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DOI: 10.1177/1077699007084003062007 84: 495Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

Renita Coleman and Maxwell McCombsSetting on the Youngest Generation, Baby Boomers, and the Civic Generation

The Young and Agenda-less? Exploring Age-related Differences in Agenda

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T H E OUNGN D AGENDA-LESS?EXPLORINGAGE-RELATED I F F E R E N C E SIN AG E ND A SETTING ON THE Y OUNGE STGENERATION,ABY BOOM E RS,AND THE CIVICGENERATIONBy Renifa Coleman and Maxwell McCombs

This study examined agenda-setting differences between those aged 18 to

34 and two older generations. Using two surveys with statewide randomsamples and content analyses for each, it found that the agenda of issuesimportant to young adults was correlated with the medias issue agenda(rho= .SO and .go). For the heaviest Internet users, who were more like-ly to be in the two youngest age groups, the correlation was .70.Although the youngest generation used traditional media such as news-papers and television significantly less frequently than older genera-tions, and used the Internet significantly more often, this differentialmedia use did not eliminate the agenda-setting influence.

Every new generation of young adults is different from the onethat came before, and todays is no exception. One of the most pro-nounced differences among generations is media use; younger peopletoday say they get their news from non-traditional sources such as The .Daily Show and the Internet2 more often than from traditional sourcessuch as newspapers and television. One possible consequence of thesegenerational differences in media use is a diminished agenda-settingeffect on the young.3 Thanks to more diverse news sources, there aremany more agendas now, all easily available online and in alternativemedia popular with the young.

An alternative view is that conglomeration and synergy nonethe-less keep the agenda of issues redundant, even among these seeminglydiverse ~ources.~ ne study found that online users take issues fromtraditional media and pass them on in Internet discussion^^ Anotherfound that blogs covered the 2004 election issues in the same way as themainstream media,6 so it would not be surprising to find that youngadults agendas do match those of their older cohorts. There is little cur-rent empirical evidence to support either view; the purpose of this studyis to explore that question.

Renita Coleman is an assistant professor and Maxwell McCombs is the J esse H . J onesCentennial Professor in the School offournalism, University of Texas-Austin.

p M c ~ ~ ~ r t ~ ~ lVol. 84, No. 3Autumn 2007495-50802007AEJ MC

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The study seeks to understand generational differences in agenda-setting influences. Although research has explored various characteristicsof the audience that mediate agenda-setting effects, little has been done todocument the role of generational differences. Studying the younger gen-eration's agenda of issues grows more important as non-traditional news

increases in popularity and these young adults mature to become soci-ety's leaders.

L iterature~~~i~~

Agenda Setting. Agenda setting describes the process by which themass media select and concentrate on certain issues, leading people toperceive those issues as more important than others. The core concept inagenda-setting theory is the transfer of issue salience, how media empha-sis on certain issues raises their salience in public ~pi ni on.~ alience is"the degree to which an issue is perceived as relatively important"s basedon its relationship to other issues in the media. Hundreds of studies haveexamined this effect with the vast majority documenting the idea that

media coverage influences the perceived importance of issues.Since the seminal agenda-setting study,y research has investigated

the contingent conditions of agenda setting. Numerous studies havefound that individual differences matter; agenda setting does not operatethe same way for everyone.'O Generational differences may be one char-acteristic that mediates the agenda-setting effect and, if so, should beincorporated into the theory for a fuller understanding of the contingentconditions that help explain it.

Although most of the survey components in agenda-setting studiesmeasure age as one of the standard demographic items, age typically isused only to describe the sample of people interviewed and is not includ-ed in the analysis of the agenda-setting process. Only two studies, one inNorth Carolina and a replication in Spain, have analyzed age. Both"found increased consensus among younger and older citizens regardingthe public agenda with increased exposure to news media.

Several explanations for lack of attention to agenda-setting effectsrelated to age come to mind, in particular an emphasis in agenda-settingresearch on a variety of individual characteristics more functionally rele-vant to public affairs and political behavior than demographic differ-ences, such as interest in politics, specific campaign interest, political par-tisanship, and need for orientation.'* Using age as a surrogate for sensi-

tivity to crime, Erbring and col leag~es'~ id find stronger agenda-settingeffects for the issue of crime among older members of the public, butother surrogates were used for the other issues in that study.

