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Debating the Euro : Media Agenda-Setting in a Cross-National Environment

Olaf Werder International Communication Gazette 2002 64: 219 DOI: 10.1177/17480485020640030101 The online version of this article can be found at: http://gaz.sagepub.com/content/64/3/219

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GAZETTE: THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR COMMUNICATION STUDIES COPYRIGHT 2002 SAGE PUBLICATIONS LONDON, THOUSAND OAKS & NEW DELHI, VOL 64(3): 219233 [0016-5492(200206)64:3;219233;023498]

DEBATING THE EURO

Media Agenda-Setting in a Cross-National Environment

Olaf Werder
Abstract / Coverage of the introduction of the Euro currency was analyzed in the leading news publications in the UK and Germany. Specically, it was examined whether (1) coverage of the same cross-national issue differed in level of support and (2) the two national media applied different news frames. The study showed that the British print media opposed the Euro even with pro-Euro sources, whereas the German print media maintained neutrality. The British press used an episodic, while the German press employed a thematic style. The difference in styles allowed for different covering of subissues. Overall, the ndings point to the fruitfulness of including story frames (news style) and media position in the international agenda-setting process. There seems to be, in general, an interesting relationship between media position, sources position, news frame styles, subissues and issue effect. Discernible differences in the journalistic product between national news print media appear ultimately to be a result of different worldviews and identity concepts, inuencing the agenda-setting effect. Keywords / cross-national agenda-setting / cultural differences / European Community / gatekeeper / journalists / story frame

In the three decades since the seminal agenda-setting work by McCombs and Shaw (1972), an impressive number of research projects has been conducted to study media agendas, public agendas and the relationship between them (Weimann and Brosius, 1994). The vast majority of these studies, however, have dealt with ethnocentric research during and outside elections within specic countries, predominantly oriented and conducted toward phenomena in the US. Despite the fact that similar methodological approaches, pointing to the same conclusions, further strengthen the validity of the agenda-setting concept (Semetko and Mandelli, 1997), cross-national comparative research would move the agenda-setting theory into the international arena. As Semetko and Mandelli (1997) argued, cross-national agenda-setting provides an opportunity to examine how those involved in the political communication process publics, political parties, and media behave when operating under different institutional constraints. In the same article, the authors ask for two angles of future cross-national research efforts on agenda-setting and the related issues of priming and framing one looking at the formation of media agendas and story frames (including contributing parties), the other looking at the inuences of those agendas and frames on public opinion.

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Semetko and Mandelli contended that it is crucial to integrate a political culture approach to the cognitive approach to agenda-setting in a cross-national arena. This would not only help explain how the different media operate, but also how they are inuenced and are inuential themselves. We would stand to gain from this research, as it broadens the scope of the theory to international news ows, as well as help explain why researchers seemingly found that the original hypothesis does not work as well in other countries as it does in the US, and if that indeed is the case. Furthermore, since this research will also need to make frequent excursions into the related research eld of inuences on media content and political agenda formation, it will ultimately help to further advance agenda-setting and framing research altogether by merging it with these other areas.

Background
On 1 January 1999, the European Union embarked on becoming a true monetary union via a transitional process, to be concluded by January 2002 with the introduction of Euro banknotes and coins and withdrawal of national money. During this preparation time and setup of the European Central Bank (spring through winter 1998) among the larger member countries only the UK opted out of joining in 1999. Despite its known long-standing reservation toward continental Europe, the UK had become increasingly tied in with the EU and beneted from its existence. Hence, this decision was seen to have potential negative consequences for the economy and political position of the UK within the EU. Likewise, Germanys decision to abandon the strongest currency on the continent (the Deutschmark) could impact the country negatively in its role as a keystone nancial force and could hurt the countrys national economic pride as the anchor of Europe. It was, therefore, in the interest of each countrys leadership to sell its decision as the right one for its national publics welfare and prosperity. Drawing samples from pre-change 1998 and immediate post-change 1999 allows the testing of framing that serves as a bridge between elite discourse about an issue and popular comprehension of that issue. Applying the concept of framing (Iyengar, 1991), we suspect that the use of an episodic vs thematic media frame, used respectively in the two countries, leads readers into applying internal vs external attributions to the social issue and thus gives us a clue as to why the countries news media and sources seemed to be at opposite poles of this agenda topic.

