Policy and Agenda Setting

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Policy and Agenda Setting

• Psychology 302 - 2003

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Public Policy

• Public policy is a desired course of action and
  interaction which is to serve as a guideline in
  the allocation of resources necessary to realise
  societal goals and objectives, decided upon and
  made publicly known by the legislator. (Hanekom,
  1987, p.8)

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Policy Science Purposes

• Instrumental Research that shapes the direction
  of change or the direction of public policy
• Conceptual Research aimed at changing the way
  people think about social problems and solutions
• Persuasive Research conducted to persuade policy
  makers to adopt or support a particular position
• Predictive Research designed to forecast change
  or whether change will be accepted

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Public Policy

• Policy Making
• Policy Implementation
• Policy Analysis
• Policy Evaluation

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Policy Making

• Process of policy making
• 5 phases
• Identification of goal
• Authorisation to act by policy-maker
• Public statement of the intentions
• Execution
• Evaluation-feedback on results of policy
• "Public policies are the outputs of the political
  process and the inputs to the administrative
  process" (Hanekom, 1991, p.2)
• Theories of policy making process
• Who participates? How?
• How does something get onto the policy agenda?
  (see agenda setting)

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5 phases

• Identification of goal
• Authorisation to act by policy-maker
• Public statement of the intentions
• Execution
• Evaluation-feedback on results of policy

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Policy Analysis

• An attempt to measure the costs and benefits of
  policy alternatives or to evaluate the efficacy
  of existing policies
• Are policies indeed contributing to the common
  good
• Is the policy effective in achieving its primary
  goals
• Is the implementation effective
• Analysing the theory/ideology that informs the
  policy
• Analysing the formulation of the problem or
  issue that gave rise to the policy solution

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Agenda setting

• Social systems have to have agendas
• Prioritise the work, problems or change
• The press may not be successful much of the time
  in telling people what to think, but is
  stunningly successful in telling its readers what
  to think about (Cohen, 1963)
• The definition of the alternatives is the
  supreme instrument of power (Schattschneider,
  1960)

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Agenda Setting

• Dearing, J. and Rogers , E. (1996). Agenda
  Setting. California Sage. Chaps. 1 - 4.
• The study of agenda setting, is the study of
  social change and stability. Agenda setting is
  essentially a political process.
• Ongoing competition among issue proponents to
  gain the attention of media professionals, the
  public and policy elites.

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Agenda Setting

• Key questions  
• Why information about some issues is available
  and not others?
• How is public opinion shaped?
• Why certain issues are addressed through policy
  processes and not others?
• How agendas are shaped and gain prominence on the
  agenda hierarchy

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Topics and concepts

• Agenda a set of issues, communicated in a
  hierarchy of importance (at a particular time)
• Issue a social problem, often conflictual, that
  has received mass media coverage.
• Valence Valence issues only have one legitimate
  side (e.g. child abuse)
• Salience the degree to which an issue on the
  agenda is perceived as relatively important

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Researching the Public Agenda

• Polls - Opinion surveys
• e.g. Most Important Problem (MIP)
• Foreign affairs
• Economic issues
• Social control
• Civil rights
• Government
• Hierarchy studies
• Longitudinal studies
• Compare results with Media agenda

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Researching Agendas

• Media Agenda
• Content analysis
• Quantitative analyses Number of stories as index
  of salience
• Policy Agenda
• Budget allocation
• Laws enacted
• Policy activitiy
• Real-world indicators
• Relatively unimportant in putting items on the
  agenda
• Neither necessary nor sufficient

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The issue-attention cycle The rise and fall of
issues on the public agenda.
1. Pre-problem stage A social problem exists
but has not yet attracted public
attention. Real-world indicators usually far
worse in this stage than they are by the time
public becomes interested.   2. Alarmed discovery
stage A dramatic event creates public alarm,
accompanied by optimism about ability to solve
the problem.   3. Realising the cost of solving
the problem Gradual recognition that solutions
are prohibitively expensive.   4. Decline of
public interest Issue slips down the agenda,
interest fades, because of high cost, and media
exposure creates public boredom.   5.
Post-problem stage Issue drops of the public
agenda, programmes, policies and organisations
formed around the issue persist.