Publications

Publication details [#63907]

Hedding, Kylah J. and Kevin Ripka. 2018. What’s political Twitter talking about? Setting the media agenda for the 2016 presidential debates among influential left, center, and right political media. The Agenda Setting Journal 2 (2) : 168–190.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Place, Publisher
John Benjamins
Journal DOI
10.1075/asj

Annotation

This paper explicates the concept of news media agendamelding. While only one-quarter of U.S. adults are on Twitter, it remains a popular platform among news media and political elites who often still set the public agenda for political discourse. Twitter provides insights into the issues that are at the top of the media and policy agendas, as well as how social media might influence the way journalists approach political issues. At the same time, there is concern about the influence of social media on political polarization. This paper uses a specific set of influential Twitter users to examine one main question: Were there differences between right, left, and center political media reactions during the 2016 presidential debates? This paper provides further evidence that there is, in fact, a conservative political Twitter media agenda that exists separately from liberal or nonpartisan media outlets.