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DOI: 10.1177/174804850206400301012002 64: 219International Communication Gazette

Olaf WerderDebating the Euro : Media Agenda-Setting in a Cross-National Environment

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DEBATING THE EUROMedia Agenda-Setting in a Cross-National Environment

Olaf Werder

Abstract / Coverage of the introduction of the Euro currency was analyzed in the leading newspublications in the UK and Germany. Specifically, it was examined whether (1) coverage of the

same cross-national issue differed in level of support and (2) the two national media applieddifferent news frames. The study showed that the British print media opposed the Euro even with

pro-Euro sources, whereas the German print media maintained neutrality. The British pressusedan episodic, while the German press employed a thematic style. The difference in styles allowed for

different covering of subissues. Overall, the findings point to the fruitfulness of including storyframes (news style) and media position in the international agenda-setting process. There seems to

be, in general, an interesting relationship between media position, sources position, news framestyles, subissues and issue effect. Discernible differences in the journalistic product between national

news print media appear ultimately to be a result of different worldviews and identity concepts,influencing the agenda-setting effect.

Keywords / cross-national agenda-setting / cultural differences / European Community /

gatekeeper / journalists / story frame

In the three decades since the seminal agenda-setting work by McCombs andShaw (1972), an impressive number of research projects has been conductedto study media agendas, public agendas and the relationship between them(Weimann and Brosius, 1994). The vast majority of these studies, however, havedealt with ethnocentric research during and outside elections within specificcountries, predominantly oriented and conducted toward phenomena in the US.Despite the fact that similar methodological approaches, pointing to the sameconclusions, further strengthen the validity of the agenda-setting concept(Semetko and Mandelli, 1997), cross-national comparative research wouldmove the agenda-setting theory into the international arena.

As Semetko and Mandelli (1997) argued, cross-national agenda-settingprovides an opportunity to examine how those involved in the political com-

munication process publics, political parties, and media behave when oper-ating under different institutional constraints. In the same article, the authorsask for two angles of future cross-national research efforts on agenda-settingand the related issues of priming and framing one looking at the formationof media agendas and story frames (including contributing parties), the otherlooking at the influences of those agendas and frames on public opinion.

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Semetko and Mandelli contended that it is crucial to integrate a political cultureapproach to the cognitive approach to agenda-setting in a cross-national arena.This would not only help explain how the different media operate, but also howthey are influenced and are influential themselves. We would stand to gain from

this research, as it broadens the scope of the theory to international news flows,as well as help explain why researchers seemingly found that the originalhypothesis does not work as well in other countries as it does in the US, and ifthat indeed is the case. Furthermore, since this research will also need to makefrequent excursions into the related research field of influences on media contentand political agenda formation, it will ultimately help to further advanceagenda-setting and framing research altogether by merging it with these otherareas.

Background

On 1 January 1999, the European Union embarked on becoming a true mon-etary union via a transitional process, to be concluded by January 2002 withthe introduction of Euro banknotes and coins and withdrawal of nationalmoney. During this preparation time and setup of the European Central Bank(spring through winter 1998) among the larger member countries only the UKopted out of joining in 1999. Despite its known long-standing reservationtoward continental Europe, the UK had become increasingly tied in with the

EU and benefited from its existence. Hence, this decision was seen to havepotential negative consequences for the economy and political position of theUK within the EU. Likewise, Germanys decision to abandon the strongest cur-rency on the continent (the Deutschmark) could impact the country negativelyin its role as a keystone financial force and could hurt the countrys nationaleconomic pride as the anchor of Europe.

It was, therefore, in the interest of each countrys leadership to sell itsdecision as the right one for its national publics welfare and prosperity. Drawingsamples from pre-change 1998 and immediate post-change 1999 allows thetesting of framing that serves as a bridge between elite discourse about an issue

and popular comprehension of that issue.Applying the concept of framing (Iyengar, 1991), we suspect that the use

of an episodic vs thematic media frame, used respectively in the two coun-tries, leads readers into applying internal vs external attributions to the socialissue and thus gives us a clue as to why the countries news media and sourcesseemed to be at opposite poles of this agenda topic.

