Brittany Rose Shaughnessy Thesis

MASKING THE SECOND AMENDMENT: ISSUE AGENDA BUILDING DURING THE 2020 AMERICAN

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Brittany Rose Shaughnessy

Thesis submitted to the faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in

partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

Communication

John C. Tedesco, Chair

Megan Duncan

Katherine Haenschen

May 3, 2021

Blacksburg, Virginia

Keywords: Agenda setting, presidential politics, Twitter, tweets, political public relations,

content analysis, substantive attributes

Masking the Second Amendment: Issue agenda building during the 2020 American presidential

election

Brittany R. Shaughnessy

ABSTRACT (ACADEMIC)

This study content analyzed interest group and candidate tweets from the 2020 American presidential election to determine what issues and substantive attributes were most salient on interest group and candidate agendas during the “hot phase” of the campaign. Cross-lagged correlations were conducted during two time periods from Labor Day to Election Day 2020 to measure agenda building effects. These tests were conducted for Democratic nominee and eventual President Joe R. Biden, and Republican nominee and former President Donald J.

Trump. These tests were also conducted for two issue-based interest groups: Everytown for Gun

Safety and the National Rifle Association.

Findings indicate that Biden influenced Trump’s campaign agenda, but Trump did not influence Biden’s. The interest groups showed reciprocal influence with each other. Given the unprecedented nature of the 2020 election, the candidates were largely talking about the same issues. However, substantive attributes reveal the candidates’ true issue agenda. This study offers methodological innovation by utilizing NVivo for content analysis.

Masking the Second Amendment: Issue agenda building during the 2020 American presidential

election

Brittany R. Shaughnessy

ABSTRACT (GENERAL AUDIENCE)

This study examined tweets from 2020 presidential candidates Donald J. Trump and

Joseph R. Biden, as well as the National Rifle Association, a gun rights advocacy organization, and Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control advocacy organization. These tweets were examined from September 7 to November 3, 2020, from Labor Day until Election Day. For the presidential candidates, it was found that although candidates were talking the same general campaign issues, they were using different substantive attributes when speaking of them. The findings also revealed that Biden was successful at influencing Trump’s Twitter focus during the examined time period. Tweets from advocacy organizations were tested for presence of gun- related issues. The advocacy organizations spoke about the same issues as the other, but neither group was successful at influencing what the other said. This study highlights the importance of digital political public relations.

DEDICATION

To my parents, who I could not have gotten here without.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis would not be possible without my adviser and thesis chair, Dr. John Tedesco.

I would not have been able to get through graduate school without our weekly chats that would often bring advice both in and out of academia. I am a better person and researcher because of you, and I am forever grateful for your guidance, mentorship, and friendship.

I am also incredibly grateful for my committee members. Dr. Megan Duncan, whose intelligence, guidance, and friendship helped me through graduate school. Our research conversations almost always ended in laughs, while also pushing me to ask more. You shaped my perception of what it means to be an academic. Dr. Katherine Haenschen, whose approach to academia has inspired me and the researcher I aspire to be. Thank you for all of your advice and guidance throughout this process.

Brandi Quesenberry has been the most influential in shaping the teacher that I am today.

You taught me that there is always room for improvement and proved just how strong the student-instructor relationship can be. I am forever indebted to you for helping me find my teaching voice.

I would also like to take time to thank those who got me to where I am today, albeit not at

Virginia Tech. To Dr. Kyle Holody, you have served as a mentor to me both in academia and in life, perhaps having the biggest influence on who I am as an academic. To Dr. Andrea

Bergstrom, thank you for your endless friendship and mentorship. I am forever grateful. And to

Dr. Beth Waggenspack, the woman who persuaded me to move to Virginia and pursue my master’s degree at Virginia Tech.

Twitter API was instrumental in gathering the sample for this study.

To Hirah, thank you. To Dominic, thank you

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Dedication………………………………………………………………………………………..iv

Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………...……………...…..v

Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………………..……vi

List of Tables……………………………………………………………………………..……..vii

List of Figures………………………………………………………………………………….viii

Chapter 1: Introduction…………………………………………………………………………1

Chapter 2: Gun Violence in America………………………………………………………..….7

Chapter 3: Candidates’ Gun Control Plans………………………..…………………...…….18

Chapter 4: Review of Literature……………………………………………………...……….22

Chapter 5: Methodology………..………………………………………………………………39

Chapter 6: Results…………..…………………………………………………………………..49

Chapter 7: Discussion…………..………………………………………………………………59

Chapter 8: Limitations….…………………………………………………………………...…71

Chapter 9: Areas for Future Research.…………………..…………………………………...73

Chapter 10: Conclusion……………………….………………………………………………..74

References……...………………………………………………………………………………..76

Appendix A: Dictionaries……………………..…………………………………………...…...96

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Deadliest Mass Shootings in the United States of America……………………….……7

Table 2: Direct contributions and independent expenditures of the NRA and ETFGS during the

2016 and 2020 election cycles……………………………………………………..…………….17

Table 3: Twitter handles for gathering tweets………………………………………………..…42

Table 4: Frequency of tweets appearing on the official accounts during the 2020 presidential election “hot phase.”……………………………………………………………………………..43

Table 5: Time lag analysis dates……………………………………………………………...…46

Table 6: Tweets separated by source and time period…………………………………………..46

Table 7: Frequency of General issue appeals by candidate and time period……………...…….50

Table 8: Rank of General issue appeals by candidate and time period………………..……...…52

Table 9: Gun-related issues in frequency by advocacy group…………………………………..55

Table 10: Gun-related issues in rank by advocacy group……………………………...………..56

vii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Cross-lagged issue agenda correlations between Trump and Biden………….………57

Figure 2: Cross-lagged issue agenda correlations between ETFGS and the NRA…………...…58

viii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

The 2020 American presidential election and campaign cycle was “unprecedented”

(Eubanks, 2020), which is fitting considering the backdrop of 2020 events. Preoccupied with a global pandemic (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021), typical election issues appeared small in comparison. COVID-19, or the Coronavirus disease was killing thousands each day, with over 100,000 new cases reported daily nationally in the days before Election Day

(Noori Farzan et al., 2020). Gun control and gun rights were prominent issues in American elections since the early 2000s, due mostly to the rise in mass shootings nationwide (Petersen &

Densley, 2019). In fact, March 2020 was the first March without a school shooting in 18 years

(Lewis, 2020). Many believed gun violence had decreased (Kim, 2021) as a result of the public health pandemic restrictions that forced millions to shelter in their homes (Wescott, Regan,

Renton, Picheta, Wagner, & Hayes, 2020). However, 2020 brought record-breaking gun violence and a rise in mass shootings (Bates, 2020), which went largely unreported until two mass shootings occurred in the same March 2021 week (Thebault & Rindler, 2021). As such, gun violence was not as prominent in the news as it was previously.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg died on September 18, 2020 (History, 2020), which vacated the United States Supreme Court seat she held for 27 years. This left an open seat on the Court.

Democrats urged the Senate to hold off on a hearing, and Republicans pushed for a Senate hearing before Election Day (Traux, 2020). The Supreme Court Nomination process consumed the United States Election Cycle. Adding to the unprecedented nature of 2020, the pandemic caused a global recession that the International Monetary fund (Gopinath, 2020) deemed the

“worst economic downturn” since the 1929 Stock Market crash. Subsequently, the incumbent presidential candidate sought to defend his economic response, while the challenger pushed to

repair the American economic state (Pew Research Center, 2020). With these issues consuming the election and gun violence largely unreported, the gun control and gun rights battle took a backseat in the 2020 election. This thesis examines a typically prominent issue compared to others in the 2020 American election. Although gun violence was not at the top of voters’ minds in the 2020 election or prominent among media and candidates, gun violence has increased seven-fold since the 1970s (Petersen & Densley, 2019).

In the throngs of this debate are gun rights activist organizations, gun control activist organizations, and politicians seeking to enforce or repeal firearm legislation. This thesis explores the interaction between these four entities and the level of influence they have with one another. Specifically, this thesis examines information subsidies from the Republican nominee

Donald J. Trump’s campaign, Democratic nominee Joseph R. Biden’s campaign, the National

Rifle Association (NRA) 1, and Everytown for Gun Safety (ETFGS)2. Each entity rigorously attempts to influence the others, seeking direct influence in the competition’s press releases during an unprecedented election.

This study expands agenda setting and agenda building research by examining the influence of activist groups on political candidates and vice versa. Deriving from its conceptualization in 1972, agenda setting theory asserts that media will influence the public’s interpretation of an issue; salient media attributes will be seen as salient to the public (McCombs

& Shaw, 1972). Agenda building is considered the fourth level of agenda setting (Kiousis, Kim,

McDevitt, & Ostrowski, 2009), exploring attempts to influence agendas. Traditionally, agenda setting and building research analyzes the media’s influence and the influence of the media on

1 The NRA touts itself as the oldest civil rights organization in the United States and has more than five million members who support the organization’s agenda to protect citizens’ rights to firearms of all kinds. 2 ETFGS is a gun control organization with more than six million members and is a conglomerate of Moms Demand Action, Students Demand Action, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, and the Everytown Survivor Network. 2

others, while this study seeks to understand the influence of activist organizations on political candidates, both of whom already have media prominence. Do activist organizations have the power to influence a candidate’s public relations agenda, and eventually policy promises? On the inverse, do candidates have the ability to shape an activist organization’s stance on the issues? If found, this interaction could deepen researchers’ understanding of the agenda building process.

NVivo is a data software package generally used for qualitative research, that allows researchers to thematically code text, audio, and image data. This thesis utilized NVivo to run word frequency queries on all tweets from Trump, Biden, ETFGS, and the NRA during the “hot phase” of the 2020 election. This allowed the researcher to identify words and abbreviations used in relation to policy issues. Frequently used words were assigned to issue dictionaries which helped establish frequency counts for issues. These later became dictionaries. NVivo enables the dictionary to search the tweet text files and identify frequency counts for a host of policy issues.

Issue frequencies for the candidates and activist groups were subjected to correlation tests and the correlations were used to complete cross-lagged correlations, which identify reciprocal or directional influence.

While it is impossible for researchers or the public to know the extent of the media relations and public relations these organizations use to influence journalistic coverage and public attitudes, their tweets from their official Twitter pages are visible to all. The NRA and

ETFGS tweets offer researchers a view of the issues and priorities for each organization as they communicate with media, campaigns, and the public about their stance(s) on gun control or reform and gun rights. Similarly, presidential nominees and their campaigns post tweets from their official Twitter pages in an attempt not only to inform media and publics, but also to influence the media agenda and the opposing candidate’s agenda.

The work of this thesis

This thesis examines tweets appearing on the official homepages for the National Rifle

Association, Every Town for Gun Safety, Trump for President 2020, and Biden for President

2020. Tweets were gathered between Labor Day (7 September 2020) and Election Day (3

November 2020), traditionally considered the “hot phase” of the campaign (Tedesco, 2005a,

2005b). Tweets from both major parties were examined to identify the presence of specific campaign issues. Preceding research (Lariscy, Avery, Sweetser, & Howes, 2009; Parmalee,

2014; Schweickart, Neil, Kim, & Kiousis, 2016; Sweetser & Lariscy, 2008) has examined digital information subsidies as representation of candidate and organization agendas.

This thesis uses content analysis, a quantitative method, and the theoretical lens of agenda setting, specifically agenda building, to determine the influence and impact of activist organizations and candidates on each other’s agendas. Specifically, this thesis seeks to answer the overarching question: What influence, if any, do political candidates and activist organizations on opposite sides of the aisle have on one another during the “hot phase” of a presidential election?

This thesis comprises of 10 chapters, including this introduction. Chapter 1 is an introduction to the project. Chapter 2 provides context for the project, its relevance, background on the activist organizations. Chapter 3 details each candidate’s gun rights and gun control plan for their campaign. Chapter 4 is a review of literature associated with agenda setting, detailing all four levels developed since its inception in 1972. For this project, it is imperative to draw particular attention to agenda setting’s fourth level: agenda building. Agenda building is the basis of political public relations, a body of literature demonstrating the intersecting relationships

between public relations practitioners, activist organization, politicians, the government, the media, and many more.

Chapter 5 contains the content analysis methodology for this project. It details the number of tweets for both groups and candidates, establishment of the political issue dictionaries and the gun rights and gun control attribute dictionary. Further, Chapter 5 also details the data set, parameters for tweets, and the exact procedure conducted for this project. Chapter 6 details the findings of this project. Chapter 7 includes a discussion of these findings and their practical implications. Chapter 8 discusses the observed limitations of this study, and chapter 9 offers ideas for future research of this kind. Chapter 10 concludes this thesis.

CHAPTER 2: GUN VIOLENCE IN AMERICA

History

Gun violence has become an epidemic in the United States (Gerstein et al., 2018) with a

record number of mass shootings killing a record number of people spanning twenty years

(Petersen & Densely, 2019). Mass shootings are typically magnets for media attention, garnering

hundred and even thousands of articles at each occurrence (Holody & Shaughnessy, 2020). This

coverage has brought the issue of gun control and gun rights to the minds of those that may not

have been immediately affected by gun violence, sparking an American movement.

Table 1

Deadliest Mass Shootings in the United States of America.

Year Deaths (not including Location City, State perpetrator(s)) 2017 58 Outdoor concert Paradise, Nevada 2016 49 Nightclub Orlando, Florida 2007 32 Virginia Tech Blacksburg, Virginia 2012 27 Sandy Hook Newtown, Elementary School Connecticut 2017 26 Sutherland Springs Sutherland Springs, Church shooting Texas

Despite the number of shootings and the movement to bring about change, gun law

reform legislation remains mostly elusive, with the exception of Congress passing H.R. on March

11, 2021 (H.R. 8: Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021). These recent mass shootings, as

reported in Table 1, are the latest to demonstrate the turbulent history of gun control and gun

rights legislation in the United States.

Gun rights in America go back to the inception of the country, with the ratification of the

Bill of Rights. The Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights states: “A well-regulated Militia,

being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall

not be infringed” (U.S. Const. amend. II). In 1934, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt passed the first gun control law as part of the New Deal. The National Firearms Act (NFA) imposed a

$200 tax on the manufacturing, selling, and transporting of short-barrel shotguns, rifles, machine guns, firearm mufflers, and silencers. The bill was eventually revised several times due to

Constitutional issues, but eventually got passed and placed a tax, large for its time, on specific firearms (Gray, 2019).

Prior to U.S. entry into World War II, the United States Legislature passed the Federal

Firearms Act (FFA). This act required gun manufacturers, importers, and dealers to obtain a federal firearm license to sell and process their merchandise. This act barred a group of people from purchasing guns, including felons and “others with disabilities.” The bill had several of its provisions transferred to different legislation (Gray, 2019). Following the Federal Firearms Act, the United States Supreme Court handed down its decision on United States v. Miller. Under the decision, the Court writes that Congress does have the right to ban the sale of short-barrel shotguns. Further, the Court states that they “cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument,” (United States v. Miller, 1939). This bill was amended to fix a Constitutional Flaw in 1968 with the passage of the Gun Control Act (GCA)

(Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, 2020).

