What to think about

Abstract

This study examines how agenda setting works on social media in the United States. Unlike previous platform studies, this research seeks to examine not just if, but also how agenda setting works in a social media setting. Three areas were tested for their effect on issue salience: repetition, story order, and endorsement. More than 360 U.S. participants viewed variations of a mock Facebook feed and answered questions about issue importance. Using issue importance as the dependent variable and repetition, story order, and endorsement as the independent variables, three hypotheses were tested. One hypothesis had the effect predicted: Increased repetition of a news story topic did influence participants’ perception that the news story topic was important. Additional items were tested as covariates. Gender, and ethnicity had a significant influence on perceived story importance. The results of this study indicate that agenda setting on social media occurs through repetition. Implications are explored.