ABSTRACT WILSON, BRADLEY JAMES. The Impact of Media Agenda Setting on Local Governments. (Under the direction of Dr. Dennis Daley). Agenda-setting studies are abundant in mass media literature. Since the early 1970s, the methodology conceived by Don Shaw and Max McCombs has been used to study how media coverage of everything from environmental issues to race relations influences public opinion, mostly at the national level. Subsequently, fewer studies have examined whether agenda-setting concepts can be used to correlate media coverage with policy outcomes, and still fewer studies have been used at the local level. By comparing changes in city budgeted allocations with changes in coverage over time, this study finds a limited, long-term relationship between media coverage and policy changes in four areas: public safety, public works, economic development and parks/recreation. Newspapers have a finite amount of influence over policy changes. Further, this study affirms that while citizens continue to depend on newspapers for local government news, local newspaper circulation, market saturation and staff size continue to decline. Finally, this study shows that by 2011, the Great Recession had begun to strain city and town resources with more impact on the Western region of the United States than other areas. © Copyright 2012 by Bradley Wilson All Rights Reserved The Impact of Media Agenda Setting on Local Governments by Bradley James Wilson A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Public Administration Raleigh, North Carolina 2012 APPROVED BY: _______________________ _____________________ Dennis Daley, PhD Steven Greene, PhD Committee Chair _______________________ _____________________ Donald Shaw, PhD Andrew Taylor, PhD DEDICATION I would be remiss if I didn’t begin by dedicating this project to my parents, Jim and Sue Wilson, as well as my sister Kristi. They have endured ignored phone calls, delayed e-mails and talk of statistical analysis for more than five years now. In every respect, I dedicate this project to their continued support. But I would also be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the continued support of Dr. Donald Shaw. He is not only an amazing educator who offers a foundation of knowledge about agenda-setting, he is an educator who pushes students to think of old concepts in new ways. ii BIOGRAPHY Bradley received his undergraduate degrees in journalism and biology from The University of Texas at Austin and his master’s degree in public administration from the top-ranked Syracuse University Maxwell School. After completion of his doctoral degree from North Carolina State University, he will join the mass communications faculty at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas where he will be director of student publications and an assistant professor. Bradley is active at the state, regional and national levels in mass communication. He is the editor of the publications for the national Journalism Education Association, a national committee chair for the College Media Association and helped to create the North Carolina College Media Association. He has received the Gold Key from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, the Pioneer Award from the National Scholastic Press Association, the Medal of Merit from the Journalism Education Association, the Star of Texas from the Association of Texas Photography Instructors and the Trailblazer Award from the Texas Association of Journalism Educators. In 2006, JEA awarded Wilson its highest honor, the Carl Towley Award. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First, my thanks and appreciation to Dr. Dennis Daley not only for serving as chair of my committee and for providing guidance during this process but for providing leadership and ideas throughout my graduate school career. Secondly, thanks to the members of my dissertation committee, Dr. Steven Greene, Dr. Andrew Taylor and Dr. Donald Shaw. They all have generously given their time and expertise to better my work. In a broader sense, they introduced me to a new way of learning as did Dr. James Svara who taught an introductory course and introduced me to the ideas of Cohen, March and Olson. In addition, Dr. Anne Schiller who taught Anthropology 516, Dr. Kitty Klein who taught a survey operations course in Psychology and Dr. David Garson who taught Advanced Research Design. Each, in their own way, validated part of my research ideas and helped me to develop a long-range vision for my research. In particular, Dr. Taylor introduced me to agenda-setting as a concept through the works of Baumgartner, Jones and Kingdon, theorists who have also proven helpful throughout this process. Finally, I have to acknowledge the help and support of Howard Spanogle who took time out of his schedule to copyedit these pages and to offer guidance on wording and even new directions to take. Together with Monica Hill at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, more than any other individuals not on my committee, they pushed me to complete this endeavor. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................................. vii LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................... viii INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................. 1 Theoretical Foundation............................................................................................ 4 Local Media and Policy Outcomes........................................................................... 7 Research statement.................................................................................................. 11 LITERATURE REVIEW: AGENDA SETTING OVERVIEW............................................... 14 Introduction ............................................................................................................. 14 Background .............................................................................................................. 14 Critique of Agenda-Setting Theory.......................................................................... 23 Policy Change........................................................................................................... 28 Specialized Reporting .............................................................................................. 34 Newspaper Quality................................................................................................... 36 Online Presence ....................................................................................................... 37 Local Based Media ................................................................................................... 40 Summary .................................................................................................................. 42 METHODOLOGY................................................................................................................. 45 The Dependent Variable: Policy Change ................................................................. 46 The Communities..................................................................................................... 48 The Media................................................................................................................. 49 Threats to Reliability and Validity........................................................................... 51 Coverage and Policy Change.................................................................................... 54 Organizational Variables ......................................................................................... 56 Size of Staff............................................................................................................... 57 Market Saturation.................................................................................................... 59 Web Presence ........................................................................................................... 61 Ownership ................................................................................................................ 63 Control Variables ..................................................................................................... 65 The Relationship ...................................................................................................... 66 INITIAL FINDINGS............................................................................................................. 71 Descriptive Data....................................................................................................... 72 The Budget ............................................................................................................... 74 The Relationship ...................................................................................................... 78 Five-Year Correlations ............................................................................................. 83 Other Variables ........................................................................................................ 86 EXPANDING THE MODEL................................................................................................. 90 Introduction ............................................................................................................