Following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed for the passage of the GCA of 1968. This act repealed the Federal Firearms Act of 1934, banned the importation of guns that had “no sporting purpose,” imposed the first age restriction on purchasing firearms and required proof that the purchaser is at least 21 years of age. The GCA also barred felons, the mentally ill, and other groups from buying guns. This bill required all manufactured guns to have a tracked serial number (Gray, 2019). The next gun control bill, the

Firearm Owners Protections Act (S. 49) of 1986, was not passed until the Reagan presidency, which softened gun control and passed protections for those who already owned a firearm. The bill prohibited a national registry of gun dealers, limited ATF inspections to once yearly, and allowed licensed dealers to sell guns at gun shows. The word “silencer” was redefined to include the parts required to make a silencer as well (S. 49: Firearms Owners Protections, 1986).

The Brady Handgun Violence Protection Act passed in 1993 and was named for White

House Press Secretary James Brady who was permanently disabled after helping save President

Reagan from an assassination attempt in 1981. This bill amended the 1968 GCA and required background checks for guns purchased from licensed dealers, manufacturers, or importers. This act also established the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The closest that the United States has gotten to an assault weapon ban was in 1994, when the Violent Crime

Control and Law Enforcement Act was signed by President Bill Clinton. Within this bill was a subsection called the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act that banned the

“manufacture, transfer, or possess a semiautomatic assault weapon,” (H.R. 3355: Violent Crime

Control, 1993). AR-15s, TEC-9s, MAC-10s, which are large, destructive firearms, were not to be bought, sold, transported, or manufactured. “Certain high-capacity magazines of more than ten rounds” were also banned (H.R. 3355: Violent Crime Control, 1993). This bill was temporary, and the10-year ban it imposed expired in 2004. It was not renewed.

The Tiahart Amendment passed in 2003, barring the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and

Firearms from publishing a list of stores where criminals had purchased their firearms. This protected stores from lawsuits by families of gun violence victims. Two years later, President

George W. Bush signed the Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which had a similar effect on firearms manufacturers as the Tiahart Amendment had on stores. It prevented firearm

manufacturers from lawsuits by families of victims of gun violence. The law “prohibits causes of action against manufacturers, distributers, dealers, and importers of firearms or ammunition products” (S. 397: Tiahart Amendment, 2003).

The most recent ruling regarding gun control was in the District of Columbia v. Heller. In the decision, the Court stated that the “handgun ban and the trigger-lock requirement (as applied to self-defense) violate the Second Amendment” after Heller had challenged a 32-year old handgun ban in Washington, D.C. This case settled the law that the Second Amendment regards gun ownership, not militias (District of Columbia v. Heller, 2008).The decision noted that this did not cast doubt on any previous rulings, nor did it nullify the law barring firearms from schools and government buildings, or the restrictions on gun purchasing by felons and mentally ill (District of Columbia v. Heller, 2008). In the wake of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High

School shooting in Parkland, Florida in February 2018, a bump stock ban was passed by the

Congress in 2018 (Holody & Shaughnessy, 2020).

The most recent gun control law passed by the United States House of Representatives was H.R. 8, that would require universal background checks for those interested in purchasing firearms in the United States (H.R. 8: Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021, 2021).

Sponsored by Rep. Mike Thompson of California, this bill was introduced to Congress on March

1, 2021 (GovTrack, 2021). It passed in the House of Representatives on March 11, 2021. At the time of this writing, it is currently waiting consideration by the Senate.

Currently, the United States has more gun-related causalities than any other developed country in the world (Petersen and Densely, 2019). According to a Violence Project, a nonpartisan think tank, report (Petersen and Densely, 2019), gun violence deaths have increased fivefold since the 1970s. Mass shootings not only are becoming a more frequent occurrence, but

also are becoming deadlier. Perhaps even more alarming is that eight of the deadliest shootings in U.S. history happened between 2015 and 2019 (Petersen and Densely, 2019). Despite a public health pandemic, social unrest and protests for Black Lives Matter, and a presidential campaign dominated media attention in 2020, it was the worst year for American gun violence in the 21st century.

With the world preoccupied, it appeared that gun violence had decreased in 2020 (Kim,

2021). However, the opposite proved true. It was the deadliest recorded year for gun violence in the 21st century, with domestic violence shootings, gun suicides, and even mass shootings on the rise (Bates, 2020). This went largely unreported until March 2021 (Thebault & Rindler, 2021), when two mass shootings occurred in the same week. These shootings subsequently led to nationwide cries for increased gun control, with President Biden urging lawmakers to pass H.R.

8 (Stokols, 2021). The loudest and most ardent opponent of gun reform in the U.S. is the

National Rifle Association (NRA). While the battle for gun reform and gun control extends to many groups in the United States, this thesis includes analysis of two important, polarized groups: the NRA and ETFGS.

National Rifle Association (NRA)

The National Rifle Association (NRA) bills itself as “America’s longest-standing civil rights organization” (NRA, 2020a). The Americans in England association proposed the NRA in

1861, the beginning of the Civil War, to train Union soldiers how to use their weapons. The group planned to make a shooting range in Staten Island, New York. Due to the war effort, this did not gain traction, and the organization was not formally chartered in New York until

November 1871. Following the Civil War, Union army records indicated that soldiers had fired around 1,000 rifle shots for every Confederate soldier hit, which top officials stated was due to

volley tactics the soldiers were taught, devised for earlier, less accurate, smoothbore muskets.

Shortly after the charter, the New York State Legislature funded the construction of a shooting range on Long Island. The Irish Rifle Team challenged the NRA to develop a team for a long- range match in order to determine an Anglo-American championship. The NRA organized a team through a subsidiary amateur rifle club with two companies providing weapons for the team. The Americans won the match and brought national notoriety to the team. Until 1927, the

United States Department of War provided free ammunition and targets to civilian rifle clubs with a minimum of 10 United States citizens that were at least 16 years of age (NRA, 2020b).

Following the passage of the National Firearms Act (NFA) in 1934, the NRA formed a

Legislative Affairs Division (NRA, 2020b), where members would testify in hearings for legislation involving gun control or gun rights. Karl Frederick, president of the NRA in 1934, testified at the NFA hearing that he “never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons.

I seldom carry one…I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses” (Rosenwald, 2017). The NRA would later support the Federal Firearms Act of 1938 and the Gun Control Act of 1968, but opposed a national firearms registry proposed by President Johnson (NRA, 2020b).

The NRA was largely nonpartisan until the 1970s, previously focusing efforts on their rifle clubs and target shooters. Harlon Carter, a prominent gun rights activist, in 1975 was named director of the Institute for Legislative Action, which became the lobbying arm for the NRA

(NRA, 2020b). With the inception of the lobbying arm, the organization saw an increase in membership following deliberate efforts to focus largely on political issues and aligning with largely conservative Republican candidates (Utter & Spitzer, 2016, p. 99). The NRA’s political action committee (PAC), the Political Victory Fund, was created in 1976 in response to the

creation of the FEC (Federal Election Commission). The organization has continued close alignment with conservatives since then. In fact, while it opposed the 1994 Federal Assault

Weapons Ban, it helped lobby against its renewal in 2004 (NRA, 2020b).

In the 2000s, the NRA sought involvement with the ATF. The NRA lobbied

Congressperson Jim Sessenbrenner in 2006, urging the legislator to add a provision to the Patriot

Act reauthorization that would require Senate confirmation of all nominees for director of the

ATF (Horwitz, 2013). This lobbying was successful, and the provision passed in the reauthorization (S.2271, USA PATRIOT Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act of 2006,

2006). The Senate is now responsible for confirming each nominee. However, the NRA has lobbied against every nominee, which has resulted in no director for the ATF since 2015

(Horwitz & Grimaldi, 2013). There have been several acting directors. Furthermore, the NRA lobbied to restrict how the ATF stores its records, successfully influenced the passage of a provision that forced the ATF to keep solely analog records, despite the importance of digital records (Watkins, 2018). Indeed, the NRA enforces that any candidates receiving NRA contributions—or intending to keep support from the organization—will not be able to support or pass any legislation that promotes gun control measures (Cullen, 2019; Watkins, 2018).

Despite previously successful lobbying efforts, the NRA has recently faced several legal battles.

Difficulties for the NRA began after they sued their longtime public relations firm

(National Rifle Association of America and Wayne LaPierre v. Ackerman McQueen, Inc., 2020).

Additionally, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit seeking to dissolve the

NRA in August 2020. This lawsuit was filed after an 18-month investigation that resulted in

“fraud, financial misconduct, and misuse of charitable funds” allegations against some of the organization's executives (James, 2020). Attorney General James identifies Executive Vice

President of the NRA Wayne LaPierre, Former Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer Wilson

Phillips, Former Chief of Staff and Executive Director of General Operations Joshua Powell,

Corporate Secretary and General Counsel John Frazer as potentially fraudulent leaders. Each is alleged of different actions, but most are accused of misusing charitable funds and manipulating contracts for personal gain (James, 2020). The very same day NY Attorney General James filed the lawsuit, a similar lawsuit was filed by District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine, which also alleged misuse of charitable funds (Racine, 2020).

The NRA formally filed for bankruptcy in January 2021 (Bruggeman, 2021), confirming speculation of financial struggles. This speculation was fueled by a significant decrease in spending from 2016 to 2020 (Massoglia & McFadden, 2021). In 2016, the organization, its lobbying arm, its SuperPAC, and its PAC spent a total of $55,493,267. In 2020, these entities spent a combined $29,135,803. This spending is further detailed in Table 2. Several reports state that this decrease in spending signifies the organization's dwindling influence in American politics, especially following the lawsuits from the New York and District of Columbia Attorney

Generals (Fischer & Treene, 2020).3

Everytown For Gun Safety (ETFGS)

ETFGS was formed in 2013 when two groups, Moms Demand Action and Mayors

Against Illegal Guns, merged. Moms Demand Action was initially formed in 2012, immediately following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newton, Connecticut, that killed 28 students and teachers. Founder Shannon Watts, a mother of five, created a Facebook group the

3 The NRA is technically a tax-exempt social welfare organization under section 501©(4) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, which allows them to be tax exempt, and not pay taxes on their net income (O’Neill & O’Neill, 2020). The NRA has its own foundation, museum, PAC, and lobbying arm. The NRA charges members a $45 fee for initial membership. The NRA grades state and federal candidates based on their gun rights voting history and platform. 13

day after the shootings to urge Americans to “do more” to reduce gun violence. The Facebook group evolved into a group of moms, dads, students, families, concerned citizens, and survivors

(Moms Demand Action, 2020). There is a chapter of Moms Demand Action in every state and nearly 6 million supporters nationwide. Moms Demand Action, despite the merger, retained its independent website that provides links for ETFGS.

Former New York City mayor and democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg and former Boston mayor Thomas Menino founded Mayors Against Illegal Guns in 2006. The organization asserts that mayors are the leading voice in advocating for gun safety reforms with the ability to spearhead the local movement and subsequently trigger state and national legislation. More than 1,000 mayors and former mayors from across America have joined.

Mayors that join the coalition are urged to sign the statement of principles:

Whereas: Over 35,000 Americans are killed every year as a result of gun suicide and gun homicide – devastating families and communities across the country;

Whereas: Nearly 90,000 Americans are injured every year as a result of gun assaults, unintentional shootings, attempted gun suicides and shootings by law enforcement;

Whereas: As mayors, our problems may look different from town to town, but we are united in our duty to do everything we can to protect our residents from the threat of gun violence (Everytown, 2020).

The mayors joining the coalition are then asked to work together to advance the following principles:

Advance enforcement strategies that ensure public safety for residents in communities disproportionately affected by gun violence; advocate for gun safety legislation at the local, state, and federal level; collect data to better understand gun violence in our communities; advance policies and practices that reduce firearm suicides; invest in victim services and neighborhood-level violence intervention programs; implement comprehensive tracing of crime guns; implement strategies to minimize shootings by police; use the courts to advance gun safety; use purchasing power to improve gun safety; invite other cities (Everytown, 2020).

Watts’ Moms Demand Action joined forces with Mayors Against Illegal Guns and became the largest gun control advocacy group in the nation with 6 million supporters and

350,000 donors. The merger of Moms Demand Action and Mayors Against Illegal Guns enabled coordinated efforts to fight for gun control legislation locally and nationally.

ETFGS formed another arm of the organization after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas

High School shootings in Parkland, Florida. Following a surge in student-led gun control activism, students from Stoneman Douglas High School implored ETFGS to expand with a student arm of the organization, while other students created the March for Our Lives movement.

ETFGS responded by announcing a $1 million grant program to accelerate student-led growth.

By the end of 2018, ETFGS announced that there were more than 200 Students Demand Action chapters across the United States.

Similar to other American nonprofit umbrella organizations, ETFGS has expanded beyond its three largest entities to several smaller entities. These entities are not officially under

ETFGS but are affiliated and serve different purposes for the organization. ETFGS has a legal division, Everytown Law; an independent research and policy division, Everytown Research and

Policy; an education, research, and litigation division, the Everytown Support Fund; and a PAC, the Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund. The organization has been able to grow in large part because of its billionaire backing, nationwide donor support and chapter creation in local communities.

ETFGS attributes its success to its ability to focus on select issues that have the potential to save lives nationwide. These key issues include requiring firearm background checks, preventing domestic violence, avoiding preventable deaths, and stopping gun traffic. Advocacy for stricter background checks include filling loopholes that allow criminals and the mentally ill

to purchase guns without an official background check. Advocacy for domestic violence protections include pushing for legislation barring domestic abusers from obtaining guns, while advocacy for preventable deaths spans a range of educational efforts to inform parents about responsible gun storage and safe gun ownership. Law enforcement advocacy includes focus on tracking of illegal or trafficked guns (Everytown, 2020). After expanding the organization considerably, ETFGS had significantly more money to contribute in the 2020 election cycle than they had for previous general elections.

ETFGS has seen a $20 million increase in outside spending compared to the NRA's outside spending decreasing by $26 million from the 2016 election cycle. A numerical breakdown of direct contributions and independent expenditures are summarized in Table 2.

Table 2

Direct Contributions and Independent Expenditures of the NRA and ETFGS during the 2016 and 2020 Election Cycles.

Organization/Type of 2016 Spending (USD) 2020 Spending (USD) Contribution NRA direct contributions $1,094,909 $757,350

NRA SuperPAC independent $33,341,336 $19,452,531 expenditures

NRA PAC independent $19,240,973 $8,917,207 expenditures

NRA-ILA 501© independent $1,816,249 $8,715 expenditures

ETFGS direct contributions $165,736 $1,690,726

ETFGS SuperPAC $0 $20,146,412 independent expenditures

ETFGS PAC independent $0 $13,947 expenditures

CHAPTER 3: CANDIDATES’ GUN CONTROL PLANS

Gun control and gun rights has become a prominent election issue in response to the rise in American mass shootings (Petersen & Densley, 2019) and lobbying efforts by activist organizations on both sides of the aisle (Jones & Stone, 2015). Indeed, this issue is typically brought to candidates by media through formal political debates or informal interactions. In many elections, presidential candidates provide their views on gun control and gun rights via their campaign websites; this was not the case in 2020.