It is also important to understand generational differences in theinfluence of agenda setting because the concept of democracy assumesthat citizens are concerned and knowledgeable about social and politicalissues. Agenda setting is an important media function because it focusesthe public's attention on a key set of issues. People cannot operate effi-ciently without some level of consensus on what issues need to beaddressed, and the number of issues a government and public canaddress at any one time is limited.I4 With increasing exposure to media,different demographic groups show greater agreement about the salience

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of issues on the public agenda.15 Studies generally find that level ofmedia exposure correlates with agenda-setting effects.16

M edia Use and Young Adul ts. There is considerable evidence ofage differences in use of traditional media.17 Polls show the percentageof 18- to 30-year-olds who regularly watch television news can be as low

as 22%.18 Several studies show that younger people read newspapersand watch TV news less than older generations, and watch entertain-ment media more.I9 Older people are significantly more likely to usenewspapers, TV news, and magazines for their information than areyounger Numerous studies have blamed the decline in news-paper reading among younger cohorts on electronic media includingthe Internet.2I What type of media one uses is important because, gen-erally, newspapers are found to have stronger agenda-setting effectsthan television.22 This evidence leads to the first prediction:

H1: The younger generation, those between 18 and 34years old, will have significantly lower levels of traditionalmedia use than older generations.

Research on age-related differences in media use has focused pri-marily on Internet ~se. 2~ igital divide studies examining age effectsfound that people older than 65 had much less Internet access than thoseyounger than 30.24 Most 20- or 30-somethings considered the Internetthe most-useful information source available, surpassing newspapers,television news, and magazines.25 While the age range of Internet usersis growing, generational differences in media use still exist, with theInternet being favored by younger Those born between 1977and 1997 are the first generation to grow up surrounded by home com-puters, video games, and the Internet. These children of the BabyBoomers say the Internet is their medium of Given this evi-dence, the second prediction is:

H2: The younger generation will have significantlyhigher levels of Internet use than oIder generations.

Generational E ffects on Agenda Setting. The level of issue consen-sus between demographic subgroups has been the focus of several stud-

ies. The study most closely related to the present one was conducted inSpain, and found the weakest pattern of increasing consensus betweenolder and younger subgroups.28 Rank order correlations were the low-est at .75 between younger and older populations on issue agendas.Correlations between the media agenda and older peoples agenda werestrongest.29 That study supported the idea of increased consensus cor-responding to an increase in use of newspapers and television for polit-ical information, but less strongly when the comparison is betweenolder and younger people.

Shaw and MartinjO found a greater difference in tendency towardconsensus between men and women as the frequency of daily newspa-per reading increased. Similar tendencies as those found in the Spain

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study were discovered regarding different ages. In China, a study divid-ed the sample according to gender, income, and with similaroutcomes, but age was not studied. Nor was age among the demograph-ics analyzed in Zhus The only other study that examined agenda-setting effects on youth did not document differences, but was designed

to explore the influences on how adolescents decide what issues areimportant.33 t found that adolescents play an active role in the formationof their political identities once they are motivated to follow news andtalk about issues with others. Initially, however, most adolescents are notpaying attention to

Poli tical I nformation and Behavior i n Young Adults. Compared toolder voters, those ages 18 to 25 have less political information and pay lessattention to media information about government. They also believe mediaare not doing a good job of reporting on issues important to d1em.3~Evidence for the importance of political information via non-traditionalnews sources s increasing. The term non-traditional media has been usedto refer to a number of different sources ranging from entertainment talkshows36 o televised political talk shows37 nd radio talk shows.38 Each pro-vides public affairs nformation, but not necessarily from the same perspec-tive as newspapers or television news. The present research takes intoaccount one of these non-traditional media: news on the Internet.

Generational Diferences and C ivic Engagement. Civic engagementand social capital are the focus of another area of research where genera-tional differences and media use have been documented. Some researchshows that younger Americans, the heaviest users of the Internet, are par-ticularly detached from public l i f el ess engaged in their communities,less trusting of their fellow citizens, and less satisfied with their lives thantheir parents were as young people.39 But in their analyses of the CivicGeneration, Baby Boomers, and Generation X, Shah and col l eag~es~~found that the latter showed the strongest effects of Internet use on civicparticipation. Generational differences in the degree to which the Internetinfluences civic participation seem to stem from age-related differences nthe type of media on which people depend most heavily. Specifically,because young generations rely heavily on the Internet to get informationabout community issues, the Internet is more likely to be effective in pro-moting youth civic participation than it is for promoting older genera-tions participation. Results from a Pew Center poll in 200641 are mixed;

todays youth were more interested in politics than those of a generationago, but only a third followed news of public affairs.Based on the mixed findings of studies of generational differences

in media use, political communication, and civic participation or socialcapital, and because no research has yet directly compared agenda-settingeffects across generations, this sfudy asks two research questions:

RQ1: Will agenda-setting effects be weaker for theyounger generation than for the older generations?