Literature Review
There has been a dearth of research in the cross-cultural eld of agenda-setting, which might have led some researchers to believe based on some studies in Europe that there is less clear support for the agenda-setting hypothesis outside the US (Semetko and Mandelli, 1997). However, the same authors also note, that the absence of evidence to support the agenda-setting hypothesis does not mean that other important media effects on the public were entirely absent.

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As a matter of fact, in the eld of comparative political analysis there are numerous studies (Livingston, 1992; Pollack, 1997; Saideman, 1994; Wood and Peake, 1998) that look at international agenda-setting as a means for political decision-makers to shape a public agenda on foreign or international policy. Livingston (1992), for instance, conducted an analysis on the attempt of the Reagan administration to remove North AmericanSouth American relations from the international agenda, and found that agenda success was dependent on prevailing international practices and the access points to the international agenda they create. Saideman (1994) asserts in his study, agenda-setting is an interactive process, in which politicians are inuenced by both domestic interests and the activities of leaders of other states and international organizations. He also found certain conditions within a nation (apathy, ambivalence, ambiguous solutions) under which agenda-setting matters. Admittedly, the focus of agenda research in the political science eld is primarily targeted toward the political agendas, i.e. the inuences of the agendas of political actors and their relationship to the public. The media are not the focus here, and are most often even neglected as a unit of analysis. If we recall though the inuences that interest groups can have on the media (Gandy, 1982; Huckins, 1999; Lang and Lang, 1981; McCombs et al., 1991; Tuchman, 1978), we cannot deny that those two agendas could be somewhat related. In our case, we might need to consider that the news story will need to lter through more gatekeepers than a domestic one would. News might travel from the on-site reporter through editors at the local wire house, the wire services headquarters or home country ofce to the local newspaper bureau, where various editors scan it again. With the assumption that many news organizations will use international wire services for leads, one could conclude that in the end the news will be the same for all national media, a so-called stacked category. In a related study, Whitney and Becker (1982) laid this notion to rest, however, nding support for the fact that wire news is not accepted uncritically in newspaper and television newsrooms. They did not deny, however, an initial inuence of the wire news bureaus. In a sense, then, we are dealing with more than one single Mr Gates in a gatekeeping role. This will be reected by the ultimate media agenda-setting process but will also make an inuence by an interested political group or individual even more difcult. This notion can be traced back in a way to Livingstons access point idea. But how do we perceive the stories to be told and told differently by the two countries media organizations, if indeed that is the case? Most likely the two most helpful answers come from two interesting ndings in agenda-setting research: issue categorization (obtrusive/unobtrusive, abstract/concrete) and interpersonal agenda as a contingent condition to the process and effects. Saideman (1994) pointed out the existence of conditions for the workings of international agenda-setting processes. Taking it a step further, Miller and Wanta (1996) regarded story frames as an important variable to the agenda-setting process of different demographics. Wanta and Hu (1993) also mentioned story frames as contingent conditions in the agenda-setting effect of international news. And Weimann and Brosius (1994) argued that inuential individuals (e.g. national news editors) would frame emerging news to their own

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personal network, splitting the agenda-setting process effectively into a two-step ow. If story frames are an important condition to cross-national agenda-setting effects, we need to dene a frame and ask how the media frame issues. Goffmans thematic question on frame analysis (see Manning, 1980) was, under what circumstances do we think things are real? He thus attributed two kinds of understanding to social life, a literal one (what is going on?), and a metaphoric one (what is the meaning of what is going on?). The concept of a frame is used, among other reasons, to show that as actions change our denitions (or frames), we can alter our original meaning and confer new ones, or add them to the rst set. Following this logic, Gitlin (1980) argued, media frames are persistent patterns of cognition, interpretation, and presentation, of selection, emphasis and exclusion, by which symbol-handlers routinely organize discourse. This notion denes a news frame in terms of ideological or value perspectives. By excluding, for example, all the benets that a European currency might bring and emphasizing its detrimental effects on the British economy, the British media would effectively have framed the news story very differently from the German media, which might have highlighted the positives of the change and suppressed the negatives. According to Iyengar, the media frame issues in either episodic or thematic terms.
The episodic frame depicts public issues in terms of concrete instances or specic events a homeless person . . . or an attempted murder which make good pictures. The thematic news frame, in contrast, places public issues in some general or abstract context, which typically takes the form of a takeout or backgrounder report, frequently featuring talking heads. (Iyengar et al., 1993)

