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Article published In:
The Agenda Setting Journal
Vol. 5:1 (2021) ► pp.56–83

Mapping the intermedia agenda setting (IAS) literature

Current trajectories and future directions

| Washington State University
| Qingdao University

This study systematically reviewed empirical intermedia agenda setting (IAS) research published between 1997 and 2019, in terms of the level of agenda-setting, the methodologies – including the coding strategies and time-series analytical techniques – the types of media, and the flow of IAS effects. According to our results, previous IAS studies exhibited the following trends: (1) an overwhelming majority of the IAS studies was anchored by the first agenda-setting level, whilst examinations of the NAS model and multiple levels have increased in recent years; (2) excessive IAS studies performed content analyses, (3) applied manual coding strategies, (4) conducted cross-lagged correlation analyses to examine time-series effects, (5) and focused on newspapers and Twitter; (6) most IAS research confirmed the flow from one traditional media to another traditional media, whereas more recent studies also revealed the flow from traditional to emerging media, and their reciprocal relationship; (7) the majority of IAS studies confirmed the elite-to-non-elite flow of IAS effects. Based on these findings, this study encourages futures IAS researchers to attach more importance to (1) contextual diversity, (2) balanced examinations of each agenda-setting level, (3) methodological innovations, (4) technological pluralism, and (5) providing more evidence for the flow of IAS effects across different types of media.

Keywords: intermedia agenda setting, systematic literature review, level of agenda-setting, time-series analysis, media type, flow of IAS effects
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Literature review
    • Theoretical and methodological patterns
      • Levels of agenda setting
      • Methodologies
    • Flow of IAS effects
  • Method
    • Search strategy
    • Inclusion and exclusion criteria
    • Coding
      • Year of publication
      • Author name(s)
      • Journal name
      • Country studied
      • Levels of agenda setting
      • Methodology
      • Coding strategy
      • Time-series analytical techniques
      • Types of media
      • Types of social media
      • Flow of IAS effects I
      • Flow of IAS effects II
    • Inter-coder reliability
  • Results
    • RQ1 asked about the number of IAS research published by year in the last 23 years
    • RQ2 examined the frequencies of the levels changed over time in the IAS literature
    • RQ3a asked about the most used method in the IAS literature in the last 23 years
    • RQ3b asked that among those content analyses, which coding strategy were most frequently used
    • RQ3c investigated the most frequently used time-series analytical techniques
    • RQ4a examined the types of media studied in the published IAS literature in the last 23 years
    • RQ4b examined the types of social media studied in the published IAS literature in the last 23 years
    • RQ5 investigated the flow of IAS effects between traditional and emerging media in the published IAS literature in the last 23 years
  • Discussions on future directions
    • Contextual diversity
    • Balanced examinations of agenda-setting levels
    • Methodological innovations
    • Technological pluralism
    • More evidence needed for the flow of IAS effects
  • Limitations
  • References
Published online: 18 January 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/asj.20001.su
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