RQ2: Will agenda-setting effects be weaker for highInternet users than for low to moderate users?

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Study 1. M ethodPublic Opinion Survey. Data were collected in a statewide poll of

1,023 adults in Louisiana conducted by the Public Policy Research Labat Louisiana State University between J anuary 29 and March 3, 2004.

The poll used random-digit dialing and had a response rate of 48% anda margin of error of +/- 3.1% at the 95%.confidence evel.The dependent variable, salience of statewide issues, was meas-

ured by asking What do you think are the three most important prob-lems facing the state of Louisiana? and then asking the single mostimportant issue. All open-ended answers were coded into the five cate-gories most frequently mentioned: education, 61 %; the economy andjobs, 49%; health care and insurance, 31%; crime, 21%; and corruption,14%. The choice of five issues is appropriate because past research hasshown that public attention tends to be focused on between five andseven different issues at one time.42

It is common in research to study age in terms of generational cat-eg~r i es,~~ o respondents were divided into three subgroups: those age18 to 34, the youngest generation; those age 35 to 54, the Baby Boomers;and those age 55 and older, the Civic Generati ~n.~~

News use was measured with four questions that asked, Do youread a newspaper?, Do you subscribe to a newspaper?, Do youwatch news on TV (all responses, yes = 1, no = 0), and Do you getmost of your news about Louisiana public affairs and politics from tele-vision, newspapers, or the Internet? This study included two separateInternet questions: How many hours a day do you spend online whilenot working? (None to 4 hours, 5 or more hours) and Do you go on-line to read news? (yes = 1, no = 0).

Content Analysis. A content analysis was conducted using theLexis-Nexis database from J anuary 1 to March 3, 2004. Louisiana news-papers indexed on Lexis-Nexis were the Baton Rouge Advocate and theNew Orleans Times-Picayune; the state and local Associated Press wiresalso were used. Local television newscasts dealing with statewide issueswere not available.

As in most first-level agenda-setting research, the unit of analysiswas the number of stories, a good indicator of media salience because ofits high correlation with other measures such as column inches.45 The

top five issues that emerged from the public opinion survey were count-ed using the following keywords: Economy or budget, employment orjobs or work for economy and jobs; Education for education; healthand care or insurance, charity and health or care for health care;crime for crime; and government and corruption or ethics for cor-ruption; only state-related stories were used. Keywords had to appearwithin the headline or lead of the story; given the inverted pyramidstructure of news writing, this helped screen out stories mentioningissues only peripherally.

Results. A little more than 25% of this sample was between 18 and34 years old, 42% were 35 to 54, and 32% were over 55. Eighty-six per-cent were white, 25% were African American, 2% were Hispanic, and

andResults

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TABLE1Percentages o Louisiana Respondents by Age and Where They Get News

Where Get Most News Subscribe Read a Watch Go Online More thanto a Paper Paper TV News for News 5 Hours

OnlinePaper T V Internet

% % % % % % % %

18-34 25 23.5 50 19 17 21 31.7 11

25-54 40 42 38 43 44.5 43 49 2

55+ 35.5 34 12 38 39 35 19.5 4

fewer than 1% were Asian. Women made up 58% of the sample. Forty-one percent were Democrats, 28% were Republicans, and 22% wereIndependents.

HI , that the younger generation will have significantly lower levelsof traditional media use than the older generations, was supported. Therewere significant differences in media use among all four measures, withthe youngest generation using traditional media significantly less thanBaby Boomers or the Civic Generation. The 18-to-34-year-olds subscribedto a newspaper 19% of the time compared to 35-to-54-year-olds 4376,and 55-and-overs 38% (Xz=34.92, df=2, p < .001); 17% of the younger gen-eration said they read a newspaper, compared to 44.5% and 39% for thetwo older groups (X2=51.82, df=2, p < .001), and 21% watched TV newsversus 43% and 35% in the two older groups (X*=28.32, df=2, p < .001).The youngest generation was significantly more likely to say they gotmost of their news from the Internet (50%) X2 = 27.64, df=8, p < .001),whereas the 35-to-54-year-olds got most of their news from television(42%), and the 55-and-older group got most news from newspapers (35%;see Table 1).