Literature Review

There has been a dearth of research in the cross-cultural field of agenda-setting,which might have led some researchers to believe based on some studies inEurope that there is less clear support for the agenda-setting hypothesis outsidethe US (Semetko and Mandelli, 1997). However, the same authors also note, thatthe absence of evidence to support the agenda-setting hypothesis does not meanthat other important media effects on the public were entirely absent.

220 GAZETTE VOL. 64 NO. 3



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As a matter of fact, in the field of comparative political analysis there arenumerous studies (L ivingston, 1992; Pollack, 1997; Saideman, 1994; Woodand Peake, 1998) that look at international agenda-setting as a means forpolitical decision-makers to shape a public agenda on foreign or international

policy. Livingston (1992), for instance, conducted an analysis on the attemptof the Reagan administration to remove North AmericanSouth Americanrelations from the international agenda, and found that agenda success wasdependent on prevailing international practices and the access points to theinternational agenda they create. Saideman (1994) asserts in his study,agenda-setting is an interactive process, in which politicians are influenced byboth domestic interests and the activities of leaders of other states and inter-national organizations. He also found certain conditions within a nation(apathy, ambivalence, ambiguous solutions) under which agenda-setting

matters. Admittedly, the focus of agenda research in the political science fieldis primarily targeted toward the political agendas, i.e. the influences of theagendas of political actors and their relationship to the public. The media arenot the focus here, and are most often even neglected as a unit of analysis.

If we recall though the influences that interest groups can have on the media(Gandy, 1982; Huckins, 1999; Lang and Lang, 1981; McCombs et al., 1991;Tuchman, 1978), we cannot deny that those two agendas could be somewhatrelated. In our case, we might need to consider that the news story will need tofilter through more gatekeepers than a domestic one would. News might travel

from the on-site reporter through editors at the local wire house, the wireservices headquarters or home country office to the local newspaper bureau,where various editors scan it again. With the assumption that many newsorganizations will use international wire services for leads, one could concludethat in the end the news will be the same for all national media, a so-calledstacked category. In a related study, Whitney and Becker (1982) laid this notionto rest, however, finding support for the fact that wire news is not accepteduncritically in newspaper and television newsrooms. They did not deny,however, an initial influence of the wire news bureaus. In a sense, then, we aredealing with more than one single Mr Gates in a gatekeeping role. This will be

reflected by the ultimate media agenda-setting process but will also make aninfluence by an interested political group or individual even more difficult. Thisnotion can be traced back in a way to Livingstons access point idea. But howdo we perceive the stories to be told and told differently by the two countriesmedia organizations, if indeed that is the case?

Most likely the two most helpful answers come from two interesting findingsin agenda-setting research: issue categorization (obtrusive/unobtrusive,abstract/concrete) and interpersonal agenda as a contingent condition to theprocess and effects. Saideman (1994) pointed out the existence of conditions for

the workings of international agenda-setting processes. Taking it a step further,Miller and Wanta (1996) regarded story frames as an important variable to theagenda-setting process of different demographics. Wanta and Hu (1993) alsomentioned story frames as contingent conditions in the agenda-setting effect ofinternational news. And Weimann and Brosius (1994) argued that influentialindividuals (e.g. national news editors) would frame emerging news to their own

WERDER: DEBATING THE EURO 221



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personal network, splitting the agenda-setting process effectively into a two-stepflow. If story frames are an important condition to cross-national agenda-settingeffects, we need to define a frame and ask how the media frame issues.

Goffmans thematic question on frame analysis (see Manning, 1980) was,

under what circumstances do we think things are real? He thus attributed twokinds of understanding to social life, a literal one (what is going on?), and ametaphoric one (what is the meaning of what is going on?). The concept of aframe is used, among other reasons, to show that as actions change our defi-nitions (or frames), we can alter our original meaning and confer new ones, oradd them to the first set. Following this logic, Gitlin (1980) argued, mediaframes are persistent patterns of cognition, interpretation, and presentation, ofselection, emphasis and exclusion, by which symbol-handlers routinely organizediscourse. This notion defines a news frame in terms of ideological or value

perspectives. By excluding, for example, all the benefits that a European cur-rency might bring and emphasizing its detrimental effects on the Britisheconomy, the British media would effectively have framed the news story verydifferently from the German media, which might have highlighted the positivesof the change and suppressed the negatives.

According to Iyengar, the media frame issues in either episodic or the-matic terms.

