Agenda Setting

People have many concerns. These become part of the policy agenda when they are seen as requiring government attention and action (e.g., global warming). In agenda settingConditions are seen as requiring government attention and action., then, what were conditions ignored or to be endured become problems requiring government intervention.Regina G. Lawrence, “Defining Events: Problem Definition in the Media Arena,” in Politics, Discourse, and American Society, ed. Roderick P. Hart and Bartholomew H. Sparrow (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001), 92.

The media move a subject onto the policy agenda when they give it extensive coverage and frame it as a problem demanding a response by policymakers. For example, widespread reporting of how many Americans were sickened by tainted eggs and spinach eventually resulted in a law that overhauled the food safety system and gave more authority to the Food and Drug Administration.

The media can put a topic on the policy agenda by transforming it into a news iconThrough extensive media coverage, something or someone symbolizes a situation that then is put on the policy agenda.. A garbage barge that for three months unsuccessfully sought a port on the East Coast to unload its cargo received extensive news coverage, was joked about in the monologues of late-night talk show hosts and mentioned in comedy shows, and became the subject of polls. With environmental interest groups weighing in, the barge grew into an icon symbolizing a wasteful society with ever-mounting garbage and nowhere to dump it. It put garbage firmly on the policy agenda.W. Lance Bennett and Regina G. Lawrence, “News Icons and the Mainstreaming of Social Change,” Journal of Communication 45, no. 3 (Summer 1995): 20.

The media can keep subjects off the policy agenda or enable policymakers to keep them off by ignoring or downplaying them. Or their coverage can give the impression, rightly or wrongly, that a subject does not require resolution through the policy process. Coverage may be insufficient when policymakers are disinterested: the scant media attention to the AIDS epidemic during its early years did not put it on the policy agenda in the face of the Reagan administration’s indifference.

Formulation

When an issue is on the agenda, policymakers often propose policies to solve it. They sometimes have several alternative policies from which to choose. Traffic safety can be sought by “building more highways (the solution of the 1950s), requiring safer cars (the solution of the 1960s), putting drunk drivers behind bars (that of the 1980s and 1990s).”Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones, Agenda and Instability in American Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 124.

The media influence policy formulationPolicies proposed to solve an issue on the agenda. by how they frame the subject, their coverage of policymakers’ arguments and debates, and the policy alternatives they report. Thus the production, distribution, and consumption of illegal drugs can be framed as a law-and-order problem or a health issue (e.g., medical marijuana) or as an everyday recreational activity.

Media coverage of policy formulation infrequently dwells on substantive arguments and alternatives. Depiction of the legislative process is typical: the news media usually frame it as conflict and strategy. And because the news media cover only a few major issues, policymakers are often able to formulate the details of policies without much scrutiny or public awareness.

The media spotlight can speed up policy formulation on major issues. But speed tends not to work well for deliberation: deciding what to do about a problem can take sifting and winnowing. News coverage pushes for a quick response from policymakers, thereby often favoring the most available alternative, perhaps regardless of whether it effectively addresses the problem.

Adoption

For formulated policies to be put into effect, they must be adopted by the relevant institutions of government. The media can be a forum in which various sides argue their cases for policy adoptionThe relevant institutions of government enact a formulated policy.. But coverage is sometimes one-sided. When favorable, it enhances a policy proposal’s likelihood of adoption. When unfavorable, it can undermine a proposal, as we documented in our discussion of President Bush’s proposals to change Social Security. As we also noted, negative advertising helped kill the Clinton administration’s health-care proposal.

Adoption of a policy legitimizes it.Rodney Barker, Political Legitimacy and the State (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990). The media usually give positive coverage to the enactment of significant laws, thereby adding to their legitimacy. But not always—remember the criticism of and attacks on the new health law disparaged as “ObamaCare.”

Enduring Image

The Law-Signing Ceremony

These ceremonies give the impression of harmony and finality in the policy process.

Source: Photos courtesy of the White House. Adapted from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Obama_signs_DADT_repeal.jpg, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EisenhowerAtomicEnergyAct.jpg, and http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Immigration _Bill_Signing_-_A1421-33a_-_10-03-1965.jpg.

An enduring image of the US government is the president signing into law a piece of legislation just passed by Congress. The president is surrounded by the members of Congress responsible for and citizens benefiting from the law’s passage. The ceremony requires many pens because after each stroke the president gives one to someone associated with the legislation.

The ceremony is a photo op for all the participants. It presents the president as intimately involved in policymaking as head of the government, Congress and its members as effective lawmakers, and the law as final.

The image is compelling, but the impressions it conveys are disputable. The president may not have been intimately involved in proposing the law, deciding on the law’s key details, and pushing for passage of the legislation. Members of Congress are more or less satisfied with the law, which may have been jerry-built out of compromises, concessions, the dropping of vital provisions, and the inclusion of unnecessary or damaging ones as favors to legislators who would otherwise oppose passage. And with implementation and administration to come, the effects of the law are far from final.

Implementation and Administration

Policy decisions require policy implementation and administrationDevelopment of the specific standards and procedures that fulfill the intent of the policy.. Congress relies on the bureaucracy to develop the specific standards and procedures that fulfill the intent of the policy.

Messy reality can make administration and implementation difficult for even the most conscientious and dedicated bureaucrat. Nor are bureaucratic incompetence, dereliction, ineptitude, and scandals unknown. Policies may be ignored or subverted at the state or local level.

The media can be a significant force at this stage of the policy process. But most policy implementation and administration take place out of the media’s view and are time consuming to find and expose, even with investigative reporting. Thus media coverage is sporadic and focused on a few policies.

Evaluation

Policy evaluationAssessing a policy’s effectiveness., or assessing a policy’s effectiveness, can be complicated.For an overview of policy evaluation, see B. Guy Peters, American Public Policy: Promise and Performance, 8th ed. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2010). Many public policies aim to achieve broad conceptual goals such as “healthy air quality.” Or a policy may have multiple, not necessarily compatible, objectives. The 1996 Telecommunications Act was intended to unleash the power of competition, spur technological innovation, create jobs, and reduce cable rates.Patricia Aufderheide, Communications Policy and the Public Interest (New York: Guilford Press, 1999).

As we showed in our box on No Child Left Behind, the media can evaluate policies through their reporting. They also report and therefore publicize some of the policy assessments of government agencies, policy oversight studies by congressional committees, and congressional hearings. They report the findings of public interest groups (e.g., that many of the recipients of tobacco subsidies do not grow tobacco) and transmit the revelations of whistle-blowers (e.g., documents showing that the tobacco companies long knew that smoking causes diseases).

Such journalism can lead to outrage from the public and from policymakers, demands for reform, and governmental action. Policies are reappraised, changed, and even junked.