Who Sets The Agenda? Locating the Formation of Public Opinion during the Rantau By-Election

Abstract

This paper investigates whether online news that are shared on
Facebook set the agenda for its readers. In response to the importance of
social networking sites as sources of information, news media organizations
have set up Facebook channels in which they publish news stories or links to
articles. This allows for a wider news reach as well as audience participation.
When audience members read and subsequently comment on news articles on
Facebook, it becomes possible to identify public opinions and sentiments on the
issues being covered. To investigate whether user comments mirror the issues
and sentiments presented in the news articles, the agenda-setting approach
was applied. Content analysis was used to analyse audience comments on
over 450 news articles from 4 major newspapers written during the Rantau
by-election in Malaysia (April, 2019). The findings showed that while the
newspapers and the readers do share some issue salience, the relationship
does not typify a traditional agenda-setting dynamic. The news readers are not
just the ones receiving the news and issues. Rather, they are also commenters
who are influencing how others receive news and issues hence disrupting the
conventional public opinion model.