The episodic frame depicts public issues in terms of concrete instances or specific events a

homeless person . . . or an attempted murder which make good pictures. The thematic news

frame, in contrast, places public issues in some general or abstract context, which typicallytakes the form of a takeout or backgrounder report, frequently featuring talking heads.

(Iyengar et al., 1993)

While thematic news framing is more objective, in-depth and analytic, it is alsoseen as dull and slow and, due to its subsurface reporting style, vulnerable tocharges of bias and editorializing. Episodic framing, on the other hand, is fast-paced, attention-grabbing and achieves objectivity via focusing on the hardnews. It will also, however, fail to include significant issues, if they are deemednot newsworthy due to a lack of good pictures. It can be speculated that this

latter point could be a reason why Brosius and Kepplinger (1995) found onlylimited support for their assumptions regarding killer issues, which they sawworking in a replacement model, eclipsing other agenda issues on Germantelevision.

To avoid any ambiguities in our findings, it is important to look at agendaissues that have news value in either country. The importance of this pointbecomes obvious when we consider the low public interest level of stories aboutCountry A, reported to the public of Country B, with no or minimal actualimpact on Country B. In a study of that particular nature, Wanta and Hu (1993)

found that other than high-conflict or direct involvement frames, mostinternational news stories have little relevance to the average (in this case:American) citizen. The findings show that agenda items which are just inter-national in kind will probably have less chance of being noticed than thoseinternational agendas which indeed impact the home country.

As a result, the national news media may pay far more attention to those




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issues. More importantly, to the extent of the independence and antagonisticpositioning of the national media landscape in a given country, the internationalstory will be more localized, i.e. framed by the national media in a way thatbest suits the countrys interest, in which said media operate. There is also a

strong possibility that some news frames form a better negative or positive argu-ment. In other words, the antagonistic media might use certain frames becausethey provide good arguments against the international issue. The executionitself, though, will also depend on the style of storytelling that national mediasubscribe to. It only seems logical to assume that every culture has a journalis-tic legacy, which dictates in some way what style of storytelling a countrys pressapplies. This latter point alludes to the integration of political cultureapproaches to understand political and social change. As Semetko and Mandelli(1997: 206) argue, comparative political communication research would

benefit from integrating [the above approach] with a more cognitive approachto understanding public opinion. They then give an illustration of this state-ment by arguing that political culture helps to explain why a US news storyabout poverty often is framed in such a way as to place the responsibility onthe individual rather than on the system or state, whereas a story about povertyis likely to be framed differently in most European social welfare states.

Hypotheses

The first research question addressed here is how international stories regard-ing a change from national currencies to the Euro are framed in two EU membercountries that are politically opposite on the issue itself. We speculate thatdifferent ideologies of the news media and their sources toward the internationalissue will lead to different influences on the story, i.e. media that oppose aninternational issue will engage in a more spirited debate on the issue and usemore sources than those media that favor the issue. Furthermore, media thatoppose the international issue will communicate and support an agenda detri-mental to their sources intentions, i.e. they will maintain a negative positioneven if a quoted source seems to promote a positive or neutral view on the issue.Those that support the issue will communicate a like-minded agenda, i.e. theystay predominantly neutral and report matter-of-factly. Thus, based on thescenario described, we propose to test the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: The British press will be more likely to take a negative stance and quote

anti-Euro sources than the German press.

Since the British print media are opposed to this international issue, theywill be more likely to follow the national sentiment on the issue.

Hypothesis 2: The British press will be more likely to maintain an anti-Euro position, even if

sources that they use for quotations support the issue, whereas the German press will follow

its sources positions.

Since the British press has a more independent and critical position towardits own government and since every issue regarding the EU is seen much more




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negatively by this independent press, without regard to where the governmentstands, they will remain critical even when fulfilling their journalistic role ofquoting sources from various positions.

The second research question addressed here is: how did the individual

news organizations go about communicating their position, i.e. what style didthey use to support their arguments? The news media, applying an episodicstyle, will most likely cover more aspects of the issue to make a case for theirposition than those applying a thematic style. Based on this scenario, we proposeto test the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 3: The British press will be more likely to use episodic story frames to arrive at its

negative position, whereas the German press will be more likely to use thematic story frames

to arrive at its neutral position.