Donald J. Trump

The Republican party did not formally acknowledge the issue of gun safety or gun rights in 2020. Indeed, Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign never released a gun control plan on its website. In the days preceding the 2020 Republican National Convention, the Republican

National Committee (RNC) released a "Resolution Regarding the Party Platform," stating that they will not be releasing a party platform for 2020. Instead, the RNC stated that it would

"enthusiastically support the President's America-first agenda" (RNC, 2020). In fact, the release contained the 2016 Republican party platform document and indicated that they will be referring to this document unless it is determined that it needs to be amended (RNC, 2020). However, the

2016 platform did not make any mention of the Second Amendment, gun rights, firearms, or anything of the sort (RNC, 2016).

Trump's most-utilized medium for expressing his opinion on a myriad of issues was his

Twitter account, where tweets were often sent from "Twitter for iPhone." Before Trump was permanently banned from Twitter in January 2021, there were several tweets mentioning the

NRA. Following the Dayton, Ohio mass shootings in August 2019, Trump tweeted4: "Just

4 Tweets are quoted using spelling and grammar directly from Twitter. 17

concluded a very good meeting on preventing Mass Shootings. Talks are ongoing w/

Republicans & Democrats. We are likewise engaging with lawful gun owners, survivors, grieving family members, law enforcement, the NRA, mental health professionals, and school officials…….I am hopeful Congress will engage with my Team to pass meaningful legislation that will make a real difference and, most importantly, Save Lives!" (RealDonaldTrump, 2019).

Following this tweet, there was no legislative progress in gun control. Nine days following this tweet, there was a mass shooting in Midland, Texas, where a gunman shot 25 people and killed eight.

Trump also mentioned the NRA in a tweet the same day that New York Attorney General

James announced she was filing a lawsuit seeking to dissolve the NRA. The tweet stated: "Just like the Radical Left New York is trying to destroy the NRA, if Biden becomes President your

GREAT SECOND AMENDMENT doesn't have a chance. No police, no guns!"

(RealDonaldTrump, 2020e). President Trump got endorsed for re-election by the NRA in July

2020. He was endorsed by them in May 2016 at their national convention.

President Joseph R. Biden

Gun control plan. The Biden Campaign released a plan that stated it will end the gun violence epidemic in America. The site repeatedly stated the accomplishments of Biden in the

Obama Administration as well as his involvement in the 1994 Brady Bill that banned the production of assault weapons in 1994. However, that bill had a 10-year lifespan and was not renewed by the George W. Bush administration. The campaign stated that Biden will again ban the manufacturing and sale of assault weapons and high capacity magazines, essentially renewing the Brady Bill. It also expressed that executive authority will be used to halt the importation of assault weapons into the United States. The campaign stated that Biden would

institute a gun buy-back program, where gun owners can sell their firearms to the government, to have less guns in American communities (Gun Violence Epidemic, 2020).

As for the sale of guns, they will be limited to one per person per month under a Biden presidency. Loopholes that the Obama Administration attempted to close will be tightened, such as the “boyfriend” loophole, the “gun show and online sale” loophole, “hate crime” loophole,

“Charleston” loophole, and “fugitive from justice” loophole (Gun Violence Epidemic, 2020). To close some of these loopholes, online sales of firearms, ammunition, kits, and gun parts will be prohibited (Gun Violence Epidemic, 2020). The sale of smart guns, which require a fingerprint to use, was also backed by the campaign. Smart guns render stolen guns useless. The campaign stated that they are willing to work with the National Rifle Association (NRA) on this issue as well. Once the gun is purchased and in the hands of its owner, Biden proposes to pass legislation that requires the gun to be stored safely in the owner’s household. If their gun is missing or stolen, it will be the law to notify authorities and report the gun as such (Gun Violence Epidemic,

2020).

Biden’s campaign proposed that “straw purchasing” a gun become a federal crime. Straw purchasing occurs when one purchases a gun for another that will not pass a background check.

Current laws do not require reporting failed background checks. The Biden campaign proposed that law enforcement must be informed. The Attorney General will be tasked with drafting a document to properly fund the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agency (ATF) to enforce this legislation throughout the country (Gun Violence Epidemic, 2020).

Biden’s campaign also proposed that he will create an eight-year, $900 million initiative to fund programs like these in the cities that need it most: 20 cities with the highest number of homicides, and 20 cities with the highest number of homicides per capita. Additionally, the

Center for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health will be appropriated $50 million to accelerate research in preventing gun violence (Gun Violence Epidemic, 2020).

A portion of the Biden Campaign plan did not have to do directly with guns at all, but rather focuses on domestic violence victims and legislation that Biden will pass. First, the Biden campaign indicated that a Task Force on Online Harassment and Abuse that will focus on the connections held between mass shootings, online harassment, and violence against women.

Lethality assessments will be enacted for law enforcement to determine the likelihood of a survivor of domestic violence to be killed by their abuser (Gun Violence Epidemic, 2020). This focus on domestic violence may capture the attention of ETFGS, with one of their core missions addressing domestic violence.

CHAPTER 4: REVIEW OF LITERATURE

The following section attempts to encapsulate agenda setting from conceptualization in

1972 (McCombs & Shaw, 1972) until present day. McCombs and Shaw (1972) developed agenda setting theory in an attempt to understand the influence of media on the public.

Generations of scholarship have contributed to the growth of this theory, that now has four levels

(Kiousis et al., 2009). To keep up with technological advancements, agenda setting research has evolved from analyzing newspapers and analogue content to social media posts and digital content (Schweickart et al., 2016; Sweetser & Lariscy, 2008), with the latter the focus of this thesis.

Agenda Setting: Conceptualization

Since the conceptualization of agenda setting (McCombs & Shaw, 1972), there have been hundreds of studies published using it as a theoretical guide (Kiousis,1999; McCombs and Shaw,

1993; Tedesco, 2001). Agenda setting has become one of the most prominent theories of media effects (Kiousis et al., 2009). Numerous extensions of the original theoretical proposition now exist under the agenda setting concept. In order to get a complete picture of the theory, one must dissect the different phases of theoretical development.

The study opens by stating that the majority of Americans seek political knowledge through mass media, not through other people. It is important to note that from the beginning, agenda setting was intended to be used to study political media (McCombs & Shaw, 1972).

There are two types of mass media consumers: Those who generally have greater political knowledge before seeking out news, and those who do not seek out news—the information just

“comes in” to them. Before conducting interviews for the project, McCombs and Shaw surmised that those with the greatest media exposure have greater knowledge of where political candidates

stand on specific issues; already alluding to attribute agenda setting, a branch that would sprout off of the theory later. It is hypothesized that “the mass media set the agenda for each political campaign, influencing the salience of attitudes toward the political issues” (McCombs & Shaw,

1972, p. 177).

The researchers sought to match the perception of “key issues” among Chapel Hill registered voters to the content of the media. In addition to the interviews, a content analysis of local and national newspapers, national news magazines, as well as national network news was conducted to obtain the issues that media viewed as salient. Additionally, the media content was divided into “major” and “minor” levels—these terms were rarely coined in future applications of the theory. “Major” levels included stories that were given more space on the page in a newspaper, and more time and earlier position in a televised newscast, and any story that was longer than one column in a news magazine (McCombs & Shaw, 1972).

The theoretical findings of McCombs and Shaw’s study are imperative to the current study. Specifically, it was reported that political campaign news was not devoted to the political issues facing the campaigns, but instead was devoted to discussion of the campaign itself. It was found that there was a significant correlation between the issues that voters noted as salient and the issues that media were covering. McCombs and Shaw offer a working definition of agenda setting:

The data suggest a very strong relationship between the emphasis placed on different

campaign issues by the media (reflecting to a considerable degree the emphasis by

candidates) and the judgements of voters as to the salience and importance of various

campaign topics (McCombs & Shaw, 1972, p. 181).

It is noteworthy that this study found that news consumers are more likely to give attention to the major and minor issues of their own party. This study hints at selective exposure theory—consumers are likely to seek news that aligns with their previously-established beliefs rather than news that is contradicting those. However, this finding was only true with those who had committed to a candidate early in the campaign; undecided voters were still attentive to all news outlets. Finally, McCombs and Shaw call for future studies to consider both the psychological and sociological variables of political agenda setting. Agenda setting theory gives power to the news media, suggesting that many Americans are not forming their own opinion on the news.

Agenda Setting: Initial Levels

Soon after the conceptualization of agenda setting theory, numerous researchers surmised that there could be different levels of the theory and different comprehension levels of the information that the news media has provided to audiences. For example, Benton and Frazier

(1976) conducted a study to examine the levels of “information holding,” or how well the consumer can hold information from the news (p. 261).

Level one focused on general issue names. For example, questions asked at the first level included whether the news audience knows the major issues of the campaign, “the economy,”

“government inefficiency,” and “overpopulation” (p. 263). The second level of agenda setting focused on sub-issues, which the authors defined as problems, causes, and proposed solutions of the major issues. These problems could be “inflation,” “unemployment,” and “higher food prices” (p. 263). The causes could be “bad weather conditions,” “oil prices,” and the solutions of these problems could be “tax rebate,” “gas rationing” (p. 263). The third level surmised by the authors addressed specific information regarding the sub-issues and questioned whether the

consumer is thinking critically regarding the imposed solutions and considering the pros and cons. However, Benton and Frazier do not consider these information holding techniques part of agenda setting. Instead, they state that only levels two and three are considered the agenda setting function of the media. This study is important to note because it was the first time researchers attempted to investigate more than one dimension of agenda setting.

Second Level Agenda Setting: Attribute Agenda Setting

The second level of agenda setting, also known as attribute agenda setting, deals with the salience of attributes associated with the issues in the news (Carrol & McCombs, 2003). Before attribute agenda setting can be explored, a definition of an issue must be provided, for which

Takeshita’s (1997) definition will be used: “various aspects or sub-issues, which can be treated as attributes” (p. 289). There are several definitions of “attribute” in the literature, but this thesis will employ the definition that identifies an attribute as a property, characteristic, or trait that describes an object in media, policy, or public agenda (Kiousis & Shields, 2008; Kiousis et al,

1999). Attributes can have their own agenda and salience through press releases in campaigns, as

Tedesco (2001) found when studying the 2000 presidential primaries. More recently, research

(Lariscy et al., 2009; Lee & Xu, 2018; Sayre, Bode, Shah, Wilcox, & Shah, 2010; Schweickart et al., 2016; Solop, 2009); have examined attribute salience using digital information subsidies as well. McCombs and Zhu (1995) asserts that subtopics, framing mechanisms, affective elements and cognitive elements are all attributes, each playing a unique role in the news agenda.

McCombs (1994) stated that the “first dimension” of agenda setting applies to the issue itself, while the “second dimension” of agenda setting can apply to the issue or image of a public figure associated with the original issue. Carroll and McCombs (2003) provide the working definition of second-level agenda setting that will be utilized in this study: “The salience of

attributes on the media agenda influences the salience of those attributes in the public agenda”

(p. 38). News coverage of attributes often complements the initial object, providing more detail for the news consumer. Attributes are broken down further into numerous dimensions that can be studied as well (Kiousis, Bantimaroudis & Ban, 1999).

Following a mass shooting, different gun law reform and gun rights advocacy groups will release public responses. For example, after the El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio mass shootings in 2019, ETFGS published a press release stating that Americans should not fear for their lives when shopping or driving down the street. This press release would use a "fear" attribute. The

NRA Institute for Legislative Action also published a press release following those shootings, stating that they oppose any legislation that would take away the rights of citizens. "The proposals being discussed would not have prevented the horrific tragedies." This press release used a Second Amendment attribute, alluding that legislation would take away citizen's guns

(Kiousis et al., 2009).

McCombs (1995) stated that there are both substantive and affective attributes that can be studied. Affective attributes are defined as news coverage that has emotional appeal to the audience, allowing for reactions (Coleman & Wu, 2010). These affective attributes suggest that the tone of the story can affect the news consumer and what is learned from the story that they watched or read. Substantive attributes are defined as new details that allow the news consumer to differentiate political candidates from one another. This may include the candidate’s qualifications, prior experience, and personality (Kiousis, Bantimaroudis & Ban, 1999). This study employs the substantive attributes of gun control: what candidates do to differentiate themselves from one another within the issue. Candidates most often do this by releasing plans on a particular issue, but they can also do so by publishing a press release or tweeting about the

issue. President Trump most often does this through his Twitter account, as he does not have a gun violence or gun rights plan. Organizations can use substantive attributes through tweets, press releases, speeches, platform positions and other forms of communication.

Agenda setting’s impact can be observed on the image of political candidates, where the candidate is considered the attributed object. Because the candidate is the object, where they stand on issues, such as gun control, abortion, healthcare, and war constituted their attributes. For example, Biden’s campaign maintained his stance on healthcare: revising the Affordable Care

Act with a private option. In this example, Joe Biden is the object, and the healthcare position is the attribute.

Attributes can be positive or negative. Additional attributes of a political candidate could include scandals and slip ups. Media’s portrayal of these attributes could be positive, negative, neutral, or mixed in valence (Deephouse, Carroll, & McCombs, 2001). By knowing that attributes can be reported with specific valence, it is surmised that news can present a tonal feeling or attitude toward a story and these feeling and attitudes can transfer to the audience, eliciting an affective attribute (Carroll & McCombs, 2003).

Tonal feeling is acknowledged when considering an attribute to be evaluative (Carroll &

McCombs, 2003). This evaluative dimension refers to media favorability, "the sentiment of a particular news story about an object from the perspective of the object" (Carroll & McCombs,

2003, p. 40). Consider the Nazi party: unfavorable coverage of the Nazi party is good for society, and favorable coverage would be inherently problematic. In the case of democracy, consider the

Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021: favorable coverage that supported the goals of this event would be inherently problematic for democracy as it would set the precedent that it is acceptable to storm the nation’s Capitol Building. Unfavorable coverage would arguably be good for society

to avoid future attacks and to establish how unacceptable such actions are in the United States. A story can say something "negative" and still be "good" for society (Carroll & McCombs, 2003).

Carroll and McCombs theoretically propose the following:

"The more positive that media coverage is about a particular attribute, the more positively

will members of the public perceive that attribute. Conversely, the more negative that

media coverage is for a particular attribute, the more negatively will members of the

public perceive that attribute" (Carroll & McCombs, 2003, p. 41).

This importance of this notion is two-fold: the favorability promoted by ETFGS or the

NRA may translate to their members. Additionally, the favorability from President Trump or

Vice President Biden may translate to the electorate. Attributes are always part of an agenda, and have the power to influence the public's agenda. In this project, attributes could not exist without a tweet, a newer component of political public relations.

Political Public Relations

Political public relations is a developing area that combines both public relations research and political communication research. It is commonly referred to as the “purposeful activities by political actors to influence the media, their agendas, and how they frame events, issues, and processes,” (Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2011). However, Strömbäck and Kiousis (2011) narrow this definition further, and provide a working definition in the book Political Public Relations:

Principles and Applications

Political public relations is the management process by which an organization or

individual actor for political purposes, through purposeful communication and action,

seeks to influence and establish, build, and maintain beneficial relationships and

reputations with its key publics to help support its mission and achieve its goals (p. 8).

