Testing the Agendamelding Theory: How Audiences Tailor Agendas to Suit Their Needs

The present study reexamines the first and second levels of agenda setting as well as the contribution of need for orientation in our evolving media environment in an effort to shed light on how audiences “meld” agendas from various media sources with their own personal preferences to form a coherent picture of society. A survey of American adults (N = 1,069) was combined with a content analysis of traditional and social media sources to evaluate agendamelding, which predicts that, depending on the characteristics of individuals, audiences give more weight to certain media sources when melding their agenda. Correlation analyses indicated that respondents echoed the most prominent issues and most prominent attributes describing those issues depicted in both the traditional and social media they consumed. Higher need for orientation resulted in a stronger reflection of the media. A regression analysis indicated that younger audiences and Democrats give more weight to social media than traditional media when melding their agendas. Individuals with a higher need for orientation give more weight to traditional media and their own personal preferences than they give social media. Republicans generally allow their personal preferences to impact their agenda more than all Democrats and most Independents. The impact is more pronounced in those with professional training and without a college degree. However, young, educated, female Independents allow their personal preferences to impact their agenda most. Income tends to impact agendamelding in minorities more than Caucasians. The findings support the agendamelding theory that predicts differences in the way various individuals mix media messages to form, or join, agenda communities. While the results bode well for the nascent field of agendamelding, more research is needed to replicate the findings.Doctor of Philosoph