H2, that the younger generation will have significantly higher lev-els of Internet news use than older generations, was partially supported.The youngest group was significantly more likely to spend 5 or morehours online per day when not working (11%) han the other age groups(2% of 35-to-54-year-olds, 4% of 55-and-older; Xz=22.25, df=2, p < .001);however, it was the Baby Boomers who were more likely to say they goonline for news (X2=14.8; df=2, p < .001).

R Q l asked whether the agenda-setting effects of the news media onthe younger generation would be weaker than on the Baby Boomers andthe Civic Generation. Spearmans rho showed that both the BabyBoomers and the Civic Generations agendas of important issues wereperfectly correlated (1.0) with the media agenda, but the younger genera-tions agenda correlated with the medias at .80 ( p = .lo). A more sensitivetest, Pearsons r, comparing the percentages of people in each age groupwith the percentages of media stories, also showed a statistically signifi-cant correlation for all tests; even the 18-year-olds agenda was highly andsignificantly correlated (r = .986, p < .05) with the media agenda.Respondents as a whole ranked the most important statewide issues inorder identical to newspaper ranking; however, the youngest generation

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TABLE2Total Number of Stories and Rank Order of People Saying the Issue

Was the Most lmportant Problem in LouisianaIssue Stories (Rank) Total (Rank) 18-34 (Rank) 35-54 (Rank) 55+(Rank)

Economy/ Jobs 1,838 (1) 703 (1) 150 (2) 318 (1) 235 (1)Education 1,593 (2) 615 (2) 154 (1) 276 (2) 185 (2)Health Care 863 (3) 316 (3) 71 (4) 132 (3) 113 (3)

Crime 782 (4) 218 (4) 78 (3) 90 (4) 50 (4)Corruption 84 (5) 143 (5) 37 (5) 64 (5) 42 (5)

Total N 5,160 1,995 460 880 625~ ~

ranked education higher than the economy and said crime was moreimportant to them than health care and insurance (see Table 2).

RQ2 asked whether agenda-setting effects would be weaker forhigh Internet users than for low to moderate users. Three questionsmaking up an index of Internet use were scored with one point each forthose who said they went online to read news, that the Internet wastheir primary source of news, and that they used the Internet 5 or morehours per day. Spearmans rho showed that the low and moderateInternet users agendas were significantly correlated with the mediaagenda (low = .90, p < .05; moderate = l.O), but high Internet users agen-da was more weakly correlated at .70 ( p = .219). High Internet userswere significantly more likely to be from the youngest generation (Xz=31.75, p < .001) and the Baby Boomers (Xz= 9.76, p < .01) than the CivicGeneration. Of young adults, 6% were in the high Internet use category,24% in the medium, and 70% in the low category.

Study 2. The first study asked about the salience of statewideissues and included questions about respondents Internet use, but wasunable to assess the television news content of statewide issues. In orderto obtain a fuller picture of the effects of age on agenda setting, a secondstudy was conducted in a different state; it asked about the salience ofnational instead of statewide issues and included television news in thecontent analysis.

Public Opinion Survey. Data were collected in a statewide poll of

685 North Carolina adults conducted by Elon University betweenFebruary 16 and 19,2004. The poll used random-digit dialing and had amargin of sampling error of +/ - 3.74%.

The dependent variable, issue salience, was measured by twoquestions about social salience and personal salience. Each respondentwas asked: What is the most important problem facing this countrytoday? and What is the most important problem that is personally rel-evant to you? Responses were combined in this study because previ-ous research showed no significant differences in question wording or

All open-ended answers were coded into the five categoriesmost frequently mentioned: economy / obs, terrorism /national security,war and foreign relations, health care, and education.

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News use was measured with five questions that asked how manydays out of the last seven had respondents read a local paper, read anational paper, listened to radio, watched local TV, and watched nationalTV.

Content Analysis. A content-analysis was again conducted using the

Lexis-Nexis database and also the Vanderbilt TV news archives (becausethis study asked about issues of national salience). The time lag was fromJ anuary 1 to February 19, 2004. Newspapers from different regionsacross the state included the Greensboro News & Record, Raleigh News 6Observer, Wilmington Star-News, and the Winston-Salem J ournal. Net-work television news was coded from ABC, CBS, and NBC.