While thematic news framing is more objective, in-depth and analytic, it is also seen as dull and slow and, due to its subsurface reporting style, vulnerable to charges of bias and editorializing. Episodic framing, on the other hand, is fastpaced, attention-grabbing and achieves objectivity via focusing on the hard news. It will also, however, fail to include signicant issues, if they are deemed not newsworthy due to a lack of good pictures. It can be speculated that this latter point could be a reason why Brosius and Kepplinger (1995) found only limited support for their assumptions regarding killer issues, which they saw working in a replacement model, eclipsing other agenda issues on German television. To avoid any ambiguities in our ndings, it is important to look at agenda issues that have news value in either country. The importance of this point becomes obvious when we consider the low public interest level of stories about Country A, reported to the public of Country B, with no or minimal actual impact on Country B. In a study of that particular nature, Wanta and Hu (1993) found that other than high-conict or direct involvement frames, most international news stories have little relevance to the average (in this case: American) citizen. The ndings show that agenda items which are just international in kind will probably have less chance of being noticed than those international agendas which indeed impact the home country. As a result, the national news media may pay far more attention to those

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issues. More importantly, to the extent of the independence and antagonistic positioning of the national media landscape in a given country, the international story will be more localized, i.e. framed by the national media in a way that best suits the countrys interest, in which said media operate. There is also a strong possibility that some news frames form a better negative or positive argument. In other words, the antagonistic media might use certain frames because they provide good arguments against the international issue. The execution itself, though, will also depend on the style of storytelling that national media subscribe to. It only seems logical to assume that every culture has a journalistic legacy, which dictates in some way what style of storytelling a countrys press applies. This latter point alludes to the integration of political culture approaches to understand political and social change. As Semetko and Mandelli (1997: 206) argue, comparative political communication research would benet from integrating [the above approach] with a more cognitive approach to understanding public opinion. They then give an illustration of this statement by arguing that political culture helps to explain why a US news story about poverty often is framed in such a way as to place the responsibility on the individual rather than on the system or state, whereas a story about poverty is likely to be framed differently in most European social welfare states.

Hypotheses
The rst research question addressed here is how international stories regarding a change from national currencies to the Euro are framed in two EU member countries that are politically opposite on the issue itself. We speculate that different ideologies of the news media and their sources toward the international issue will lead to different inuences on the story, i.e. media that oppose an international issue will engage in a more spirited debate on the issue and use more sources than those media that favor the issue. Furthermore, media that oppose the international issue will communicate and support an agenda detrimental to their sources intentions, i.e. they will maintain a negative position even if a quoted source seems to promote a positive or neutral view on the issue. Those that support the issue will communicate a like-minded agenda, i.e. they stay predominantly neutral and report matter-of-factly. Thus, based on the scenario described, we propose to test the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: The British press will be more likely to take a negative stance and quote anti-Euro sources than the German press.

Since the British print media are opposed to this international issue, they will be more likely to follow the national sentiment on the issue.
Hypothesis 2: The British press will be more likely to maintain an anti-Euro position, even if sources that they use for quotations support the issue, whereas the German press will follow its sources positions.

Since the British press has a more independent and critical position toward its own government and since every issue regarding the EU is seen much more

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negatively by this independent press, without regard to where the government stands, they will remain critical even when fullling their journalistic role of quoting sources from various positions. The second research question addressed here is: how did the individual news organizations go about communicating their position, i.e. what style did they use to support their arguments? The news media, applying an episodic style, will most likely cover more aspects of the issue to make a case for their position than those applying a thematic style. Based on this scenario, we propose to test the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 3: The British press will be more likely to use episodic story frames to arrive at its negative position, whereas the German press will be more likely to use thematic story frames to arrive at its neutral position.

To make arguments against the Euro, the British print media have to appeal to a deeper mistrust of the British population toward all European issues. The best means to achieve this task seems to be to deliver real-life stories and opinions against the Euro rather than listing factual information or data, as the former appeal better to emotions.
Hypothesis 4: The British press will be more likely than the German press to cover a wider range of subissues, connected with the Euro issue, to support its position.