To make arguments against the Euro, the British print media have to appealto a deeper mistrust of the British population toward all European issues. Thebest means to achieve this task seems to be to deliver real-life stories andopinions against the Euro rather than listing factual information or data, as theformer appeal better to emotions.

Hypothesis 4: The British press will be more likely than the German press to cover a wider

range of subissues, connected with the Euro issue, to support its position.

It seems plausible that a tendency toward episodic styles for the afore-mentioned reasons will compel the British press to look for categories (sub-issues), where this style is most applicable. Unlike the German press, whosethematic style will be well suited for the usual key subissues of a currencychange, i.e. financial and economic, the British press will need to look at otheraspects of Euro influences, such as social, personal, political, ethical, or cultural.This consequently will broaden their range of covered subissues.

MethodologyThe study examines all media coverage of the birth of the Euro currency from1 December 1998 through 30 January 1999, the two months surrounding thehistoric date of 1 January 1999. This time frame was chosen because it was theperiod in which European news media carried most coverage of the issue,simply because it became one of the most emphasized issues in Western Europe.

The method chosen is a content analysis of the major British newspapers(e.g.The Times,The Daily Telegraph,The Independent) and the major Germannewspapers (e.g. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Sueddeutsche Zeitung,

Berliner taz), with the individual paragraph as the unit of analysis. Thesepapers are not only among the largest in circulation and readership in theirrespective countries, but they are also considered the most respected and pro-fessional, as well as newspapers of record. The paragraph is chosen as the unitof analysis as it supports the finding of hypothesized discrepancies betweenpress and source as well as varying story frames within the story.




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The study focuses on four areas, and their relationship to public opinion onthe Euro:

Story type, i.e. what kind of reporting style, hard news (factual information),

feature (snapshots, slice-of-life piece), commentary (reporters interpre-tation or opinion about an event), was used to report on the issue

Overall tone of the news story, scored as pro-Euro (conversion to Euro andits consequences are supported), neutral (conversion debate is coveredwithout emotional attachment or opinion about it) and anti-Euro (con-version to Euro is opposed, arguments against it are brought forth), fromthe position of the media themselves

Sources quoted in the story, and their position toward the issue. Subissues within the overall story, i.e. which aspect of the countrys sphere

(economic, society, culture, taxation and banking) was mostly reported on,and how was the introduction of the Euro interpreted to have an impact onthose subissues.

To be able to properly code the newspaper articles coding was completedby three coders. After a round of practice sessions, findings were compared andcontent indicators of each variable were discussed. The German-language textwas also translated and back translated to check for loss of meaning. UsingHolstis formula (Holsti, 1969) the intercoder reliability across the categories

ranged from 0.71 to 0.94 with an average of 0.83.

Results

The content analysis led to 64 stories with 621 paragraphs for the British pressand 73 stories with 377 paragraphs for the German press.

Hypothesis 1 argued that a negative stance on the Euro issue by the Britishpress will be related to the use of likewise issue-opposing sources for directquotes in the story. Out of the 621 paragraphs in the British press, 45.8 percenthad an anti-Euro slant, 44.3 percent were neutral and only 9.9 percent were


TABLE 1

Comparison of Newspaper and Source Position in the Two Countries

Britain Germany

Pro-Euroa 62 45

9.9 11.9

Neutrala 275 296

44.3 78.6Anti-Euroa 284 36

45.8 9.5

Total 621 377

aTop line cells are raw scores and second line cells are column percentages.

2 = 126.9, p < .001.



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positive. The German press published 9.5 percent anti-Euro paragraphs, 78.6percent had a neutral tone and 11.9 percent were positive. As Table 1 shows,the British press quoted almost five times as many negative (or anti-Euro)sources as the German press did.

As a matter of fact, two-thirds of the quoted sources (67 percent) in theGerman papers commented as objectively on the Euro debate as the papers did(84 percent), whereas quoted sources in the British papers engaged in a livelydebate on the pros and cons of the issue. The data therefore largely supportHypothesis 1.

It was argued further that the British press would maintain their opposi-tion even if the source were in favor of the Euro. While the data for the Germanpress basically echoed the papers opinions (source position and media positionare the same), the British papers remained reserved or opposed to the Euro,

even when they quoted a source (usually government officials) who endorsedthe change (80.9 percent of its quoted pro-Euro sources).