Strömbäck and Kiousis assert that political public relations is more than just appealing positively to the media and ensuring that the party gets maximum favorable coverage. It is holding the relationships to ensure that the candidate or party achieve its goals—usually winning the election. One of the most important organization in political public relations are political parties (Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2011, p. 11). Party politics exist worldwide, no matter what political system they use. Political parties are often trying to maintain a positive relationship with party members, almost always trying to ensure that their party is receiving positive coverage.

Political strategists operate within political parties and are attempting to ensure positive relationships with several entities.

The political strategist must ensure that relationships are simultaneously fruitful, including six prominent relationships in most political contexts: voters, the party, the candidate, interest groups, contributors, and the media (Baines, 2011). Ultimately, a politician's goal is to get her message to citizens, with the hope to generate support or maintain support. The underlying process in a campaign is the exchange of promises, policies, and future governmental behavior for votes. To get these messages to the voter, there are constant communication processes of programs, policies, and promises that rarely get directly from the candidate to the voter, but instead go through several different avenues. This is where public relations takes hold of the information exchange. To ensure that the message is getting to the voter, the information must be given to the six political markets listed above. The primary audience of these interactions is considered to be the voter, and the secondary audience is the campaign staff and volunteers, contributors, allies, friends, and media (Sweeney, 1995). It is noteworthy that contributors are included in this list of political markets as well.

Campaign contributions are one of the largest reasons why some campaigns thrive and other campaigns die. Gandy (1982) states that financial contributions may have the biggest impact on building a campaign agenda or determining what candidates make as their "platform issues." The predetermined monetary cost of an issue or policy is crucial in determining what type of subsidies the politician will use: direct or indirect. The indirect route often includes an activist or grassroots organization to get their message to the voter, but that is often the costliest path. However, Gandy states that this can be done by "mobilizing grass-roots opinion against

[issue] through a massive multi-media campaign including specially-written news articles...editorials, and a few made-for-television movies and episodes" (p. 50). Though this is an extreme example of an indirect campaign, ETFGS conducted a similar campaign through their organization, targeting swing-state media markets for primary elections in spring 2020. The

NRA keeps politicians from supporting or voting for gun control legislation by threatening to pull their contributions and asking for their money back (Cullen, 2019).

Furthermore, Kiousis et al. (2009) asserts that political public relations is an integral part of the democratic process and consists of the influence of the salience of a candidate issues and attributes in the news media agenda. Using political public relations as a theoretical guide, the following research question arises when determining influence. In attempt to control future legislation and build the policy agenda, candidates and interest groups may discuss gun control by using specific issue attributes.

RQ1: What general issues are discussed by candidates during the “hot phase” of the

campaign?

RQ2: What gun-related issues are discussed by interest groups during the "hot phase" of

the campaign?

Attributes are an essential part of the agenda building process, but each attribute originates from somewhere. The fourth level of agenda setting, agenda building, theorizes that there are many entities seeking to influence other agendas. Agendas can be set to the public, but who, or what is dictating those agendas?

Fourth Level Agenda Setting: Agenda Building

Within the political public relations scope is the fourth level of agenda setting: agenda building. McCombs (2005) identified agenda building as the fourth level of agenda setting. Prior to this, Weaver and Elliot (1985) stated that agenda building is “where the focus is on how the press interacts with other institutions in society to create issues of public concern” (p. 87).

Research surrounding agenda building often concerns whether sources set the media agenda or if it is the media that get the final say (Tedesco, 2005a). In a broader sense, agenda building explores the “process of salience formation as one involving several stakeholder groups beyond news media and public opinion, including government, political parties, candidates, organizations, activist groups, and so forth” (Kiousis et al., 2009, p. 546). Agenda building is concerned with what sources, be they political or not, build the agenda set forth by the news media. Studies looking at agenda building in political contexts have examined candidate press releases, candidate websites, television newscasts, social media posts, and so on (Berkowitz,

1987; Kiousis & Shields, 2008; Schweickart et al., 2016 Tedesco, 2001).

Kiousis and colleagues (Kiousis, Kim, Ragas, Wheat, Kochhar, Svensson, & Miles,

2015) asserted that there are three levels of agenda building. The first level of agenda building is gaining initial news attention. This is done by trying to attract object salience, similar to the first level of agenda setting. One of the most popular strategies to gain media attention is through information subsidies, defined by Tedesco in 2011, informed by Gandy (1982) and Berkowitz

and Adams (1990) as “the efforts of news sources to intentionally shape the news agenda be reducing journalists’ costs of gathering information” (p. 81). Broadly, information subsidies any communicative attempts by individuals, organizations, or governments to supplement information gathered by news organizations. Subsidies serve to help organizations meet legal demands, inform the public on organizational actions and operations, influence legislation, among other purposes (Zoch & Molleda, 2010, p. 248). Curtin (1999, p. 54) formally defined an information subsidy is “controlled access to information at little cost or effort to the person receiving the information.” Subsidies can be voluntarily released or requested, a distinction that differentiates the type of subsidy.

Subsidies can be either proactive or reactive. A press release would be considered a proactive subsidy, where the practitioner is taking initiative and giving information to the journalist. In contrast, a journalist can ask a practitioner for information, where the practitioner would be giving information reactively (Turk, 1985). If successful in obtaining media placement of their subsidies, practitioners are exercising their power to build the agenda, allowing them the ability to eventually influence public opinion, their candidate or cause. Further, Gandy (1982) theorized that they could be further divided into two types: direct and indirect. A journalist would receive a direct subsidy from the practitioner, and the target government or legislator would receive an indirect subsidy by later consuming it in the news (p. 62).

Press releases are often released by political campaigns or institutions (The White

House) to convey a message to the mass media, in an attempt to gain attention and coverage.

Interest groups also do this in hopes to get a candidate talking about an issue they see as salient or to get news coverage during a crisis. For example, the NRA does this prominently following mass shootings in the United States by issuing press releases to help shape the content of news.

The second level of agenda building is similar to the second level of agenda setting: attribute salience as a component of the agenda-building process. Organizations accomplish this by highlighting specific aspects of an object or issue that they would like to be covered concurrently ignoring others that may reflect poorly on their candidate or organization. These attributes are parallel to the attributes mentioned with second level agenda setting: substantive and affective (Kiousis et al., 2015). The agenda can be built using both defining factors that the organization or campaign wants the media to know, or by giving an emotional appeal as to why their candidate is of current importance (e.g. their campaign will end if they do not get adequate funding for the next televised debate).

The third level of agenda building again draws similarities from the third level of agenda setting, deeming the third level of agenda building “network agenda building” (p. 367). The connections among elements on different agendas can impact the salience given to an issue by the organization. For political public relations and agenda building this becomes crucial when campaigns form a candidate image. Campaigns are often trying to get voters to associate positive attributes with their candidate, and negative attributes with that candidate’s opponents. This association could result in a candidate either winning or losing an election (Kiousis et al., 2015).

Furthermore, Kiousis et al. (2015) give the example of President George W. Bush: If his administration was unable to link weapons of mass destruction to the Iraqi regime at the time— making the elements less salient in relation to one another, a different strategy may have been necessary in convincing Congress to declare war. The third level of agenda building requires the organization to make numerous connections in order to entice the media and gain coverage.

Once agendas are built, a new question arises: Will these agendas remain consistent throughout a campaign?

Candidate Agendas

Issue Consistency

Early in the campaign and throughout primary season, candidates will develop specific issue agendas to differentiate themselves from their opponents. Throughout primary debates, these issue agendas may waver as candidates take note of their opponent’s agendas (Conway,

Kenski, & Wang, 2015). If these changes exhibit attributes from other agendas, it is likely evidence of agenda building (Berkowitz & Adams, 1990). However, preceding research revealed that candidates exhibit consistent agendas throughout the primary season. Examining the 2000 and 2004 presidential primaries, Tedesco (2001, 2005a) found that candidates’ issue agendas were highly coordinated with themselves, thus maintaining a consistent issue agenda. This research was later expanded by Dunn (2009), examining the 2005 Virginia gubernatorial election. Both candidates maintained agendas that were perfectly correlated with themselves, demonstrating that they maintained a consistent issue agenda throughout the “hot phase” of the campaign. The aforementioned studies examined press releases as evidence of agendas, a traditional information subsidy.

Scholars have recently examined Twitter as a means of understanding candidate agendas for specific audiences (Kang, Fowler, Franz, & Ridout, 2017), after previous findings revealed that Twitter users were “politically sophisticated” (Bode & Dalrymple, 2014). To view a press release, one typically must seek it out by viewing a candidate’s website or gaining a spot on the press list. However, tweets are easily accessible to the public and do not require a subscription.

Examining candidates’ issue consistency through Twitter, email, and television advertisements,

Kang et al. (2017) revealed that Twitter was less correlated with email and television advertisements, displaying a different agenda. For example, a candidate’s top issue via email

communication could have been taxation, but their top issue via Twitter could have been gun rights and gun control. Furthermore, this study found that highly resourced campaigns were more likely to maintain a consistent agenda through all mediums.

Informed by preceding research, this study hypothesizes that candidates and activist organizations will maintain consistent agendas throughout the “hot phase” of the campaign.

H1: Candidates will exhibit consistent general issue agendas throughout the “hot phase”

of the campaign.

H2: Interest groups will exhibit consistent gun-related issue agendas throughout the “hot

phase” of the campaign.

Intercandidate Agenda Setting

Considering that candidates typically maintain a consistent issue agenda with themselves, it is feasible that intercandidate agenda setting has been of interest to scholars as well, albeit limited. This niche research area has found that candidates are successful at influencing the other’s agenda by using statistical tests for confirmation. Tedesco (2005a) examined the 2004

Democratic presidential primary and found that Clark, Dean, and Edwards successfully influenced eventual nominee Kerry’s campaign. Kerry’s campaign originally differed from his opponents’ but changed course to match their agendas shortly before winning the Iowa Caucus.

This win may be attributed to his sudden agenda shift. Indeed, influence is not limited to issue attributes. Kiousis and Shields (2008) revealed that the salience of substantive and affective attributes were positively correlated between 2004 presidential primary candidates. Although the candidates were not giving the same issues attention, they were using the same tonal attributes to convey their message. Examining the 2005 Virginia Gubernatorial election, Dunn (2009) found that a candidate was successful in influencing the other during one time lag period. Informed by

previous research, this study hypothesizes that candidates will exert mutual influences on each other, and that interest groups will do the same. Both interest groups and candidates will build their opponent’s issue agenda.

H3: Candidates will exert mutual influences on each other.

H4: Interest groups will exert mutual influences on each other.

To test these hypotheses, this study will move beyond the traditional information subsidy and utilize tweets as a digital information subsidy.

Political Public Relations Meets Web 2.0

Scholars have recently expanded Gandy’s notion of information subsidies, asserting that they could also derive from digital platforms. Digital political public relations is defined by

Sweetser (2020) as “a strategic approach within the field, allow[ing] the political actor the opportunity to truly connect with citizens,” (p. 82). Politicians (Adams & McCorkindale, 2013;

LaMarre & Suzuki-Lambrecht, 2013) and organizations (Sweetser, English, & Fernandez, 2015) are active on Twitter, seeking to shape political or public opinion on attributes. Social media can be used to offer transparency, to campaign, or to influence policy and public opinion (Sweetser,

2020, p. 91).

Barack Obama’s campaign is known as the first to utilize social media advantageously to victory (Solop, 2009) with Web 2.0 allowing for more interactivity between political actors and voters (Taylor & Kent, 2004). Donald Trump was said to have influenced the agenda with a mere

280 characters on Twitter (Lee & Xu, 2018). For example, Trump would send tweets in the early morning hours and morning news shows would report on his tweets. Politicians are not always successful in social media ventures, with scholars calling for government to “do better” with

Web 2.0 in 2011 (Hollingworth & Cooper, 2011). However, politicians are certainly not alone on social media and are joined by PACs and other influential organizations.

Organizations do not often utilize social media for its interactivity, but instead utilize it mainly for one-way communication to deliver their messages for public consumption (Waters &

Williams, 2011). Tweets from PACs and other political relationships were tested as a form of information subsidy when examining the relationship between partisans and PACs, finding that engagement between the public and organizations is imperative in creating “public relationships,” (Sweetser et al., 2015). Activist organizations can utilize public relations efforts to achieve both micro and mesomobilization (Gerhards & Rucht, 1992), with mesomobilization occurring when activist groups connect together and form “a cultural integration…by developing a common frame of meaning to interpret the issue at stake” (p. 559). This thesis examines

ETFGS, an organization that would not exist without uniting micromobilization gun control efforts. This culminates through their Twitter feed, which often acknowledges the different arms of the organization.

Twitter

Twitter is an important tool for American political communication (Johnson, 2014), with politicians using it for both domestic and foreign relations (Dalisay, Kushin, & Yamamoto,

2014). Former president Obama was the first candidate to use Twitter to document his campaign, and Senator Mitt Romney was the first American politician to informally concede a presidential race via a tweet. Twitter has been imperative in organizing social and revolutionary movements, both foreign and domestic. Twitter was a crucial platform in mobilizing a new generation behind the youth-led gun control movement following the 2018 Parkland, Florida school shootings

(Haenschen & Tedesco, 2020). The Arab Spring series of revolutions in the early and mid 2010s

were organized largely on Twitter, with NPR’s sources coming from citizen tweets, influencing

American coverage of the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions (Hermida, Lewis, & Zamith, 2014).

Initial digital platform content analyses proved inconclusive (Lariscy et al., 2009), finding little influence between tweets and business journalists. Using YouTube videos as a form of digital subsidy, Sayre and colleagues (Sayre, Bode, Shah, Wilcox, & Shah, 2010) found a relationship between YouTube videos and news coverage of political events. Others

(Schweickart et al., 2016) argue that digital information subsidies could be instrumental in the agenda building process, stating that “digital media in political public relations has been recognized as an increasingly important source of communication,” (p. 368). When examining the agenda building function of political tweets through in-depth interviews, Parmelee (2014) found that political tweets were the most influential in shaping journalist’s coverage of political events. Using Parmelee’s work as a guide, a 2016 study examining the White House’s digital information subsidies using cross-lagged correlations found weak influence between subsidies and policy agendas (Scweickart et al., 2016).

This thesis will extend digital information subsidy research by examining two-way communication through agenda building on Twitter. Indeed, this thesis expands the notion of successful subsidy media placement and seeks to examine the influence of activist organizations and candidates on each other’s agendas. These agendas may eventually become salient in the eyes of the media, the public, and in lawmakers drafting firearm policy.

RQ3: Is there evidence that either candidate exerts an influence on the general issue

agenda of the other candidate?

RQ4: Is there evidence that either interest group exerts an influence on the gun-related

issue agenda of the other activist organization?

