Rámcování a nastolování agendy: Dva paralelní procesy v interakci

In this article the authors interconnect the framing and agenda-setting theories of mass-communication effects. They postulate that the framing process creates conditions for the agenda-setting process and argue that differently framed news have different effects in the agenda-setting process. They hypothesise that issue-specific frames, episodic frames, and value frames have a stronger agenda-setting effect than generic frames, thematic frames, and strategy frames and suggest explaining the role of frames in the agendasetting process through the theory of cognitive dissonance. The hypotheses are tested using matched panel survey data on respondents’ personal agendas and using a content analysis of the media in relation to one particular issue. The selected issue – the restitution of property to the Catholic Church – was chosen because it contains a rich combination of frames. Moreover, this is an issue on which it is possible to study the effect of a ‘focusing event’, which may have an additional and distinct effect in addition to the ‘regular’ frames. The authors show that differently framed news do indeed have distinctive effects on personal agenda-setting. Some frames have a strong positive effect, while others have no effect. They even identify one frame that appears to have a slightly negative net effect on personal agenda-setting. This is a somewhat revolutionary fi nding, since it demonstrates that, unlike the predictions made by the agenda-setting theory, people may (under certain conditions) react to the heightened media exposure of an issue by denying its importance.