To illustrate this surprising point further,TheTimes is quoted, writing in astory from 5 December 1998, To many Britons, Europe seems like a high-speedtrain, hurtling its reluctant passengers into a new millennium of continentalgovernment where Britain becomes a dependent province. . . . There are plentyof reasons why the vision is plausible. Successive governments, from Ted Heathsto Tony Blairs have tried to soothe British fears by playing down the politicalambitions of the Union, only to be swept along with the rush to integrate, while

they quoted an official in the same article, saying The British dont realize whata strong hand they have. They just have to keep their nerve.The paper also quoted its own prime minister in an article from 15 Decem-

ber 1998, saying, a majority of Europeans are not part of a vile conspiracy tonobble Britain, to which the paper responded in the same paragraph, ThePrime Minister is only half right.

Finally, in an article from 18 December 1998,Times correspondent PeterRiddell pointed out that Blairs speeches demonstrated that the alliance ofconvenience between new Labour and the sceptic press, always bogus, was now,at last, over. Blair and his Government had emerged in their true pro-European

colours.The British papers also allowed many more negative sources to be heard,

in the case where they stayed neutral; an anti-Euro source is quoted 21 percentof the times, where the paper remained objective. Hypothesis 2 seems to belargely supported as well.

Hypothesis 3 argues that the British papers will apply an episodic style,which will allow for negative real-life examples and personal comments aboutthe Euro by influential individuals, while the German papers will use a thematicstyle, whose factual tone will give data without much opinion. Table 2 illus-

trates that the British press used feature stories and commentaries about asmuch as hard news (49.4 percent vs 50.6 percent), while the German press usedthe hard news angle 74 percent of the time.

The data support the initial assumption that the British newspaper appliedan episodic news style more often than the German newspaper, which waslargely committed to a thematic style. The heavier use of the episodic style was




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also the vehicle through which the anti-Euro position was communicated. Whileonly 25 percent of all anti-Euro paragraphs were hard news (vs over 60 percentfor pro-Euro or neutral tones), 75 percent were features or commentaries.Interestingly enough, the German papers used the commentary as well tosupport the Euro (47 percent of all news styles) but overall remained predomi-nantly neutral (79 percent of the paragraphs). Hypothesis 3 is largely supportedby the data.

It was finally asserted in Hypothesis 4 that the different news styles resultin different width in the coverage of connected subissues, which in turn serves

to illustrate the impact points of the Euro issue. In other words, an episodic styleallows for analyses of more subissues, such as cultural, social and political, areaswhere the more personal approach makes sense, but also can be used torationalize why a position is maintained. The thematic style, which is by itsnature matter of fact and removed, will only make sense for subissues wherepure data delivery is most applicable.


TABLE 2

Comparison of News Style and Newspaper Position by Country

Media Position Total__________________________________

Pro-Euro Neutral Anti-Euro

Britain

News style

News 36a 217 61 314

62.1b 68.1 25.0 50.6

Features 4 48 28 80

6.9 15.0 11.5 12.9

Comment 18 54 155 227

31.0 16.9 63.5 36.5

Total 58 319 244 621

Germany

News style

News 22a 243 15 280

48.9b 82.1 41.7 74.3

Features 2 12 17 31

4.4 4.1 47.2 8.2

Comment 21 41 4 6646.7 13.9 11.1 17.5

Total 45 296 36 377

a Raw totals, b column percentages.

2 (Britain) = 165.57, p < .001, 2 (Germany) = 110.08, p < .001, 2 (Total) = 238.85,

p < .001.



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Table 3 shows that the British press used the feature story style in particu-lar when dealing with cultural, personal and even economic issues, and thecommentary style when dealing with cultural, financial and economic issues. TheGerman press reverted to these styles only rarely. Overall the table shows that

the British papers looked at many more subissues impacted by the Euro thandid the German papers, which devoted about 50 percent of their coverage to themonetary aspect of the Euro debate. These data largely support the hypothesis.