CHAPTER 5: METHODOLOGY

This study seeks to identify different agenda attributes that shape activist organization and candidate agendas in the 2020 presidential race. Few studies have looked at the agenda building abilities of organizations and candidates. This study elaborates on Schweickart et al.’s

(2016) study examining digital information subsidies and agenda building power by using time- lagged correlations. This study also expands digital political public relations research, examining agenda building amongst organizations and political actors. This study is an elaboration that also fills a gap in political public relations literature by examining a gun control and a gun rights organization's ability to build the other's agenda. Additionally, this study examines both presidential candidate's ability to build the other's agenda. Further, this study seeks to examine the candidates’ and organizations’ abilities to influence each other's agendas. This will be measured by considering attributes of the gun control issue agenda.

Content Analysis

This study utilized a content analysis to determine whether the candidates, media, or organizations build the agenda for gun control in the 2020 American presidential election. One of the most cited definitions of a content analysis is Berelson’s 1952 definition: “a research technique for the objective, systematic, and quantitative description of the manifest content of communication” (p. 18). Content analysis dates back to the seventeenth century, when newspapers were collected by the church to explore the concern of the spread of nonreligious matters to the public. In the 1940s and 1950s, Berelson and Lazarsfeld utilized content analysis as communication scholars know it today (McMillan, 2000). In the conceptualization of agenda setting, McCombs and Shaw (1972) utilized content analysis as the second half of their

investigation. Since this landmark study, content analysis has been the leading method when using agenda-setting theory (McCombs & Shaw, 1993).

In studying the use of content analysis in modern day, McMallin (2000) states the five steps to completing a successful content analysis. First, research questions or hypotheses must be formulated. This has been completed in the literature review of the current study. Second, researchers must select a sample that will comprise their content analysis. From this sample, the researcher must draw from the sample to create the sample frame. For instance, if 18,000 tweets were found for a content analysis, only a portion of those will be pulled for the final sample and analysis unless a full universe of 18,000 tweets is used in the study. Next, context units must be identified for coding. Fourth, the final step is to analyze and interpret the data (McMillan, 2000).

In modern day, this is done using statistics programs that are able to be downloaded on computers. This project used NVivo to analyze the sample.

NVivo

Scholars have been using NVivo since its inception in 1997 as a software backed by QSR

International (QSR International, 2020). The software is considered solely by many to be a qualitative data analysis software tool. However, if used properly, it can be used for quantitative research as well. NVivo allows the user to upload their own files, and its software will read all of the documents. Once the software has read all of the documents, the user has the ability to do many things. The user can run a word frequency query, where the software reads every document and gives the user a list of word frequency from the most common to least common, while simultaneously avoiding “stop” words that include articles and prepositions. The user can separate their sample into cases and codes. Cases afford the user the most freedom, allowing them to separate their sample into broad categories. The next step involves separating the sample

into codes or themes that emerge from each of the units, and is referred to as separation. Codes are a “word or phrase that summarizes or captures the essence of a portion of data, the analytical process of categorizing data” (La Trobe University, 2020).

NVivo has been used to conduct research in many fields, including political science, psychology, philosophy, and communication. In their article for Prism academic magazine,

Clark and colleagues (Clark, Guivarra, Dodson, & Widders Hunt, 2019) used NVivo when studying a theoretical framework in Australian public relations with aboriginal communities. In their methodology, the authors state that they utilized NVivo to conduct a "major data analysis," including a thematic analysis of key frames. The lead researcher generated codes, created themes, and evaluated them. In sports communication, NVivo was used to conduct a content analysis of FIFA's Twitter account, examining 5,389 tweets, looking for how successful FIFA was at engaging with its followers (Winand, Belot, Merten, & Kolyperas, 2019). This study was not a traditional content analysis and took a qualitative approach. The authors took a case-study approach to this analysis to allow for a thorough investigation of intention and situations. Using

NVivo, the research team manually coded each tweet (Winand et al., 2020). In his master's thesis, Schoonover (2020) utilized NVivo to code two party platforms and two transcribed speeches for 11 American election cycles, seeking to trace the evolution of party discourse for the period in question (p. 64). Examining themes in the 2018 Washington Wildfire Smoke Risk

Communication Synthesis Symposium in a consensus-building coding approach, Errett et al.

(2019) utilized NVivo to conduct a qualitative analysis. Though not traditionally utilized for quantitative research, this project uses NVivo for quantitative analysis.

NVivo can be used for quantitative research as well. It has been found that NVivo can expedite quantitative narrative analysis after comparing it to its competitors (Franzosi, Doyle,

McCelland, Putnam Rankin, & Vicari, 2013). Quantitative narrative analysis involves taking narrative texts and pulling quantitative data—a process parallel to the word frequency and text query tests that were ran to create the dictionary. Indeed, others (Leech & Onwuebuzie, 2011) assert that NVivo can successfully preform classic content analyses as well, stating that the software is proficient at the following: constant comparison analysis, taxonomic analysis, computational analysis. In their step-by-step approach, the authors find that the software can perform beyond its obvious quantitative abilities. This project utilized NVivo to help conduct a classical content analysis before running statistical tests.

Content

This study utilized the population of tweets appearing from official Twitter pages from

September 7 to November 3, seen in Table 3.

Table 3

Twitter Handles for Gathering Tweets

Source Twitter Handle Everytown for Gun Safety (ETFGS) @Everytown

National Rifle Association (NRA) @NRA

Biden @JoeBiden

Trump5 @RealDonaldTrump

5 Donald Trump was permanently banned from Twitter on January 8, 2021. This was his former handle most-often utilized during the campaign. 42

Table 4 lists the number of tweets that were pulled from account for analysis. In total,

3,099 tweets were examined for this study.

Table 4

Frequency of Tweets Appearing on the Official Accounts during the 2020 Presidential Election “Hot Phase”

Source Amount Everytown for Gun Safety (ETFGS) 454

National Rifle Association (NRA) 184

Biden 833

Trump 1,628

Procedures

Donald Trump’s Tweets

Tweets deriving from @RealDonaldTrump were not accessible via the Twitter API

(Application Programming Interface), as Trump was permanently banned from Twitter on

January 8, 2021 and his account was deleted. Instead, the population of @RealDonaldTrump tweets were accessed from www.TheTrumpArchive.com, where the population of Trump’s tweets were archived from May 4, 2009 to January 8, 2021. The tweets were available for download in JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) format. From the archive, Python coding software was utilized to import the JSON file, sort through the date range, and output the tweets as .TXT (text) files to be imported to NVivo. Once text files, each document was coded to include the date, file type, and number in the file names. The file names would look similar to:

“09-07-2020_tweet_723.” If a tweet used an emoji emoticon, it was replaced by a space. One tweet was not in the native language of the researcher and was not included in the study.

NRA, ETFGS, and Biden’s Tweets

Tweets from @NRA, @Everytown, and @JoeBiden were accessed via the Twitter API.

In order to access the Twitter API, the researcher had to apply for a Twitter Developer Account.

Once approved, the tweets were available to “scrape” or download. Twitter limits scraping to

200 tweets per scrape, so Twitter was scraped for as many times as it took to acquire the entirety of the sample, discarding tweets that were not in the date range or were duplicates. For example, if the final scrape only went until September 12, 2020, another scrape would be performed for

200 tweets. If those tweets were before September 7, 2020, they were discarded. Scraped tweets were placed into three JSON files sorted by source. The JSON files were then imported to

Python as a dictionary, and followed by same procedure as @RealDonaldTrump to convert tweets to .TXT files. If a tweet used an emoji emoticon, it was replaced with a space. After all of the tweets were converted to .TXT files, they were each imported to NVivo in batches sorted by source. Once imported, the tweets underwent a word frequency sort that determined dictionaries.

Unit of Analysis

Each tweet will serve as a unit of analysis. To be a unit of analysis, tweets had to meet specific parameters for inclusion. First, retweets were discarded, as they are not the candidate or organization’s own words. Though it could be argued that a retweet is an endorsement, this study focused on original tweets. The presidential nominee for both major American political parties were chosen: incumbent President Donald J. Trump for the Republican party, and Vice President

Joseph R. Biden for the Democratic party. The NRA and ETFGS were chosen for the sample as a result of their PAC's campaign contributions being the largest of all gun control/rights activist organizations. The NRA contributed more than $28 million during the 2020 election cycle, and

ETFGS contributed over $21 million. Tweets were collected from 7 September (Labor Day) to 3

November, 2020 (Election Day) inclusive. These dates were chosen given that they are considered to be the "hot phase" of an election, where candidates are setting their final agendas, and organizations are attempting to build some final agendas (Tedesco, 2005a). Using these parameters 3,099 tweets were included in this sample.

Time Lag

The sample was divided into two sections for analysis, each four weeks long. Time lags were longer rather than shorter to deter the @NRA dataset from becoming too small for agenda analysis. Therefore, frequencies spanning each four-week period throughout the hot phase of the campaign were counted as follows in table 5.

Table 5

Time Lag Analysis Dates

Time Lag Dates

1 September 7, 2020 to October 5, 2020

2 October 6, 2020 to November 3, 2020

Table 6 shows the number of tweets that fell into each time lag period, separated by source.

Table 6

Number of Tweets Separated by Source and Time Period.

Source Time Period 1 Time Period 2

@Everytown 186 268

@NRA 92 92

@JoeBiden 248 585

@RealDonaldTrump 664 964

Dictionaries

After tweets were imported to NVivo, initial word frequencies were tested. The word frequency tool is available in NVivo to quantitatively sort words by presence. These word frequencies were used in developing the first draft dictionaries for analysis. To create the gun control/rights issue dictionaries, word frequencies from @NRA and @Everytown were referenced. The researcher referenced preceding work to create the remaining issue dictionaries.

Dunn’s (2006) thesis examined agenda building in the 2005 Virginia Gubernatorial election and tested dictionaries for general campaign issues. For a more recent issue dictionary, Conway-Silva et al. (2018) was referenced, as their study examined tweets using dictionaries as well.

Considering that each election has its own unique issues, the researcher added dictionaries that were relevant in 2020. The new dictionaries included “energy,” “police brutality,” “Supreme

Court,” “COVID-19,” “impeachment,” and an expanded “immigration” dictionary. The initial draft brought 75 dictionaries; 46 gun control/rights dictionaries and 29 general issue dictionaries.

Following the first draft of the dictionaries, they were manually ran through NVivo’s “text search” 600 times.

Each initial dictionary was applied to NVivo’s “text search” tool to determine the frequencies for each dictionary. Each dictionary was tested eight times, once for each time period from each source. After the initial text search, the results were examined to determine irregularities in the results. For example, the “race” dictionary included the word “race,” which also picked up references to tweets stating that the election was a “close race.” While wanting to include the word “race” in the final dictionary, the “race” results were manually sorted to gather relevant tweets. Dealing with race as a variable focused on physical traits and categories of

humankind, not competitive races as in contests. All of the initial results were manually examined, and dictionaries were edited after the initial text search to ensure reliable results. The results from the final dictionaries were pulled from NVivo as .TXT documents then imported to

Excel and used for data analysis. Final dictionaries can be found in Appendix I.

Data analysis

Data analysis began with basic correlations procedures conducted on the frequency lists and ranked lists of political issues and the attributes of gun rights and gun control. Correlations are performed both within candidate – at time 1 and time 2 of the study – and between candidates

– at time 1 and time 2. These correlations were used to identify the within-candidate consistency. For example, Biden time 1 was significantly correlated with Biden time 2, r = .895

(19), p < .001. When the within-candidate correlation is strong, the likelihood of influence from another candidate (or source) less likely. After correlations were established for within and between candidates, the Rozelle-Campbell baseline statistic was performed, establishing an additional correlation statistic. The importance of this statistic is two-fold: if the within candidate lag correlation is below the baseline correlation, there is the first evidence of influence. It is argued that agenda building occurs if the Rozelle-Campbell baseline is above the within candidate correlation for time 1 and time 2 and above the between correlation.

Rozelle-Campbell is a type of autoregression. In this case, autoregression cross-lagged correlations were performed for each time period to time period segment of the analysis. For example, ETFGS time 1 (Sept. 7 to Oct. 5) content will be compared through autoregression at time 2 (Oct. 6 to Nov. 3) for NRA, President Trump, and former vice-president Biden. In each case, the autoregression indicates whether there is mutual influence between the content or whether there is evidence that one organization influenced the other organization exclusively.

When within correlations (e.g., Biden time 1 correlation with Biden time 2, NRA time 1 correlations with NRA time 2) are higher than between correlations (e.g., Biden time 1 correlations with NRA time 2; NRA time 1 correlations with Biden time 2) In cases of when within influence correlations for only one entity are lower than between correlations, there is evidence of influence and agenda building. This method is adopted from preceding research

(Dunn, 2006, 2009; Tedesco, 2001, 2005a, 2005b). The formula for calculating the Rozelle-

Campbell baseline is found in Roberts and McCombs (1994) and Lopez-Escobar et al. (1998) as

! ! follows: (/)(/) !(/) (/) .

CHAPTER 6: RESULTS

Research Question One (RQ1)

RQ1 asked what general issues were discussed by candidates during the “hot phase” of the campaign. Pearson product moment correlations performed on issue frequencies are seen in

Table 7 highlighting each issue by frequency. Table 8 shows the issues sorted by rank using

Spearman’s rho correlation procedures. As Table 7 reveals, Biden’s top five issues mentioned in tweets were COVID-19 (n = 140) followed by economy (n = 101), healthcare (n = 78), gun rights/control (n = 64), and resources (n = 60). For Trump, the top five issues were economy ( n=

192), gun rights/control (n = 144), police brutality (n = 90), COVID-19 (n = 88) and the Supreme

Court (n = 85). This was followed closely by homeland security (n = 84).

Table 8 also reveals the time 1 and time 2 split used to mark the first and second part of the hot phase. Biden’s issue rankings show that he remained focused on his top two issues spanning both time periods, as did Trump.

Hypothesis One (H1)

H1 predicted that candidates would exhibit consistent general issue agendas throughout the “hot phase” of the campaign. Table 7 shows the frequency rankings of issues and Table 8 shows the issues sorted by rank. To test H1, Pearson product moment correlations were performed on the issue frequencies while Spearman’s rho correlation were performed using the issue rankings (see Table 8). Pearson product moment correlations reveal significant high correlation with marked relationship between ranks for Biden r = +.895 (19), p < .001 and for

Trump r = +.824 (19), p < .001. To add a confirmatory test on the ranked issue comparisons,

Spearman rho correlations were performed. Spearman rho correlations, while not as strong, were high and significant for both candidates when time 1 and time 2 issue ranks were compared

(Biden r = +.794 (19), p < .001; Trump r = +.604 (19), p < .01). Thus, Spearman rho correlations

confirm the issue consistency when issue priorities are evaluated using ranks.

Elaboration of the issue priorities show Biden’s top priority remained COVID-19 through

both time periods, while Trump’s top priority remained economic through both time periods.

Biden’s lowest priorities in time one were agriculture, social programs, and impeachment. In

time two, Biden’s lowest priority was impeachment. Trump’s lowest priority through both time

periods was LGBTQIA+. Gun rights/control ranked as Biden’s sixth priority in time one and

fourth priority in time two. As for Trump, gun rights/control ranked as his second priority

through both time periods.

Table 7

Frequency of General Issue Appeals by Candidate and Time Period.

