Lecture 2
Thursday, 3. March 2022 15:45
• "There is nothing so practical as a good theory"
Theory: The Working Principles of
Your Campaign
Agenda-Setting Theory (First level)
• Media tells us what to think about (not what to
think)
○ Who and what is important?
○ Why is it important?
○ Where do important things happen?
• The main issues of the day brought out by news
media influence what the public perceive as
important topics
• Effects are peripheral and short term --> The
media agenda changes very rapidly
• Media agenda influences public agenda and
policy agenda
○ Agenda-Setting Theory is often applied in
public affairs campaigns (lobbying)
• Topics that feature very highly in the news, tend
to be perceived as very important topics by the
public
Two-Step Flow Theory
• Connected to Agenda-Setting Theory
• The theory is about peripheral effects
• Persuasion through opinion leaders
○ Opinion leaders are:
a. Media-savvy
• It is not easy to stir opinion
leaders into a certain direction, it
is not essay to influence them -->
They are very critical/ skeptical
• If we can convince them,
they are super important in
influencing others.
Influencing opinion leaders
is part of the campaign
b. Relatively easy to approach
c. Open to logical argumentation
• If you can pinpoint opinion leaders,
campaigns using this theory are
usually super effective
• If they spread our message, they
also lend their authority and their
influence to that message
• It can be difficult to find opinion leaders that can
really influence the target group
• A Two-Step-Flow campaign has two stages
i. Reaching and influencing the opinion
leaders
a. This is usually the more difficult part:
They are not an easy group to
persuade
, ii. Providing the opinion leaders with
everything they need to influence the target
group
• The dividing line between opinion leaders and
celebrity endorsement is sometimes a bit
ambiguous
○ There are similarities between these two
concepts, however also some differences. A
celebrity is not necessarily an expert
• However, there are also cases where it
is not clear whether it is celebrity
endorsement or opinion-leaders (two-
step flow)/ cases where it doesn't
really matter which one of the two it
is
Second-Level Agenda Setting
• Related to agenda setting and two-step flow
• Agenda level has two levels
i. What to think about
ii. Framing
Framing
• Frame of reference, context, theme, news angel
• Selection and salience
• Frames define problems, diagnose causes, make
moral judgements and suggest remedies
• If we have a topic, we can always approach it
from different directions. The directions we
choose is the frame
• Framing is a way to give some overall
interpretation to isolated items of fact
Framing in Practice
•
○ "Iraqis danced and waved the country's pre-
1991 flag in central Baghdad's Firdos
Square after a U.S. Marine armored
recovery vehicle helped topple the square's
huge statue of Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein. The statue -- the height of about
four men -- was one of the symbols of
Saddam's rule over Iraq and came down
about 6:50 p.m. Wednesday (10:50 a.m.
ET). Iraqis had begun tearing down portraits
of Saddam and throwing shoes -- a grave
insult in the Arab world -- and chipping
away at the base of the statue with
sledgehammers after a column of Marines
advanced into the square Wednesday
afternoon." - CNN World
Thursday, 3. March 2022 15:45
• "There is nothing so practical as a good theory"
Theory: The Working Principles of
Your Campaign
Agenda-Setting Theory (First level)
• Media tells us what to think about (not what to
think)
○ Who and what is important?
○ Why is it important?
○ Where do important things happen?
• The main issues of the day brought out by news
media influence what the public perceive as
important topics
• Effects are peripheral and short term --> The
media agenda changes very rapidly
• Media agenda influences public agenda and
policy agenda
○ Agenda-Setting Theory is often applied in
public affairs campaigns (lobbying)
• Topics that feature very highly in the news, tend
to be perceived as very important topics by the
public
Two-Step Flow Theory
• Connected to Agenda-Setting Theory
• The theory is about peripheral effects
• Persuasion through opinion leaders
○ Opinion leaders are:
a. Media-savvy
• It is not easy to stir opinion
leaders into a certain direction, it
is not essay to influence them -->
They are very critical/ skeptical
• If we can convince them,
they are super important in
influencing others.
Influencing opinion leaders
is part of the campaign
b. Relatively easy to approach
c. Open to logical argumentation
• If you can pinpoint opinion leaders,
campaigns using this theory are
usually super effective
• If they spread our message, they
also lend their authority and their
influence to that message
• It can be difficult to find opinion leaders that can
really influence the target group
• A Two-Step-Flow campaign has two stages
i. Reaching and influencing the opinion
leaders
a. This is usually the more difficult part:
They are not an easy group to
persuade
, ii. Providing the opinion leaders with
everything they need to influence the target
group
• The dividing line between opinion leaders and
celebrity endorsement is sometimes a bit
ambiguous
○ There are similarities between these two
concepts, however also some differences. A
celebrity is not necessarily an expert
• However, there are also cases where it
is not clear whether it is celebrity
endorsement or opinion-leaders (two-
step flow)/ cases where it doesn't
really matter which one of the two it
is
Second-Level Agenda Setting
• Related to agenda setting and two-step flow
• Agenda level has two levels
i. What to think about
ii. Framing
Framing
• Frame of reference, context, theme, news angel
• Selection and salience
• Frames define problems, diagnose causes, make
moral judgements and suggest remedies
• If we have a topic, we can always approach it
from different directions. The directions we
choose is the frame
• Framing is a way to give some overall
interpretation to isolated items of fact
Framing in Practice
•
○ "Iraqis danced and waved the country's pre-
1991 flag in central Baghdad's Firdos
Square after a U.S. Marine armored
recovery vehicle helped topple the square's
huge statue of Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein. The statue -- the height of about
four men -- was one of the symbols of
Saddam's rule over Iraq and came down
about 6:50 p.m. Wednesday (10:50 a.m.
ET). Iraqis had begun tearing down portraits
of Saddam and throwing shoes -- a grave
insult in the Arab world -- and chipping
away at the base of the statue with
sledgehammers after a column of Marines
advanced into the square Wednesday
afternoon." - CNN World