The keywords used for economy/jobs were "economy, stock mar-ket, U.S. budget or deficit, and business, jobs, employment, and outsourc-ing''; for terrorism and security, words were "terrorism, terrorists, andhomeland security"; for war and foreign relations, words were "war andIraq or Afghanistan, foreign relations or diplomacy, world trade"; forhealth care and insurance, words were "health and care, health and insur-ance"; and for education, words were "education." Two independentcoders counted the number of stories about each issue on the three televi-sion networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC, using abstracts from the VanderbiltTelevision News Archives in the same categories; 20% of the data werecoded by both. Individual reliabilities using Scott's pi were:Economy/jobs = .84; terrorism = .96; war = .82; health care = 90; educa-tion = 91.

Results. The sample was comprised of 60% women and 40% men.Thirty percent were Republican, 42% were Democrat, and 18% were

Independent; the others gave "other" or did not answer the question.Eighty percent were white; 20% were African American, Hispanic, Asian,or Native American. In the three age categories, 22% were between 18 and34 years old, 43% were ages 35 to 54, and 35% were 55 or older.

HI , that the younger generation would have significantly lowerlevels of traditional media use than older generations, was supported.There were significant differences in media use among all three genera-tions, with the youngest generation using traditional media significantlyless often than either Baby Boomers or the Civic Generation (F = 47.26, df= 670, 672, p < ,001, q2 = .124). The youngest generation, on average,watched, listened, and read news media 3 days in the last week, while the

Baby Boomers averaged 4 days, and the Civic Generation averaged 5days of media use.

R Q 1 asked whether agenda-setting effects on the younger genera-tion would be weaker than on the Baby Boomers and the CivicGeneration. Spearman's rho again showed that both the Baby Boomers'and the Civic Generation's agenda of important issues were perfectly cor-related (1.0) with the media agenda, but the younger generation's agendacorrelated with the media's at a slightly lower .90, which was statisticallysignificant ( p < .05). Again, the more sensitive Pearson's r, comparingthe percentages of people in each age group with the percentages ofmedia stories, also showed a statistically significant correlation for alltests; even the lowest correlation, the 18-year-olds, was highly significant

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TABLE3Total Number of Stories and Rank Order of North Carolina Respondents

Saying the Issue Was the Most I mportant ProblemIssue Stories (Rank) Total (Rank) 18-34 (Rank) 35-54 (Rank) 55+ (Rank)

Economy/ Jobs 1,839 (1) 622 (1) 113 (1) 298 (1) 211 (1)Terrorism 452 (2) 158 (2) 33 (2) 75 (2) 50 (2)War 310 (3) 120 (3) 30 (3) 48 (3) 42 (3)Health Care 253 (4) 60 (4) 11 (5) 28 (4) 21 (4)Education 198 (5) 40 (5) 20 (4) 15 (5) 5 (5)

Total N 3,052 1,000 207 464 329

(r = .989, p < .001) with the media's. The respondents as a whole rankedthe most important issues in the identical order as the number of news-paper stories; however, the youngest generation ranked education high-er than health care (see Table 3). These results from North Carolina weresimilar to those from the Louisiana poll.

The results of the test of the first hypothesis were consistent withfindings from previous studies-the youngest generation, those ages 18to 34 years old, both read newspapers and watched television signifi-cantly less often than older generations. The 18-to-34-year-olds n NorthCarolina used traditional media one to two days per week less oftenthan people ages 35 and older. In Louisiana, 50% fewer young peoplesubscribed to a newspaper, and 56% to 62% fewer read a newspaper

than those 35 and older; 40% to 50% fewer young people watched TVnews.Internet use in the Louisiana study also is consistent with previous

studies. Fully half of the youngest group said they got most of theirnews from the Internet, with 42% of the Baby Boomers saying they getmost of their news from TV, and 35% of the oldest generation gettingnews from newspapers. The youngest group had 64% to 82% more of itsmembers spending 5-plus hours online each day than the Boomers andoldest generation. That question asked only how many hours each dayrespondents spent online while not working, but not what they weredoing when online. It was actually the Baby Boomers-not the 18-to-34-year-olds-who said they spent their online time reading news. Allthose hours the youngest spent online could have been in chat rooms,blogging, or looking at non-news sites; all that is known for certain isthat they were online significantly more than other age groups, but theywere not getting more news online.

Yet, despite evidence that the youngest generation is not exposedto traditional media as frequently as the older generations, and does usethe Internet significantly more, there is little support for the intuitiveidea that diversity of media will lead to the end of a common publicagenda as we have known it. Rather, different media use among theyoung did not seem to influence the agenda-setting effect much at all. Inthese two samples, the correlations between the media agenda and the

Discussion

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youngest generation's agenda were still strong and, in one case, statistical-ly significant. In the Louisiana study, the younger generation's agendacorrelated with the media's at .80; in North Carolina, the correlation wasa significant .90. Even the biggest users of the Internet-the youngest gen-eration and Baby Boomers-had agendas correlated at .70 with the media

agenda. While this was the weakest correlation found in the study, it wasstill strong by most agenda-setting standards, and was statistically signif-icant when the more sensitive Pearson's correlation was used.