Issue Biden Biden Biden Trump Trump Trump Time 1 Time 2 Total Time 1 Time 2 Total (n = 248) (n = 585) (N = 833) (n = 664) (n = 964) (N = 1,628)

Agriculture 0 3 3 6 7 13

COVID-19 71 69 140 27 61 88

Economy 42 59 101 62 130 192

Education 3 10 13 8 23 31

Foreign policy 5 1 6 46 47 93

General crime 2 2 4 16 7 23

Gun rights/control 22 42 64 55 89 144

Healthcare 27 51 78 31 40 71

Homeland security 7 8 15 34 50 84

Immigration 3 8 11 13 18 31

Impeachment 0 0 0 4 1 5

LGBTQIA+ 1 7 8 0 0 0

Moral issues 5 21 26 15 24 39

Police brutality 4 2 6 47 43 90

Race 4 10 14 6 5 11

Resources/Environment 30 30 60 4 56 60

Social programs 0 5 5 1 10 11

Supreme Court 35 18 53 26 59 85

Taxes 6 9 15 19 47 66

Table 8

Rank of General issue appeals by Candidate and Time Period.

Issue Biden Time 1 Biden Biden Trump Trump Trump (n = 248) Time 2 Average Time 1 Time 2 Average (n = 585) (N =833) (n = 664) (n = 964) (N =1,628) Agriculture 18 15 16.5 14.5 15.5 15

COVID-19 1 1 1 7 3 5

Economy 2 2 2 1 1 1

Education 13.5 8.5 11 13 12 12.5

Foreign policy 9.5 18 13.7 4 7.5 5.75

General crime 15 16.5 15.7 10 15.5 12.75

Gun rights/control 6 4 5 2 2 2

Healthcare 5 3 4 5 10 7.5

Homeland security 7 11.5 9.2 34 6 20

Immigration 13.5 11.5 12.5 12 13 12.5

Impeachment 18 19 18.5 16.5 18 17.2

LGBTQIA+ 16 13 14.5 19 19 19

Moral issues 9.5 6 7.7 11 11 11

Police brutality 11.5 16.5 14 3 9 6

Race 11.5 8.5 10 14.5 17 15.7

Resources/Environment 4 5 4.5 16.5 5 10.7

Social programs 18 14 16 18 14 16

Supreme Court 3 7 5 8 4 6

Taxes 8 10 9 9 7.5 8.2

Research Question Two (RQ2)

RQ2 asked what gun-related issues were discussed by interest groups during the “hot phase” of the campaign. Pearson product moment correlations performed on gun-related issue frequencies are seen in Table 9 highlighting each issue by frequency. Table 10 shows the issues sorted by rank using Spearman’s rho correlation procedures. As Table 9 reveals, ETFGS’ top five issue throughout the sample were gun types (n = 349), followed by gun control outcomes (n

= 186), isolated gun violence (n = 82), gun control measures (n = 51), and victims (n = 40). For the NRA, their top five issues were gun types (n = 142), followed by gun control outcomes (n =

67), Second Amendment (n = 42), mass violence settings (n = 6), and isolated gun violence (n =

4).

Table 10 also reveals the time 1 and time 2 split used to mark the first and second part of the hot phase. ETFGS’ issue rankings show that they remained focused on their top two issues spanning both time periods, as did the NRA.

Hypothesis Two (H2)

H2 predicted that the interest groups would exhibit consistent gun-related issue agendas throughout the “hot phase” of the campaign. Pearson product moment tests reveal high, significant correlations between time 1 and time 2 gun-related issue frequencies (Table 9) for

ETFGS, r = .969 (8), p < .001, and for the NRA, r = .926 (8), p < .001. To confirm these correlations, Spearman rho correlations were performed on the gun-related issue rankings in time

1 and time 2 for both organizations and also revealed statistically significant correlations for both groups (ETFGS, r = .928 (8), p < .001; NRA, r = .777 (8), p < .023.

Table 10 shows the gun-related issues sorted by rank using Spearman’s rho correlation procedures. Both ETFGS and NRA prioritized gun types through both time periods. In time one,

ETFGS’ lowest priorities in both time periods were mass violence settings and perpetrators. The

NRA’s lowest priority in time one was victims, while in time two, their lowest priority was isolated gun violence and victims.

Table 9

Frequency of Gun-related Issues by Advocacy Group.

Issue ETFGS ETFGS ETFGS NRA NRA NRA Time 1 Time 2 Total Time 1 Time 2 Total (n = 186) (n = 268) (N =454) (n = 92) (n = 92) (N =184)

Gun control 25 26 51 1 1 2 measures

Gun control 55 131 186 27 40 67 outcomes

Gun types 133 216 349 84 58 142

Isolated gun 38 44 82 4 0 4 violence

Mass violence 8 6 14 2 6 6 settings

Perpetrators 8 6 14 3 2 5

Second 7 12 19 17 25 42 Amendment

Victims 23 17 40 1 0 1

Table 10

Rank of Gun-related Issues by Advocacy Group.

Issue ETFGS ETFGS ETFGS NRA Time NRA NRA Time 1 Time 2 Average 1 Time 2 Average (n = 186) (n = 268)_ (N =454) (n = 92) (n = 92) (N =184)

Gun control 4 4 4 7.5 6 6.7 measures

Gun control 2 2 2 2 2 2 outcomes

Gun types 1 1 1 1 1 1

Isolated gun 3 3 3 4 7.5 5.7 violence

Mass violence 6.5 7.5 7 6 4 5 settings

Perpetrators 6.5 7.5 7 5 5 5

Second 8 6 7 3 3 3 Amendment

Victims 5 5 5 7.5 7.5 7.5

Research Question Three (RQ3)

RQ3 asked whether there would be evidence that either candidate exerts an influence on the general issue agenda of the other candidate. Agendas can be precisely tested by submitting the time-lag correlations and synchronous correlations through the Rozelle-Campbell baseline procedure (Tedesco, 2001). The Rozelle-Campbell cross-lagged correlation offers the ability to test simultaneously the competing questions in this study regarding candidate’s influence on each other’s agenda. As Figure 1 shows, the Rozelle-Campbell baseline exceeds the candidate

influence between Trump time one and Biden time two, suggesting that Biden influenced

Trump’s agenda from the first to the second time period. Trump did not influence Biden.

Hypothesis 3 (H3)

H3 predicted that candidates would exert mutual influences on each other’s agenda. As

Figure One shows, Biden’s agenda remained more consistent (r=.895) than Trump’s (r=.824) from time one to time two. As evidenced in RQ3, Biden was successful at influencing Trump’s agenda, but Trump did not influence Biden’s. Therefore, there is not support for H3.

Figure 1.

Cross-lagged Issue Agenda Correlations between Trump and Biden.

Research Question Four (RQ4)

RQ4 asked whether there would be evidence that either interest group exerts an influence on the gun-related issue agenda of the other group. After using the Rozelle-Campbell baseline procedure, Figure 2 shows the cross-lagged correlations between both interest groups. The

Rozelle-Campbell baseline falls under or equal to the interest group correlations, indicating weak reciprocal influence between the interest groups.

Hypothesis 4 (H4)

H4 predicted that the interest groups would exert mutual influences on each other’s agenda. As Figure 2 shows, both interest groups were highly coordinated with themselves.

However, the NRA’s agenda remained more consistent (r=.997) than ETFGS’ (r=.992) from time one to time two. As evidenced in RQ4, neither interest group was successful at influencing the other’s agenda, with weak reciprocal influence. Therefore, there is not support for H4.

Figure 2

Cross-lagged Issue Agenda Correlations between ETFGS and the NRA.

CHAPTER 7: DISCUSSION

This study examined the agenda building effects between candidates and interest groups during the “hot phase” of the 2020 American presidential election. Findings based on an unprecedented election cannot be easily generalized to other campaigns. However, the findings of this study can contribute to academic understanding of communication theory and methodology by supporting and expanding preceding research.

Confirming and Expanding Preceding Candidate Research

This study’s findings confirm preceding agenda building and setting research during general campaigns. Tedesco (2001, 2005a) found both reciprocal and influential relationships between candidates and the media during the 2000 and 2004 American presidential primaries using press releases as an information subsidy. Examining the 2005 Virginia gubernatorial race,

Dunn (2005) found agenda building influences between candidates’ press releases and Virginia newspapers. Although this study examined digital information subsidies, its findings are still applicable to traditional agenda building research.

This study confirms the use of digital information subsidies to examine political agenda building effects, affirming prior research (Conway et al., 2013; Conway-Silva et al., 2017

Lariscy et al., 2009; Parmelee, 2014; Schweickart et al., 2016). Though research has traditionally utilized press releases as a form of information subsidy (Tedesco 2001, 2005a, 2005b; Dunn,

2005), political public relations has undergone a digital transformation following Web 2.0 and social media (Sweetser, 2020). This study initially began analysis examining press releases as an information subsidy. After realizing candidates have abandoned sharing press releases, tweets were chosen as the unit of analysis. By restricting the number of characters and forcing users to

write concisely, Twitter makes an ideal information subsidy for capturing issue agendas using attribute-based dictionaries.

Possible over-generalizability of a keyword content analysis was mitigated in this study my manually sorting through software results. After testing dictionaries by using NVivo’s word frequency tool, the results were manually coded for context to avoid false inclusion. For example, if the “one percent” was featured in the economy dictionary, it would pick up all references to the word “one.” To avoid “false positives,” each result was manually coded. Given the character limited Twitter imposes, social media managers must be creative in getting their point across. Therefore, a mention of an attribute can successfully signify a candidate or group’s issue agenda.

This study also enriches scholarly understanding of inter-candidate relationships.

Specifically, this study highlights the importance of adapting communication styles to match an opponent. Throughout his candidacy and presidency, Trump utilized Twitter for both one-way and two-way communication with constituents, the media, foreign allies, and foreign enemies.

Sensing this trend, the Biden campaign may have altered their original communication style in an effort to influence Trump’s agenda. If this was their intention, they were successful in agenda influence, a finding that affirms prior research. However, this influence is not always mutually exclusive.

The Rozelle-Campbell baseline demonstrates that Biden was successful in influencing

Trump’s agenda from time one to time two, but Trump was not successful in influencing

Biden’s. This may evidence a Trump campaign on the defensive in response to dwindling poll numbers during the examination period, considering that Trump’s correlation with himself decreased from time one to time two, but his correlation with Biden increased. Though Trump

was maintained a high correlation with himself, it was not as high as Biden’s. This study also finds that the candidates focused on the same issues, albeit with differing opinions on the matter, as evidenced through their substantive attributes.

Election Context and Substantive Attributes

The unprecedented nature of this election lent itself to a narrow pool of relevant agenda attributes, reflective of the Republican and Democratic party stances. As is typical with

American politics, the two major parties did not agree on the top issues as evidenced in both candidate’s tweets. This study confirms the importance of an agenda’s substantive attributes, or new details that allow the consumer to differentiate between candidates (Kiousis, Bantimaroudis,

& Ban, 1999). A candidate’s issue-stance is a substantive attribute, with Coleman and Wu (2010) asserting that tone can affect how a consumer absorbs the subsidy. Thus, noting the substantive attributes becomes imperative when examining candidate tweets on salient campaign issues.

Considering that candidates were limited to a narrowed issue pool, the substantive attributes are what differentiated the candidates to the public. Before detailing the substantive attributes, a contextual explanation for issue narrowing is provided.

2020 Election Context

Spring 2020 brought a global pandemic (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,

2021), shifting national focus away from presidential primaries and to public health efforts, with several primaries rescheduled (Corasaniti & Saul, 2020). This public health focused remained salient through the “hot phase” of the election, with COVID-19 staying a focus of both candidates. The world’s economy was also among the debris left by COVID-19, with the United

States entering a recession not seen since the stock market crash of 1929 (Gopinath, 2020). Wall

Street halted trading after stocks plummeted 7 percent (He et al., 2020), and in-person trading

ceased amidst COVID-19 concerns (Li, 2020). Summer 2020 brought racial unrest around the country following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer. Many protests remained active around the country throughout the “hot phase” of the 2020 election (Hutchinson,

2020). Further, Trump announced via Twitter that he and First Lady, Melania Trump, tested positive for COVID-19 (@RealDonaldTrump, 2020f) on October 2, 2020, during the examined time period. As a result, Biden announced he would be pulling all negative ads concerning

Trump while he recovered (Evers-Hillstrom & Miller, 2020). Fall 2020 also brought the death of

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, serving on the Court since 1993. Her death, nomination process, and senatorial hearing all took place during the examined time period

(History, 2020). Despite only one reality guiding the context of the election, it is noteworthy that each presidential candidate had a different interpretation of these events, as evidenced in their substantive attributes.

Substantive Attributes

Taking into account the importance of context surrounding the 2020 presidential election, it becomes imperative to consider the substantive attributes of each candidate’s agenda when discussing salient issues. This section will discuss the Supreme Court, police reform, Black Lives

Matter, the economy, gun rights/control, and resources.

Supreme Court. Trump was adamant on securing his nomination, Amy Coney Barrett before Election Day. Conversely, Biden took the largely-Democratic stance of delaying the process until after Election Day. This is evidenced in their tweets concerning the issue.6

On September 19, 2020, Trump tweeted:

“.@GOP We were put in this position of power and importance to make decisions for the people who so proudly elected us, the most important of which has long been considered

6 Tweets are quoted using spelling and grammar directly from Twitter. 62

to be the selection of United States Supreme Court Justices. We have this obligation, without delay!” (@RealDonaldTrump, 2020c).

The substantive attributes in this tweet reveal that Trump was encouraging party unification surrounding his Supreme Court nomination and encouraging the party to act quickly in their “position of power.”

On September 26, 2020 Biden tweeted:

“Supreme Court decisions affect our everyday lives, and the Constitution was designed to give voters a voice on who makes those decisions. The Senate shouldn’t act until after the American people select their next president and the next Congress. Americans deserve to be heard” (@JoeBiden, 2020d).

The substantive attributes in this tweet indicate that Biden is also giving the Supreme

Court agenda power, but it is in the opposite view of Trump. Biden is proposing that voters should decide the president and Congress before the Senate acts on a nomination.

Police reform. Trump contended to be the president of “law and order,” supporting law enforcement while Biden took a stance to support police reform.

In a three-part tweet on September 14, 2020 Trump tweeted:

“For the entire summer, Joe Biden was SILENT as left-wing mobs assaulted police officers. When Bidens far-left supporters set fire to police cars, precinct stations, and courthouses, Joe Biden called them PEACEFUL PROTESTORS. When asked if he would cut police funding, Biden…….replied Yes, Absolutely. Biden calls for abolishing cash bail and closing prisons and Biden even called law enforcement the ENEMY. Biden’s anti-police crusade must STOP. Furthermore, the corporations funding anti- police organizations should instead give their money……to the families of crime victims and fallen officers. In the Republican Party, we know that police officers are not villains, but HEROES who risk their lives to KEEP US SAFE 24/7/365!” (RealDonaldTrump, 2020b).

