The Media

Abstract

Like it or loathe it, the media is an important part of the political process, whose value and influence continues to grow over time. Media attention measures both the events that occur in the world and salience. It is the salience of the media agenda that has the strongest agenda setting function as high levels of attention can propel issues beyond the ‘threshold of attention’ needed to cause real policy change (Jones and Baumgartner 2005a). Whether that salience is from the viewpoint of the public or the political elite is certainly a point for debate (see Bennett et al. 2007; Gandy 1982, for a discussion of the sources of news stories) but, regardless, the media matters for politics and tends to be closely tied to public opinion and other measures of public concern (Behr and Iyengar 1985; Entman 1989; Iyengar 1991; Iyengar and Kinder 2010; Jacoby 2000; Jasperson et al. 1998; McCombs 2004). To make a bold claim, media attention is likely just as important to politics as elections, and understanding how that attention is provided is fundamental to understanding British politics in the modern era.