TABLE 3

Comparison of Subissues and News Style by Country

News Style_______________________________________

Subissues Hard News Feature Story Comment Total

Britain

Economic 86a 17 49 152

28.6b 25.8 27.4 27.8

Social 20 7 16 43

6.6 10.6 8.9 7.9

Tax 13 2 11 26

4.3 3.0 6.1 4.8

Financial 128 10 37 175

42.5 15.2 20.7 32.1Cultural 50 20 61 131

16.6 30.3 34.1 24.0

Personal 4 10 5 19

1.3 15.2 2.8 3.5

Total 301 66 179 546

Germany

Economic 44a 4 14 62

16.2b 15.4 21.2 17.0

Social 7 7

2.6 1.9

Tax 3 3

1.1 0.8

Financial 175 3 3 181

64.3 11.5 4.5 49.7

Cultural 22 3 49 74

8.1 11.5 74.2 20.3

Personal 21 16 37

7.7 61.5 10.2

Total 272 26 66 364

a Raw totals, b column percentages.

2 (Britain) = 71.91, p < .001, 2 (Germany) = 241.83, p < .001, 2 (Total) = 242.09,

p < .001.



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Discussion

This study compared the media coverage of the leading newspapers in two ofthe key member countries in the EU on the cross-national debate of the Euro

currency. The purpose of the study was to illustrate that the media occupy amore independent position regarding nationally debated issues vis-a-vis theirnews sources than routinely assumed and in so doing influence the news agendaof the public as much as political news-makers, based on their own positiontoward the agenda issue. Support was furthermore found for the assumptionthat different countries and cultures not only use different news style frames,but also use these different frames as they play different communication rolesin their respective countries. Framing of a story or news writing in general is undeniably influenced by a countrys political landscape and the position of

the press in it. The case of the shutdown of liberal media organizations in Iranmay attest to this notion. However, the two selected countries are in many wayssimilar in their political, economic and social makeup. What sets them apartare the cultural heritage and values of those covering the news. These diversevalues seem to affect the different positions and frames for an issue which seem-ingly should be covered identically, as it ultimately has the same source (theEuropean Community).

The study found support for Iyengars assumption of the existence of twodifferent news styles and serves to explain different media agenda phenomena

in different countries. One of the most interesting findings is the fact that theBritish print media seemed more opposed to the impending change than theBritish government. e.g., in an article from 2 December 1998The Timesnoted,Mr. Blair is a man who likes to please others. He wants to be liked by his Euro-pean partners. In another article, dated 6 December 1998,The Times notes,

The government underestimated Germanys finance minister and is being bounced towards a

federal Europe. . . . When the crime was made more heinous by linking tax changes to the

next round of European integration [which was part of the Euro debate], Blairs inner circle

knew they faced trouble, especially with Britains eurosceptic media. . . . From the moment

the drama broke, Alastair Campbell, Blairs official spokesman, accused the press of hysteria.

But the spin doctors faced a hopeless task.

If we believe the usual flow of agenda-setting effects leading from source tomedia to public, then we are dealing here with a break in the normal agenda-setting process, in which the media activity is an intervening variable in thechannel for policy-makers to provide information to the public.

Of specific concern here was not only if the media would counteract theirsources, but also how they would go about doing so. Since Germany was lessconcerned with the Euro issues implications beyond the obvious change of cur-

rency and banking, the German media seemed to concentrate on this issue andupdate the public on activities in the banking and stock trading arenas. Theapplied reporting style seemed to fit with what the German public expected fromits press, as the relatively few non-neutral sources attested. The German news-papers did not only maintain a relatively objective reporting style throughoutthe time period examined, but also concentrated on subissues that dealt with




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financial (currency, European Central Bank, etc.) and broader economic

(national business climate, stock markets, etc.) issues. Those subissues were notonly by their very nature more prone to be used with a factual style, but alsooffered the German papers the chance to cater to the publics expectations fromits newspapers.

Britain, on the other hand, seems to be a country where its public expectsa lively debate of issues, in particular issues that concern Britains leadingposition in Europe and the world. Quite contrary to Germany, the episodic stylewas used more often, as it gave the more opinionated British press a means toplay out all the drama and personal aspects of the Euro story. Although econ-omic and financial subissues were still leading topics, they were reported in away that opened avenues for personal positions. The frequent use of featuresand commentaries for those subissues demonstrated this.

A quick comparison of contemporary public Euro opinion in the twocountries (Eurobarometer 52, Spring 1999) supports these points. The datashow that opinion toward the Euro is not only obviously highly correlated withthe countries, but also shows a relationship with the media positions and thestyles in which stories are written. This fact does show a link between the mediaoutput and public opinion (see Table 4).