This provides strong support for the idea that agenda-setting effectsstill prevail among the young. These correlations are equal to or superiorto many in other studies that constitute evidence of a strong agenda-set-ting influence. For example, Shaw and Martin47 considered .80 to be"high and .55 to be "moderate," while Kiousis and M ~Combs~~ alled .72a "close correspondence" and included significance levels of .10 becauseof the effects of small numbers of ranks on significance tests for rank ordercorrelations. Even the original Chapel Hill agenda-setting study reporteda correlation of .71.49

To shed more light on these findings, the issues that the youngerrespondents said were important to them but were not identical to themedia's agenda were examined. In both studies, the 18-to-34-year-oldsranked education higher in importance than the media did. Educationwas the number-one problem in Louisiana for the young respondents, butit was second in amount of media coverage, after the economy and jobs.In North Carolina, education was fourth most important for the youngergroup, but was fifth in the media, which focused more on health care.There was an additional discrepancy in the North Carolina data; theyounger generation rated crime third and health care fourth in impor-tance; the media coverage reversed these rankings.

This would seem to raise the question of whether the 18-to-34-year-olds are selectively exposing themselves to news of education in bothstates, and also crime in Louisiana, more than other age groups, orwhether the media they use are featuring more news about these issues,perhaps because they feel it is of more interest to younger audiences. Itmakes intuitive sense that these young people would be more interestedin education, which is personally relevant to their age group. Personal rel-evance or the obtrusiveness of the issue of education is likely to be highfor these 18-to-34-year-olds; many at the younger end of this age group

are likely in college or technical schools themselves, while those at theupper end of the age bracket may have children of their own. Thus, it islikely that the concern with education outstrips that of the other agegroups or the media because of personal experience with the issue, more-so than media exposure to it. This age group's interest in crime over healthcare and insurance also can be interpreted in this light; younger people areless likely to have health problems than older people, so health care andinsurance may just not be as personally relevant to them regardless of theamount of media coverage.

Conclusion These findings do not support the idea that diverse sources of newsand the Internet spell the end of the agenda-setting influence. These two

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samples of the youngest generation did not rank issues in exactly thesame order of importance as either the media or people in the BabyBoomer or Civic Generations, but the correspondence was neverthelessstrong. This study did find that the youngest generation is using tradi-tional media significantly less often than either of their older counter-

part generations, and that they are using the Internet more, althoughperhaps not for news of public issues. As M ~C ombs~~ ointed out, mostInternet news sites are subsidiaries of traditional news media, and thereis a high degree of redundancy in the media agendas even on diversemedia. Furthermore, most people do not have the time or desire toexplore the multitude of diverse issues on numerous channels and Websites, but they are interested in the events that others consider impor-tant. Thus, much of the news, even in diverse sources, is likely to con-tinue to be relatively homogeneous. Even the young, with their differ-ent interests based on personal relevance, are still likely to be exposed tothe main issues of mainstream society and media.

This study did not ask respondents about the specific sites theyuse on the Internet, or which shows they watch on entertainment andnon-traditional media. We can only speculate about which media theyoungest generation are using, if any, instead of traditional media forthe information necessary to make responsible decisions about demo-cratic life. However, other studies have shown that this youngest groupis learning about important issues from the Web, late-night comedians,and other entertainment media. It is possible that the agenda-settinginfluence of these non-traditional media is just as great for youngeradults as the influence of traditional media is for older ones, but we donot know how similar the issue agendas of these various media are.

These are important questions to answer because the Internet andnon-traditional news are increasing in popularity, and these youngadults are society's future leaders. Consensus on which issues take pri-ority is important in order for government and the public to worktogether efficiently.

While this study looked directly at generational differences inagenda-setting effects, it cannot answer all questions. It is important toexamine whether young people's patterns of media use mirror thesalience of issues promoted in the media they use most, or whether per-sonal relevance explains most of the differences. It will take more stud-

ies focused specifically on these questions and longitudinal research todiscover how young adults come to form ideas about what issues areimportant. Nevertheless, the overall finding here is a high degree of con-sensus across generations regarding the issue agenda.

