute the study website emphasized (
Next, this study examined whether a casual path leads to agenda-setting effects for participants with directional goals (RQ1). With regard to Total Reading Time, interesting patterns appeared. Among participants in a casual path, those with directional goals were found to have higher levels of agenda-setting effects (0.68) than those with accuracy goals (0.38). That may indicate that a casual path of agenda-setting effects occurs for participants with directional goals. In other words, participants with directional goals may stop reading and searching for more information when they encounter media cues that support their prior positions. This result may be consistent with findings provided by Pingree and Stoycheff (2013) who proposed that higher agenda-setting effects may occur in a casual way among individuals who have higher levels of gatekeeping trust in the media.
Findings of this study, therefore, support a dual path model of agenda-setting suggested by McCombs and Stroud (2014). Although several previous studies showed that agenda-setting effects may occur in dual ways depending on various contingent factors, such as interest and gatekeeping trust, the current study added one more factor – that of motivated goals. Especially in the new media environment, which provides unprecedented opportunities to select news based on individual preferences, the role played by motivated goals in the agenda-setting process raises an important research question.
However, it should be noted that findings of this study did not suggest that for individuals with directional goals, agenda-setting effects always occur in a casual way. Rather, when the news coverage of a controversial issue is congruent with people’s prior attitudes or beliefs and they are interested in that issue, then they may spend more time in news reading and have stronger agenda-setting effects. In fact, considering the real media environment where people are surrounded by like-minded media, there is a greater possibility that people with directional goals have been affected by media coverage (Camaj, 2018).
Several limitations as to findings of this study should be mentioned. The primary limitation is related to the way the goals were manipulated. Among previous studies on motivated reasoning in communication research, only a few studies have used an experimental design with manipulated goals and, as a result, the way of manipulation has not yet been fixed (Kim, 2007; Redlawsk, 2002). Based on prior studies, participants in the directional goal group sought information that was congruent with their prior position based on instructions to take a position about the future trend of the US economy and then find articles that supported their opinions. By contrast, participants in the accuracy goal group were less likely to be influenced by their prior position because they were asked to find news about the economy by looking at various aspects in order to evaluate accurately the situation and to pay attention not to be influenced to their own prior beliefs.
Some caution should be used in generalizing the results of this study because the sample was composed of communication students although previous studies on agenda setting and motivated reasoning have employed a communication student sample (Chernov et al., 2011; Kiousis et al., 1999; Kopko et al., 2011; Valenzuela, 2011). Findings based on a student sample may not be generalized because students are not representative of the general population; additionally, the communication student sample was not representative of students from other disciplines. Therefore, future research should consider a more representative pool of participants in an effort to replicate results of the current study. Finally, this study examined the role played by extrinsic motivation on the agenda-setting process, although there are various other motivations – not only extrinsic but also intrinsic. Therefore, a future study should address how intrinsic motivations and extrinsic motivations interact as part of the agenda-setting process.
In spite of the limitations, findings of this study have theoretical and methodological significance by supporting a dual path model of agenda setting with a new condition of motivational goals and employing a unique research method based on a web behavioral recording system to track or capture individuals’ behaviors of news consumption on the study website.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Sungshin Women’s University Research Grant of 2018.