At the same time, the more frequent use of issues framing the Euro debate

within a larger debate about Britains role in and position toward the EU ingeneral, both from a contemporary and historic perspective, helped the Britishpapers to fulfill their role as watchful commentator and protector of Britishinterests in the European arena.

The papers position, hereby, seems to be the result of a historically growingpolitical bias of a sufficiently diverse nature to facilitate the critical debate inthe public sphere (Anderson and Weymouth, 1999). Despite a fairly broadpluralism of opinions (i.e. different newspaper titles) within the public sphere,criticisms persist that the British press leans overwhelmingly to the political

right (Seaton and Pimlott, 1987). An article on the Euro debate inThe Timesfrom 18 December 1998 was even headlined Gloves come off for biggest pressscrap of the century and discusses Prime Minister Tony Blairs fight with theEurosceptic news editors.

Admittedly, this research looked at only two of the 15 member countries ofthe EU. It is possible to assume that in other pro-Euro countries a more lively


TABLE 4

Correlation between Euro Opinion and Media Position

Public Opinion toward Euro

Country Pearsonsr .888aNewspaper Pearsons r .880a

Media position Pearsonsr .317a

News style Pearsons r .255a

Source: (Public Opinion): Eurobarometer 52, Spring 1999.a Correlations are significant at the .001 level. N = 998.



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debate over the Euro is in place than in Germany, or a less detrimental mediaposition in other countries holding out against the Euro, such as Denmark. Thisis obviously a limitation of the study. It is also possible to assume that the chosennewspapers are in ownership situations that led to the results here. Given the

fact though that these newspapers have a certain reputation to uphold and thatthe issue, while politically a hotbed, does not impact the ownership structure ofthose papers as such, we are confident that the data are generalizable to thecountries media. Also, despite the fact that the two countries settled on differentsides of the Euro debate, they are not only both members of the EU, but alsopart of the family of countries which respect the freedom of the press. Thislargely guarantees their newspapers equal freedom to report independently onthe Euro debate.

Conclusions

General conclusions for mass communication research should be that thesource to media influence flow is not as clear as may be assumed. It seems that,depending on the issue and the medias position toward it, media sources andthe media themselves can promote different positions about the same issue,making the idea of agenda-setting oftentimes a two-way street altogether.Second, the findings support the conclusion of Saideman (1994) that poli-ticians are not only influenced by other states and international organizations

but as well by domestic interests, which in conclusion makes agenda-setting ahighly iterative process.The gatekeeper role of the media is augmented here to the point that media

can go beyond filtering information but add to it and generate their own. Wecannot assume that because an issue is international in scope, every countrysmedia will have set the same agenda toward this issue. International agenda-setting will need to specifically put into consideration the culture and environ-ment the research is done in. It will most likely be helpful to mirror to someextent the efforts of cross-cultural advertising and mass persuasion. Culturalmodels could be useful: understanding a culture and, in the wake, understand-

ing the operation of media within this culture, could help explain why inter-national agenda-setting effects seem inconclusive to date.

Overall, the findings point to the fruitfulness of including story frames(news style) and media position in the international agenda-setting process.Specifically, second-level research seems to benefit from looking at the newsframes, given that they have an influence on what subissues are covered andhow they are covered. There seems to be, in general, an interesting relationshipbetween media position, sources position, news frame styles, subissues andissue effect.

In addition, these findings suggest the need to examine the media to publiceffects, or the original agenda-setting hypothesis, based on these assumptions.This study found that differences existed between nations and between newsframes in how the media position a message and comment on it. While pre-liminary findings do not deny the continued workings of the agenda-settinghypothesis, the notion that the media and their sources disagree on an agenda




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as well as the notion that some stories can give individuals different emotionaland rational cues about an issue deserves further attention.

NoteThe author would like to thank Professor Wayne Wanta for his comments on and assistance in thisproject. An early version of this article was presented at the annual convention of the Association

for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication,Phoenix, Arizona, 712 August 2000.

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Olaf Werder is a doctoral candidate and an assistant instructor in the Collegeof Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida. His doctoral

dissertation will address the influence of values differences on opinions aboutsocial/environmental issues.

AddressCollege of Journalism and Communication, University of Florida, 2000Weimer Hall, POB 118400, Gainesville, FL 32611-8400, USA. [email:[email protected]]


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