이 연구는 선거캠페인에서 정치 후보자가 뉴스의제의 형성에 유의미한 영향력을 행사하는지와 이슈의제의 당파적 소유권 형태와 소구기법이 후보자의 의제형성력을 어떻게 매개하는지를 탐구하였다. 분석결과에 따르면 첫째, 후보자의제와 뉴스의제의 관계는 상호적이었다. 2000년 미국 대선에서 뉴스미디어는 이러한 상호적 관계를 다소간 선도함으로써 의제확장자보다는 의제형성자에 가까운 역할을 담당했다. 둘째, 양후보의 이슈의제 공히 뚜렷한 당파적 속성을 보이지 않은 가운데, 당파적 소유권은 후보자의 의제형성력에 유의미한 영향력을 행사하지 않은 것으로 나타났다. 셋째, 소구기법은 후보자의 의제형성력을 유의미하게 매개했는데, 긍정적 방식보다는 네거티브한 소구기법이 후보자가 뉴스의제에 미치는 영향력을 높이는 데에 효과적이었다.
This paper investigates the candidate-media relationship in campaign agenda formation, exploring what factors influence the candidates' power to set their own issues on the news media. Two campaign-related variables, partisan issue ownership and the tone of issue presentation are considered to be important in determining candidate agenda-setting power. Press-releases by the two major presidential candidates during the general election campaign in 2000 were analyzed in terms of issue emphasis, partisan issue ownership, presentation tones and related to the issue salience on the network news agenda.
The results demonstrated a reciprocal relationship between
presidential candidates and the news media in the formation of campaign agendas. Although the candidates of the 2000 presidential election succeeded in making the news agenda reflect their own issue bundles to a meaningful degree, however, they seem to have focused more on responding to the news media's issue selections. It may be more correct, therefore, to say that the candidates resonated with the news media than to say that the campaign coverage evolved around the candidates' issue strategies. Borrowing Semetko et al. 's (1991)
terms, the news media in 2000 played a middle-ground role between "agenda shaping" and "agenda amplifying' during the general election campaign, yet the role was closer to that of "agenda shaping." In conclusion, the news media's leading role m deciding the direction of national conversations features the political-media complex in the presidential campaign of 2000.
Findings also provided support for the hypothesis that oppositional tones of candidate issue presentation would be more effective in drawing free coverage, than would self-promoting tones of presen-tation, while disproving the positive role of partisan issue ownership in magnifying the likelihood for a candidate to set his/her issues on the news agenda. Although Gore in general seemed to have been a more competent agenda setter than his Republican opponent. this might be mainly because of his attack strategies, not because of the fitness of his issue campaigns to his Partisanship.
Bush's deviance from his traditional partisan track, and his responsiveness and flexibility to the issue environment led by the news media rather than by the candidates, might be more appealing to the news media (and possibly to the voters), if other factors
(e. g., the tone of issue presentation) are not considered. Otherwise put, Bush's adaptability to the issue environment, where some key Democratic issues prevailed over the Republican issues or performance issues, seems to have helped him lease successfully those Democratic issues during the campaign.
It is still an important attempt to identify some important campaign or candidate-related variables influencing candidate agenda setting, given that previous studies have elaborated primarily on media-centered micro factors or more macro political, cultural variables affecting the candidate-media relationship. The tone of presentation,
in other words, the strategies of appeals, has been proved to be important for the electoral success of unpaid candidate communications as well as for that of paid communications. Future research may need to address the roles played by other candidate attributes, such as the status of candidacy, candidate partisanship per se, or other demographic traits, in possibly enhancing or reducing candidate agenda -setting power. Although this study does not confirm the positive role of partisan issue ownership in candidate
agenda setting, partisan compositions of candidate issue agendas may be a significant factor in other campaigns, where political candidates tend to emphasize the issues owned by their own party significantly more than those owned by the opponent party, unlike the 2000 campaign.
Methodologically, this study is challenging in that it utilized the data in the candidate web sites. Despite the fact that web sites provide ample data with high accessibility, content-analyzing the information on web sites raises a particular sampling problem mainly because the content is constantly changing. Team-sampling based upon a standardized sampling plan, however, made it possible to retrieve candidate-related data from the two candidate web sites in a thorough and consistent way. The data collected from web sites are also easily available for computer- assisted content analyses, although this study relies on a traditional human-coder analysis.
This study has focused primarily on the candidate-media rela-tionship. A more comprehensive picture of campaign agenda forma-tion, however, can be grasped when the scope of this study is extended such that the public agenda is related to both the candidate and the news agendas.