NOTES

1. Pew Research Center, Cable and I nternet Loom Large in FragmentedPolitical News Universe, 2004, http: / / people-press.org / reports / display.php3?ReportID=200.

2. Bruce Bimber, "The Internet and Citizen Communication with

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Government: Does the Medium Matter?" Political Communication 16(October-December 1999): 409-28; Bruce Bimber, "The Study of Inform-ation Technology and Civic Engagement," Political Communication 17(October-December 2000): 329-33.

3. Steve Chaffee and Miriam Metzger, "The End of Mass Commu-

nication?" Mass Communication4. Maxwell McCombs, Setting the Agenda: The Mass Media and PublicOpinion (Cambridge, UK :Polity Press, 2004).

5. Marilyn Roberts, Wayne Wanta, and Dzwo (Dustin) Tzong-Horng,"Agenda Setting and Issue Salience Online," Communication Research 29

6. Jae Kook Lee, "The Blog Agenda: What Did They Blog About in the2004 U.S. Election?" (paper presented at the annual meeting of AEJMC,San Francisco, CA, 2006).

7. Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw, "The Agenda-SettingFunction of the Mass Media," Public Opinion Quarterly 36 (summer 1972)

8. J ames Dearing and Everett Rogers, Communication Concqts 6:

9. McCombs and Shaw, "The Agenda-Setting Function."

Society 4 (4, 2001): 365-79.

(August 2002): 452-65.

176-87.

Agenda Setting (London: Sage, 1996), 8.

10. McCombs, Setting the Agenda.11. Donald Shaw and Shannon Martin, "The Function of Mass Media

Agenda Setting," J ournalism Quarterly 69 (winter 1992): 902-20; EstebanLopez-Escobar and Juan Pablo Llamas, "Agenda Setting and CommunityConsensus: First and Second Level Effects," International J ournal o PublicOpinion Research 10 (winter 1998): 335-49.

12. McCombs, Setting the Agenda.13. Lutz Erbring, Edie Goldenberg, and Arthur Miller, "Front-Page

News and Real-World Cues," American J ournal of Political Science 24 (1980):

14. Donald Shaw and Maxwell McCombs, The Emergence of AmericanPolitical Issues: The Agenda Setting Function of the Press (St. Paul, MN: West,1977).

16-49.

15. Shaw and Martin, "The Function of Mass Media."16. Dominick Lasorsa and Wayne Wanta, "The Effects of Personal,

Interpersonal, and Media Experience on Issue Salience," J ournalismQuarterly 67 (winter 1990): 804-13; Wayne Wanta and Y. Hu, "Time-Lag

Differences in the Agenda-Setting Process: An Examination of Five NewsMedia," International J ournal o Public Opinion Research 6 (3 1994): 225-40.

17. Craig Leonard Brians and Martin P. Wattenberg, "Campaign IssueKnowledge and Salience: Comparing Reception from TV Commercials,TV News, and Newspapers," American J ournal o Political Science 40(February 1996): 172-93; Pew Research Center, A Portrait Of "GenerationNext": How Young People View Their Lives, Futures, and Politics, 2007,http: / / people-press.org /reports / di spI ay. php3?Report I D=300.

18. . Gonnerman, "Bite the Ballot," Village Voice, November 5, 1996.19. Edmund Lauf, "The Vanishing Young Reader-Sociodemographic

Determinants of Newspaper Use as a Source of Political Information inEurope, 1980-98,'' European J ournal o Communication 16 (J une 2001): 233-

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43; J ohn A. McCarty and L. J . Shrum, The Role of Personal Values andDemographics in Predicting Television Viewing Behavior: Implicationsfor Theory and Application, J ournal o Advertising 22 (December 1993):77-101; Robert L. Stevenson, Global Communication in the Twenty-FirstCentury (NY Longman, 1994).

20. Lauf, The Vanishing Y oung Reader; McCarty and Shrum, TheRole of Personal Values; Stevenson, Global Communication.

21. Lauf, The Vanishing Y oung Reader; Wolfram Peiser, CohortReplacement and the Downward Trend in Newspaper Readership,Newspaper Research J ournal 21 (spring 2000): 11-22; Stevenson, GlobalCommu n cation .

22. P. Robinson and K. Davis, Television News and the InformedPublic: An I nformation Processing Approach, J ournal o Communication40 (summer 1990): 106-19.

