Country Characteristics as Contingent Conditions of Agenda Setting: The Moderating Influence of Polarized Elite Opinion

Agenda-setting research has largely neglected country characteristics as contingent conditions of agenda setting. Focusing on the issue of European integration, this study investigated whether the amount of European Union (EU) coverage in television news affected the extent to which EU citizens perceived European integration to be important. More specifically, it was studied from a cross-national comparative perspective whether the nature of elite opinion about European integration moderated the occurrence of agenda-setting effects. Content analytic data and survey data from 14EUmember states were linked at the individual level. More EU coverage did not automatically increase the perceived importance of European integration. The occurrence of the agenda-setting pattern rather depended on the nature of elite opinion. The more EU stories people watched in countries in which political elites disagreed about European integration, the more important they considered European integration. If elite opinion about European integration was consensual, this pattern did not occur.