The substantive attributes in this tweet reveal several things, considering the length of this tweet. Evading Twitter’s character restrictions by posting a multi-part tweet, Trump did not have to be as concise with his thoughts. In this tweet he is condemning the destruction of police cars and other property while accusing Biden of calling police “the enemy.” This tweet also

reveals that Trump is against closing prisons and supports cash bail. He commends police officers on their sacrifices, while also offering advice to corporations funding “anti-police organizations, to donate their money to families of crime victims and fallen officers.” Though muddled within the tweet, Trump’s substantive attributes suggest support of law enforcement and condemnation of those not supportive.

Conversely, on September 17, 2020, Biden tweeted: “As president, I will bring

Americans together and finally deliver much-needed policing reform,” (@JoeBiden, 2020a).

Later on November 2, 2020, he mentioned several issues including racial injustice and police reform: “Health care. Civil rights. Climate change. Economic inequality. Racial injustice. The

Supreme Court. Our democracy,” (@JoeBiden, 2020c). The substantive attributes in these tweets reveal that Biden did not openly endorse defunding police departments, likely in an effort to secure moderate law enforcement votes. However, Biden’s substantive attributes make it clear that he was ready to implement police reform, something that he holds as high as the American democracy.

Black Lives Matter. Throughout 2020’s racial unrest, protestors would often state that

“Black Lives Matter (BLM),” a slogan stemming from an organization’s namesake that began as a Twitter hashtag by Alicia Garza in 2013 (Black Lives Matter, 2021). Trump was often antagonistic toward Black Lives Matter protestors calling them names, while Biden was supportive. This is evidenced in their tweets:

On September 8, 2020 Trump tweeted:

“BLM protestors horribly harass elderly Pittsburgh diners, scaring them with loud taunts while taking their food right off their plate. These Anarchists, not protestors, are Biden voters, but he has no control and nothing to say. Disgraceful. Never seen anything like it. Thugs!” (@RealDonaldTrump, 2020a).

This tweet’s substantive attributes reveal Trump’s antagonistic feelings toward Black

Lives Matter protestors. He rejects the notion that they are protestors, stating that they are instead

“anarchists” and “thugs.” He states that he has never seen anything like the actions taken by the protestors, and accused Biden of having no control over the situation, despite Biden not holding any public office during this time.

Conversely, on October 27, 2020, Biden tweeted: “Black lives matter. No president should be afraid to say it,” (@JoeBiden, 2020b). This tweet came following the last presidential debate, where Trump refused to state that Black lives mattered. Instead, in a previous debate,

Trump told The Proud Boys and other white supremacy organizations to “stand back and stand by” (Zurcher, 2020). Although Biden does not make another mention of Black Lives Matter during the examined time period, this tweet’s substantive attributes simply reveal Biden’s support of the movement.

Economy. While both candidates want the American economy to flourish, they often differed in who they want the economy to flourish for. Trump stuck by his economy, touting it a success of his presidency, while Biden touted the economy Trump began with, detailing how to

“rebuild it” to its formal glory. These attributes are evidenced in their tweets:

On October 12, 2020, Trump tweeted: “Stock Market Up Big. Do I get no credit for this?

Never even mentioned by the Fake News. A New Record for Stocks and Jobs Growth.

Remember, it’s the Economy Stupid. VOTE!!!” (@RealDonaldTrump, 2020f) On October 31,

2020, Trump tweeted:

“Our ECONOMY is now surging back faster, better, bigger and stronger than any nation on earth. We just had the best quarter of ECONOMIC GROWTH EVER recorded – a 33.1% increase, and next year will be the GREATEST ECONOMIC YEAR in the history of our Country!” (@RealDonaldTrump, 2020g).

The substantive attributes in these tweets indicate that Trump feels pride in the economic recovery following the recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. He also takes credit for the stock market rise, and promises the “greatest economic year” in American history in 2021.

Trump is supportive of America’s current economy, suggesting no areas for future improvement.

Conversely, on October 10, 2020, Biden tweeted: “We’re eight months into this crisis, and this president still has no plan to rebuild our economy. I do. I’ll get America back to work and build back better” (@JoeBiden, 2020e). On October 15, 2020, Biden tweeted: “President

Obama and I left Donald Trump a booming economy and he caused a recession. He squandered it just like he has everything else hes inherited in his life” (@JoeBiden, 2020f). The substantive attributes in these tweets reveal that Biden is not pleased with the current American economy, asserting that it must be “rebuilt.” Biden also states that unemployment is one of the reasons behind the current economic decline and accuses Trump of causing the 2020 recession.

Gun rights/control. Despite the highest levels of gun violence in decades, this issue was not often recognized by the media during this campaign. In spite of this, candidates maintained clear gun rights/control positions. Trump vowed to protect America’s Second Amendment, while

Biden, only mentioning gun control once, voiced support of gun control legislation.

On September 18, 2020 Trump tweeted a two-part tweet:

“Voting starts in Virginia TODAY, and we are going to WIN. You have a crazy Governor who wants to take away your guns, which he will do without me in office. He is in favor of executing babies after birth – this isn’t late-term abortion, this is a step way beyond! Vote for me……Im playing for your guns, and Im playing for your values. For all the federal employees in Virginia, remember, it was me that got you the federal pay raises, not Sleepy Joe Biden. Ill be having a Big Rally in Virginia, to be announced soon!” (@RealDonaldTrump, 2020i).

The substantive attributes in this tweet suggest that Trump is accusing the Democratic party of taking away Virginia voter’s firearms. Trump is also asserting that he is “playing for

their guns,” revealing that he is fighting to protect their Second Amendment results. In the weeks prior to the election, Trump acknowledged the Second Amendment in 49 endorsement tweets, inflating his gun rights/issue agenda. Nonetheless, substantive attributes indicate that Trump supports the right to bear arms.

On November 1, 2020, Biden tweeted:

“It’s long past time we take action to end the scourge of gun violence in America. As president, I’ll ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines, implement universal background checks, and enact other common-sense reforms to end our gun violence epidemic” (@JoeBiden, 2020g).

The substantive attributes in this tweet are two-fold. First, this tweet is utilizing exact language that ETFGS often uses when describing gun control legislation: “common sense.” Gun control legislation is hardly referred to as “common sense” outside of ETFGS language, so this may be evidence of ETFGS having a small influence on Biden’s agenda. Further, the substantive attributes in this tweet indicate that Biden supports several gun control legislation initiatives, and indirectly supports H.R. 8. Biden is also recognizing that gun violence is an issue that needs attention by the president.

Resources. Occasionally, a lack of acknowledgement also offers a substantive attribute on an issue. Spearman rho rank order correlations indicate that Trump began talking about resources much more in time two than he did in time one. This was likely in attempt to trap

Biden on his fracking stance, often accusing him of “flip-flopping” on the issue. In an effort to gather Pennsylvania voters, Trump often spoke about fracking during time two, mentioning it 32 times. Biden never mention fracking or domestic oil drilling in the examined sample.

On November 2, 2020, Trump tweeted:

“Joe Bidens plan to BAN FRACKING is an Economic DEATH SENTENCE for Pennsylvania. A vote for Biden is a vote to Ban Fracking, Outlaw Mining, explode

energy costs, and totally DESTROY Pennsylvania. Get out tomorrow and VOTE #TrumpPence2020!” (@RealDonaldTrump, 2020d).

The substantive attributes in this tweet reveal that Trump believes fracking is detrimental to the American economy. He accused Biden of supporting a ban of fracking, general mining, and causing energy costs to surge. In an effort to gather Pennsylvania votes, Trump states that these regulations will destroy the state. However, it is noteworthy that Biden never publicly rebuked these fracking claims, likely in an effort to maintain Pennsylvania energy voters.

Fracking became a salient issue in the 2020 election considering it affected Pennsylvania voters, the state that decided the election for major news organizations (Prose, 2020).

Substantive attributes are imperative when discussing campaign issues, as they are indicative of a candidate’s issue stance, and subsequently affect how the consumer perceives the candidate’s agenda (Coleman & Wu, 2010). Indeed, substantive attributes are crucial when considering the results of this study. Though candidates maintained similar agenda’s it was not for the same reasons, as evidenced in their substantive attributes. Despite disagreeing on the issues substantively, issue agendas were still narrower than a typical campaign, likely due to contextual factors. As a result, typical hot-button issues like abortion, affirmative action, and social programs were not salient, as is typically expected.

Issue-Based Interest Groups

This study also examined the role of issue-based interest groups in an American presidential election. Interest groups are typically not utilized in agenda building studies, thus expanding agenda building research. By exploring interest group’s agendas via precise and comprehensive dictionaries, this study was able to capture the niche interests of interest groups advocating for opposite sides of the same issue.

Particularly, this study highlighted the gun-related issues that organizations consider salient. Similar to the candidate findings, substantive attributes become imperative in interpreting the interest group results. Though both organizations are focused on gun-related issues, they set opposite agendas within the issue. Throughout the examined sample, ETFGS centered their agenda on gun types as well as gun control outcomes, indicative that they were focused on gun control legislation of particular guns. The NRA was focused on the same issues, but looking at them through a different lens, as indicated through their substantive attributes. The NRA was largely focused on protecting member’s Second Amendment rights and protecting them from those who are interested in “taking away their guns.” These attributes are revealed in their tweets.

On September 13, 2020 ETFGS tweeted:

“.@MikeBloomberg has been unwavering in his commitment to advancing common- sense gun safety policies in this country, and with so much on the line this year, hes investing $100 million in Florida to help elect Gun Sense Candidate @JoeBiden,” (@Everytown, 2020).

The substantive attributes in this tweet reveal that ETFGS supports a political actor contributing to Biden’s Florida campaign efforts. However, it should be noted that Michael

Bloomberg was one of ETFGS’ founders, which may bias the organization toward him. This tweet also indicates support of gun control legislation, alluding that there is a lot at stake during this election.

On October 13, 2020, the NRA tweeted:

“If the Democrats get in, they are going to take your guns away. If youre a woman or anybody, and a criminal breaks into your home, they will still have a gun, an illegal gun, but you wont and theyll know it. Read @NRA’s interview with @RealDonaldTrump” (@NRA, 2020).

Though this tweet is quoting former President Trump, they did not tweet it in the form of a video nor did they use quotation marks. Therefore, it is their own content they put forth. The substantive attributes in this tweet suggest that the NRA agrees that the Democratic party seeks to take away their member’s firearms. If there were ever an incident in a member’s house, they would subsequently have no defense, while the perpetrator would be in possession of an illegal firearm.

Examining substantive attributes unique to issue-based interest groups expands on traditional agenda building research and could lend itself to fruitful interest group research in the future. Considering that the two groups examined here focus on different ends of the same issue, their substantive attributes become imperative in understanding their differences. This differentiating is crucial in American presidential campaigns, seeing the role that interest groups play. Particularly in campaign finance, an interest group’s substantive attributes within their issue agenda is important when considering the large sums of money contributing to national campaigns. Indeed, this is critical in answering the age-old question: Does money talk in

American politics? Are the substantive attributes used by interest groups eventually influential in a candidate’s campaign after a large contribution?

Methodological Contributions

Minimal prior research has utilized NVivo quantitatively for content analysis, as it is typically associated with quantitative research. However, NVivo was imperative in this study to eliminate manual coding and the need for intercoder reliability. Once tweets were imported into

NVivo, they underwent an initial “word frequency” to determine relevant attributes in an effort to avoid manually reading the entire sample. After running the word frequency, the sample’s contents was revealed in a quantitative summary. To provide context to the word frequency

results, NVivo also has qualitative features that reveal the quantitative context. To eliminate manual coding and intercoder reliability tests, each dictionary underwent their own word frequency search, and was checked both quantitatively and qualitatively.

Once the dictionaries were created using the “word frequency” tool, each dictionary was

“text searched” to capture the frequency of each issue dictionary, thus eliminating intercoder reliability testing. After “text searching” each of the dictionaries, the researcher was able to manually see the context of each captured reference, excluding “false positives” from the results, as is a weakness of the typical software-based keyword content analysis.

NVivo can revolutionize content analysis coding by reducing the subjectivity often associated with agenda setting and framing research. Through a typically qualitative software, this study showcases NVivo’s quantitative abilities and can not only revolutionize content analysis, but also reveals the quantitative possibilities of in-depth interviews and other typically- qualitative methods. NVivo allowed the researcher to conduct a robust study with more complex statistical tests than is typical for a master’s thesis. Despite this study’s methodological innovation, this study suffered limitations as well.

CHAPTER 8: LIMITATIONS

As with any study, this thesis faced several limitations that may have slightly altered the results.

ETFGS Sample

October is American Domestic Violence Awareness Month (Virginia Department of

Social Services, 2021). ETFGS states that domestic gun violence is one of their largest foci

(Everytown, 2021). As such, throughout October, many of their tweets mentioned domestic violence and other terms in the domestic violence dictionary, which may have inflated their

sample to overexaggerate domestic violence more than they typically would. Indeed, ETFGS was not the only possibly skewed sample.

Trump Sample

In the weeks preceding Election Day, Trump tweeted 49 nearly identical issue-based tweets endorsing Congressional, Senate, and Gubernatorial candidates nation-wide. Every one of these tweets mentioned the Second Amendment, likely inflating Trump’s gun control and gun rights issue agenda larger than what he generally spoke about throughout the campaign and hot phase. These tweets also often mentioned law enforcement, the military, immigration, and taxes.

A tweet from October 31, 2020 endorsing a Kansas Congressional candidate stated the following: “@JakeLaTurner will be a phenomenal Congressman for the people of Kansas! He will help us Lower your Taxes, Support our Brave Law Enforcement, Build the Wall, and Protect and Defend your Second Amendment. Jake has my Complete and Total Endorsement!”

(RealDonaldTrump, 2020h). Considering that similar variations of this tweet were posted 49 times for different candidates, Trump’s sample was likely skewed toward issues mentioned in endorsement tweets. However, tweet samples may have been less affected if the examined time window was extended.

Time Window

The “hot phase” this study utilized for the sample was eight weeks long, taken from preceding research (Tedesco, 2005a). This time period typically allows for a snapshot of the campaign’s tail-end where presidential candidates regularly debate each other. However, the candidates were often not debating each other during this election. A longer time window would have allowed for a larger tweet sample from all accounts. For this study, it may have been advantageous to examine the nuances of the primary season and summer before a general

election. Specifically, it may have been interesting to explore agendas while the Democratic field was still narrowing and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) was less focused on unifying the party. Even with extending the time window, the 2020 presidential election still occurred during unprecedented times.

Gun Rights and Gun Control Issue Agenda

The world was facing a global pandemic throughout the 2020 election, which meant that typical American election issues were not in the forefront. With many families quarantining in their homes, mass gun violence was not as frequent as it had been in previous years, with the absence of a mass-mediated gun violence incident (Thebault & Rindler, 2021). However, evidence states that on the whole, gun violence was at the highest level the nation had seen in decades (Bates, 2020). Even with record-high gun violence, the media remained focused on the campaign, COVID-19, and the Supreme Court throughout the examined time period. Preceding research (Tedesco, 2001, 2005a, 2005b) state that if the media are not speaking about an issue, candidates are less likely.