23. Amanda Lenhart, Whos Not Online: 5770 of Those withoutInternet Access Say They Do Not Plan to Log On, 2000, http: / / www.pewInternet.org/ PPF/r/21 /report-display.asp; William E. Loges andJoo-Y oung J ung, Exploring the Digital Divide: Internet Connectednessand Age, Communication Research 28 (August 2001): 536-62.

24. J . E. Katz, R. E. Rice, and P. Aspden, The Internet, 1995-2000,American Behavioral Scientist 45 (3 2001): 405-19; Lenhart, Whos NotOnline.

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26. Bimber, The Internet and Citizen Communication; Bimber,The Study of Information Technology.

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28. Lopez-Escobar and Llamas, Agenda Setting and CommunityConsensus.

29. Lopez-Escobar and Llamas, A genda Setting and Community

Consensus.30. Shaw and Martin, The Function of Mass Media.31. C-Y. Chiang, Bridging and Closing the Gap of Our Society: Social

Function of Media Agenda Setting (1995, unpublished masters thesis,University of Texas at Austin).

32. J ian-Hua Zhu and William Boroson, Susceptability to AgendaSetting, in Communication and Democracy, ed. M. McCombs, D. Shaw,and D. Weaver (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997).

33. Spiro Kiousis, Michael McDevitt, and Xu Wu, The Genesis ofCivic Awareness: Agenda Setting in Political Socialization, J ournal oCommunication 55 (December 2005): 756-74.

34. Stephen E. Bennett, Why Y oung Americans Hate Politics, and

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What We Should Do About It," PS: Political Science G. Politics 30 (March

35. D. Howard, "Esquire," in American Mass Market Magazines, ed.Allen Nourie and Barbara Nourie (Westport, CT Greenwood Press, 1990).

36. Philip Meyer, "The Media Reformation: Giving the Agenda Back to

the People," in The Elections o 1992, ed. M. Nelson (Washington, DC:Congressional Quarterly Press, 1993).37. Steve Chaffee, X. Zhao, and Glenn Leshner, "Political Knowledge

and the Campaign Media of 1992," Communication Research 21 (1994): 305-24; Jack McLeod and Katie Daily, "Community Integration, Local MediaUse, and Democratic Processes," Communication Research 23 (1996): 179-209.

38. Barry A. Hollander, "Talk Radio: Predictors of Use and Effects onAttitudes About Government," J ournalism G. Mass CommunicationQuarterly 73 (spring 1996): 102-13.

39. Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival ofAmerican Community (NY Simon & Schuster, 2000); W. M. Rahn and J . E.Transue, "Social Trust and Value Change: The Decline of Social Capital inAmerican Y outh, 1976-1995," Political Psychology 19 (1998): 545-65.

40. Dhavan V. Shah, Nojin Kwak, and Lance Holbert, "Connecting andDisconnecting with Civic Life: Patterns of Internet Use and theProduction of Social Capital," Political Communication 18 (April-J une

1997): 47-52.

2001): 141-62.41. Pew Research Center, A Portrait Of "Generation Next."42. Maxwell McCombs and Salma Ghanem, "The Convergence of

Agenda Setting and Framing," in Framing Public Life: Perspectives on Mediaand Our Understanding of the Social World, ed. S. D. Reese, 0. H. Gandy, andA.E. Grant (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001).

43. Shah, Kwak, and Holbert, "Connecting and Disconnecting."44. Shah, K wak, and Holbert, "Connecting and Disconnecting."

Researchers have used many different age breaks to define the genera-tions. This study used the popular 18-34,35-54, and 55+age cohorts in theinterest of comparison with a wider variety of studies. Also, statisticalanalyses were performed on different age breaks and no significant differ-ences found. Having three age groups instead of four or more also con-tributed to statistical power to test the hypotheses; having more age cate-gories would reduce the n in each.

45. Gerald Stone and Maxwell McCombs, "Tracing the Time Lag inAgenda-Setting," J ournalism Quarterly 58 (spring 1981): 151-55.46. Y. Min, Salma Ghanem, and Dixie Evatt, "Using a Split-Ballot

Survey to Explore the Robustness of the 'MIP' Question in Agenda-Setting Research: A Methodological Study," lnternational J ournal o PublicOpinion Research 19 (summer 2007): 221-36.

47. Shaw and Martin, "The Function of Mass Media."48. Spiro Kiousis and Maxwell McCombs, "Agenda-Setting Effects

and Attitude Strength: Political Figures During the 1996 PresidentialElection," Communication Research 31 (February 2004): 36-57.

49. McCombs and Shaw, "The Agenda-Setting Function."50. McCombs, Setting the Agenda.

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