The socially filtered media agenda: a study of agenda setting among news outlets on Twitter

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] This study examines whether and how Twitter users set the agenda for legacy media outlets by sharing news URLs. It also investigates which news story topics are the most salient among Twitter users and which outlets, whether they are new media or legacy media, are the most linked to among Twitter news URLs. To analyze these issues, the study conducted content analysis of the most frequently shared news media URLs on Twitter through the TweetMeme aggregator, and a content analysis of the main Twitter feeds of three legacy news outlets The New York Times, CNN and NPR for nineteen days in September of 2009. The results showed a significant difference in the frequency of new media news URLs as opposed to the frequency of legacy media news URLs shared by Twitter users. A positive agenda-setting influence was found from the Twitter agenda to the Outlet agenda, as well as from the legacy media Twitter agenda to the Outlet agenda. Among topic categories on the Twitter agenda, a positive agenda-setting influence was found from new media to legacy media on "technology" stories. The influence for the "arts," "world," "sports," and "business" topic categories was a strong reciprocal relationship.