Given the unusually narrow issue focus during the examined time window, it may be difficult for future researchers to replicate this study. Albeit several limitations, they are minor issues that can be addressed in future research.

CHAPTER 9: AREAS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

While advancing theory and method, this study allows for future research in agenda building. First, one could replicate this study theoretically and methodologically, but extend the time window of examination. As previously stated, an extended time window would allow for nuances of the primary and summer portion of the general election. If the window were to be extended after Election Day, it would account for the “election week” that ensued while poll

workers counted votes and Trump demanded recounts in several states (Fowler, 2020).

Prolonged extension could capture the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021 as well as

Trump’s permanent ban from Twitter on January 8, 2021. As the current time window stands, this study allows for future research as well.

Future research could utilize the same data set as this study but extend it to include news media. Though scholars have not previously examined the role of interest groups and candidates as in this thesis, preceding research has explored agenda building through candidates and news media. To extend this study, the media can be included in the agenda building relationship in addition to interest groups and candidates. Further, preceding research (Tedesco 2001, 2005a,

2005b) has examined the attributes of candidate strategies (e.g., endorsements, polls) used by candidates throughout the campaign, which could prove fruitful in this study as well.

Expanding this study would also allow a researcher to explore “mentions” and conversations between all parties studied. This study has the data for “mentions” of candidates and organizations within the examined time period but did not utilize this data for the current study. Future research could explore when candidates and interest groups “tag” each other in tweets and the conversation that subsequently develops.

CHAPTER 10: CONCLUSION

This study highlights that political public relations has been digitalized as previously evidenced by Schweickart and colleagues (2018). Digital political public relations can be accomplished by maintaining the initial agenda setting framework as conceptualized by

McCombs and Shaw (1972) and replacing original information subsidies (Gandy, 1982) with digital. Considering the spatial restraints Twitter places upon users, tweets become an ideal digital information subsidy, as users are forced to carefully articulate their thoughts. Former

President Trump preferred Twitter to communicate with his constituents as well as international allies and enemies. Noticing this pattern, the Biden campaign may have changed their communication course and began frequently tweeting to assert their agenda. This study showed that Biden was successful in influencing Trump’s campaign agenda during the “hot phase” of the

2020 American presidential election, but Trump was not successful in influencing Biden’s. This study also examined issue-based interest groups and their agenda building capacity.

This study contributes to interest group agenda building research by analyzing the agendas of the NRA and ETFGS, a gun rights and gun control advocacy organization contributing large sums of money to political campaigns. Given that they are both gun-oriented organizations, their agendas were highly correlated, though on opposite sides of the issue. This study affirms the significance of substantive attributes: Though political actors may be speaking about the same issues, the language and tone that they use is indicative of their true agenda.

Though the results of this study may not be generalizable outside of the unusual circumstances of the 2020 presidential election, they validate the digital transformation of political public relations.

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APPENDIX A: DICTIONARIES

Mention

1. ETFGS mention: Everytown; "Everytown for Gun Safety"; "Moms Demand Action"; Bloomberg; "Michael Bloomberg"; "Shannon Watts"; Watts; @Everytown

2. NRA mention: NRA; "National Rifle Association"; "National Rifle Association Institute for Legal Action"; NRAILA; "Carolyn Meadows"; "Carolyn D. Meadows"; Meadows; @NRA

3. Trump mention: "President Trump"; "President Donald Trump"; "Trump"; "Donald Trump"; "Donald J. Trump"; @RealDonaldTrump; @POTUS; @WhiteHouse; "POTUS"

4. Pence mention: Pence; "Mike Pence"; "Michael Pence"; "Vice President Pence"; @VPOTUS

5. Biden mention: "Former Vice President Biden"; "Vice President Biden"; "Joseph Biden"; "Joe Biden"; "Joseph R. Biden"; Biden; @JoeBiden; "Sleepy Joe"; "VP Biden"

6. Harris mention: "Senator Harris"; Harris; "Kamala Harris"; Kamala; "Sen. Harris"

Gun control/rights

1. Perpetrators: Gunman; gunmen; shoot; perpetrators; perp; suspect; criminal; felon; thug; offender; wanted; "active shooter"; culprit; killer; "violent criminal"

2. Victims: Victims; victim; students; student; teacher; teachers; wound; injure; casualty; fatality; loss; parishioners; congregants; worshippers; survivor; killed; "homicide victim"

3. Mass violence settings: "Mass shooting"; "mass shootings"; "mass violence"; shooting; "mass casualties"; "mass murder"; "public mass shooting"; "school shooting"; "school shootings"; "high school"; "elementary school"; campus; schoolyard; playground; "Arm teachers"; "arm educators"; "disarm teachers"; "disarm educators"; "active shooter drills"; "Church"; "temple"; "place of worship"; "synagogue"; "worshipping";

"house of worship"; "mosque"; "kingdom hall"; "Nightclub"; "concert"; "club"; "venue"

4. Gun types: Firearm; firearms; weapon; handgun; handguns; gun; guns; pistol; pistols; revolver; revolvers; glock; rifle; rifles; shotgun; shotguns; AK-47; AR-15; "assault weapon"; "assault weapons"; "assault rifle"; "assault rifles"; M-16; "semi- automatic handgun"; "semi-automatic handguns"; "semi-automatic weapon"; "weapons of mass destruction"; "weapon of war"; "M-9"

5. Gun control outcomes: "Gun sense"; "gun safety"; "gun violence prevention"; "gun reform"; reform; "common-sense gun law"; "self-defense"; "gun licenses"; "sport shooting"; "sports shooting"; "privacy" ; freedom; free; "gun confiscation"; "take away your guns"; "your guns"; "individual right"; "individual rights"; "gun controllers"; "firearm prohibitionists"; anti-gun; "self-defense"; "gun licenses"; "sport shooting"; "sports shooting"; "privacy" ; freedom; free

6. Gun control measures: "Assault weapon ban;" "automatic weapon ban"; "large-capacity magazines;" "bump stock;" "high capacity magazine"; "background checks"; background; "buy back"; "no-fly list"; "stand your ground"; "extreme risk laws"; "silencer ban"; silencer; "gun storage"; "red flag law"; "red flag"; "ghost gun"; "illegal guns"; "Charleston loophole"; Charleston; "Brady Bill"; "sunset bill"; "ten-year assault weapon ban"; "Brady handgun" "Brady handgun violence prevention"; "gun sale"

7. Second Amendment: "Second Amendment"; "right to bear arms"; "2nd Amendment"; "2 Amendment"

8. Isolated gun violence: Suicide; "friendly fire"; "accidental death"; "urban gun violence"; "city gun violence"; "violent cities"; "community gun violence"; "street outreach"; "group violence intervention"; "hospital-based violence intervention"; homicide; homicides; "gun homicides"; murder; "violent crime"; "held at gunpoint"; robbed; "armed robbery"; "domestic violence"; "partner violence"; "dangerous history"; "prohibited people"; "boyfriend loophole"

General election issues

1. Foreign policy/trade: "Foreign trade"; trade; "foreign policy"; "international policy"; "international trade"; "foreign affairs"; "international affairs"; "foreign relations"; "international relations"; tariffs; China; Russia; USMCA; NAFTA; "Russia Hoax"; "foreign interference"

2. Homeland security: Military; defense; Army, Navy, "Air Force", Marines, missile, missiles, weapons, "armed forces"; "Iran Nuclear Deal"; "nuclear weapons"; "nuclear"; "nuclear power"; "nuke"; "Iranian Nuclear Deal"; missiles; "war head"; terror; terrorism; "homeland security"; "national security"; ISIS; "Al Qaeda"; terrorist

3. Economy: Economically, economics, economic, economy, economy's, economies, economist, economists, job, jobs, unemployment, employment; "1%"; "one percent"; "middle class"; "working class"; "blue collar"; "little guy"; "Wall Street"; "hedge fund"; "bank regulation"; "stock"; "stock market"; "NASDAQ"; "S&P 500"; "interest rates"; bankruptcy; budget; budgets; deficit; debt

4. Social programs: "Social security"; Medicaid; "food stamps"; poverty; hunger; "lower class"; "welfare"

5. Healthcare: Medicare; Obamacare; ACA; "Affordable Care Act"; healthcare; "universal healthcare"; "private option"; health; medical; patient; "pre existing conditions"; "social medicine"; "prescription drugs"; "prescription drug"; prescription

6. Resources: Environment; environmentalist; environmental; environmentally; pollution; "climate change"; climate; "global warming"; "Green New Deal"; nature; "save the planet"; "Paris Accord"; "Paris Climate Agreement"; " wind; “wind farm”; “wind turbines”; solar; “solar energy”; hydroelectric; “solar panels”; fracking; frack; fracked; oil; "oil drill"; "natural resources"; drill; "price of oil"; gas; “natural gas”; pipeline; "Keystone pipeline"; "fossil fuels"; "Keystone XL pipeline"

7. COVID-19: "COVID-19"; "COVID"; "COVID 19"; "China Virus"; Corona; "Coronavirus"; "pandemic"; "health crisis"; "social distancing"; "mask"; "sick"; "at risk"; "treatment"; "vaccine"; "vaccination"; "Project Warp Speed"; "WuFlu"; "vaccine trails"; "PPE"; "gowns"; "frontline workers"; "healthcare workers"; "essential workers"; "stay home"; "stimulus"; "stimulus checks"; "small business loans"; "CARES Act"; "COVID death"; "Coronavirus deaths"; "COVID-19 death"; "COVID relief"; "travel ban"; "Kung Flu"; "China Flu"

8. Taxes: "Tax the wealthy"; "flat tax"; "tax the rich"; "lower taxes"; "low taxes"; "raise taxes"; "higher taxes"; mortgage; mortgages; overtax; tax; taxpayer

9. Education: Educate; education; educated; school; teacher; teachers; "back to school"; "back in school"; children; "student debt"; "student loan crisis"; "student debt"; "student loan forgiveness"; "college tuition"; "tuition waiver"

10. Immigration: Immigrants; immigration; immigrant; alien; migrant; illegal immigration; "illegals"; "wall"; "secure border"; "border protection;" ICE; "Immigration and Customs Enforcement"; "border security"; "Mexican border"; "border wall"; "immigration relief"; "Muslim ban"; "family separation"; "unaccompanied minors"

11. Police brutality: Police; "police reform"; "defund the police"; "law enforcement"; "police brutality"; "brutal force"; "brutality"; cop; "racial profiling"; "stop and frisk"; Portland; "Portland, Oregon"; Kenosha; "Kenosha, Wisconsin"; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Minneapolis; Louisville; "Louisville, Kentucky"; "law and order"; "blue lives matter"; protest; protests; protested; riots; rioting; rioted; looting; looted; loot; verdict; verdicts; indictments; indict; "defund the police"; defund; ACAB; BLM; "Black Lives Matter"; ANTIFA

12. Race: "Race"; "racial equality"; "systemic racism"; "systemic"; "racism"; "racist"; "hate Crime"; "Proud Boys"; "The Proud Boys"; "white supremacy"; "white supremacists"; "white nationalist"

13. Supreme Court: "Ginsburg"; "Ruth Bader Ginsburg"; "RBG"; "Supreme Court"; court; "court packing"; "Barrett"; "Amy Coney Barrett"; "Supreme Court nomination"; "Supreme Court confirmation"; "Senate Confirmation Hearing"; SCOTUS; @SCOTUS; constitutional; unconstitutional

14. Agriculture: Agriculture; agricultural; farm; farms; farmer; farmer's; farmland

15. Moral issues: "Unity"; "morals"; "values"; "moral values"; morality; bipartisan; "faith"; God; religion; religious; "Christian"; abortions; abortion; pro-choice; pro-life; "women's rights"; "maternity leave"; "family leave"; "paid maternity leave"; “Planned Parenthood"

16. LGBTQIA+: "LGBTQ"; "LGBTQIA"; "LGBTQ+"; "LGBTQIA+"; gay; lesbian; "gay marriage"; "gay rights"; "equal opportunity"; homophobia; homophobic

17. General crime: "Rape"; "fraud"; "White Collar"; "organized crime"; "kidnapping"; "save the kids"; "QAnon"; "human traffick"; "embezzlement"; "money laundering"; "save our children"; drug; drugs; opioids; marijuana; cocaine; fentanyl

18. Impeachment: "Impeach"; "25 Amendment"; "25th Amendment"; "Twenty-fifth Amendment"

19. Gun control/rights: Suicide; "friendly fire"; "accidental death"; "urban gun violence"; "city gun violence"; "violent cities"; "community gun violence"; "street outreach"; "group violence intervention"; "hospital-based violence intervention"; homicide; homicides; "gun homicides"; murder; "violent crime"; "held at gunpoint"; robbed; "armed robbery"; "domestic violence"; "partner violence"; "dangerous history"; "prohibited people"; "boyfriend loophole"; "Second Amendment"; "right to bear arms"; "2nd Amendment"; "2 Amendment"; "assault weapon ban;" "automatic weapon ban"; "large-capacity magazines;" "bump stock;" "high capacity magazine"; "background checks"; background; "buy back"; "no-fly list"; "stand your ground"; "extreme risk laws"; "silencer ban"; silencer; "gun storage"; "red flag law"; "red flag"; "ghost gun"; "illegal guns"; "Charleston loophole"; Charleston; "Brady Bill"; "sunset bill"; "ten- year assault weapon ban"; "Brady handgun" "Brady handgun violence prevention"; "gun sale"; "gun sense"; "gun safety"; "gun violence prevention"; "gun reform"; reform; "common-sense gun law"; "self-defense"; "gun licenses"; "sport shooting"; "sports shooting"; "privacy" ; freedom; free; "gun confiscation"; "take away your guns"; "your guns"; "individual right"; "individual rights"; "gun controllers"; "firearm prohibitionists"; anti-gun; "self-defense"; "gun licenses"; "sport shooting"; "sports shooting"; "privacy" ; freedom; free; firearm; firearms; weapon; handgun; handguns; gun; guns; pistol; pistols; revolver; revolvers; Glock; rifle; rifles; shotgun; shotguns; AK-47; AR-15; "assault weapon"; "assault weapons"; "assault rifle"; "assault rifles"; M-16; "semi-automatic handgun"; "semi-automatic handguns"; "semi-automatic weapon"; "weapons of mass destruction"; "weapon of war"; "M-9"; "mass shooting"; "mass shootings"; "mass violence"; shooting; "mass casualties"; "mass murder"; "public mass shooting"; "school shooting"; "school shootings"; "high school"; "elementary school"; campus; schoolyard; playground; "arm teachers"; "arm educators"; "disarm teachers"; "disarm educators"; "active shooter drills"; "church"; "temple"; "place of worship"; "synagogue"; "worshipping"; "house of worship"; "mosque"; "kingdom hall"; "nightclub"; "concert"; "club"; "venue"; victims; victim; students; student; teacher; teachers; wound; injure; casualty; fatality; loss; parishioners; congregants; worshippers; survivor; killed; "homicide victim"; gunman; gunmen; shoot; perpetrators; perp; suspect; criminal; felon; thug; offender; wanted; "active shooter"; culprit; killer; "violent criminal"

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