It seems plausible that a tendency toward episodic styles for the aforementioned reasons will compel the British press to look for categories (subissues), where this style is most applicable. Unlike the German press, whose thematic style will be well suited for the usual key subissues of a currency change, i.e. nancial and economic, the British press will need to look at other aspects of Euro inuences, such as social, personal, political, ethical, or cultural. This consequently will broaden their range of covered subissues.

Methodology
The study examines all media coverage of the birth of the Euro currency from 1 December 1998 through 30 January 1999, the two months surrounding the historic date of 1 January 1999. This time frame was chosen because it was the period in which European news media carried most coverage of the issue, simply because it became one of the most emphasized issues in Western Europe. The method chosen is a content analysis of the major British newspapers (e.g. The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent) and the major German newspapers (e.g. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Berliner taz), with the individual paragraph as the unit of analysis. These papers are not only among the largest in circulation and readership in their respective countries, but they are also considered the most respected and professional, as well as newspapers of record. The paragraph is chosen as the unit of analysis as it supports the nding of hypothesized discrepancies between press and source as well as varying story frames within the story.

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The study focuses on four areas, and their relationship to public opinion on the Euro: Story type, i.e. what kind of reporting style, hard news (factual information), feature (snapshots, slice-of-life piece), commentary (reporters interpretation or opinion about an event), was used to report on the issue Overall tone of the news story, scored as pro-Euro (conversion to Euro and its consequences are supported), neutral (conversion debate is covered without emotional attachment or opinion about it) and anti-Euro (conversion to Euro is opposed, arguments against it are brought forth), from the position of the media themselves Sources quoted in the story, and their position toward the issue. Subissues within the overall story, i.e. which aspect of the countrys sphere (economic, society, culture, taxation and banking) was mostly reported on, and how was the introduction of the Euro interpreted to have an impact on those subissues. To be able to properly code the newspaper articles coding was completed by three coders. After a round of practice sessions, ndings were compared and content indicators of each variable were discussed. The German-language text was also translated and back translated to check for loss of meaning. Using Holstis formula (Holsti, 1969) the intercoder reliability across the categories ranged from 0.71 to 0.94 with an average of 0.83.

Results
The content analysis led to 64 stories with 621 paragraphs for the British press and 73 stories with 377 paragraphs for the German press. Hypothesis 1 argued that a negative stance on the Euro issue by the British press will be related to the use of likewise issue-opposing sources for direct quotes in the story. Out of the 621 paragraphs in the British press, 45.8 percent had an anti-Euro slant, 44.3 percent were neutral and only 9.9 percent were
TABLE 1 Comparison of Newspaper and Source Position in the Two Countries Britain Pro-Euroa Neutrala Anti-Euroa Total
a

Germany 45 11.9 296 78.6 36 9.5 377

62 9.9 275 44.3 284 45.8 621

Top line cells are raw scores and second line cells are column percentages.
2

= 126.9, p < .001.

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positive. The German press published 9.5 percent anti-Euro paragraphs, 78.6 percent had a neutral tone and 11.9 percent were positive. As Table 1 shows, the British press quoted almost ve times as many negative (or anti-Euro) sources as the German press did. As a matter of fact, two-thirds of the quoted sources (67 percent) in the German papers commented as objectively on the Euro debate as the papers did (84 percent), whereas quoted sources in the British papers engaged in a lively debate on the pros and cons of the issue. The data therefore largely support Hypothesis 1. It was argued further that the British press would maintain their opposition even if the source were in favor of the Euro. While the data for the German press basically echoed the papers opinions (source position and media position are the same), the British papers remained reserved or opposed to the Euro, even when they quoted a source (usually government ofcials) who endorsed the change (80.9 percent of its quoted pro-Euro sources). To illustrate this surprising point further, The Times is quoted, writing in a story from 5 December 1998, To many Britons, Europe seems like a high-speed train, hurtling its reluctant passengers into a new millennium of continental government where Britain becomes a dependent province. . . . There are plenty of reasons why the vision is plausible. Successive governments, from Ted Heaths to Tony Blairs have tried to soothe British fears by playing down the political ambitions of the Union, only to be swept along with the rush to integrate, while they quoted an ofcial in the same article, saying The British dont realize what a strong hand they have. They just have to keep their nerve. The paper also quoted its own prime minister in an article from 15 December 1998, saying, a majority of Europeans are not part of a vile conspiracy to nobble Britain, to which the paper responded in the same paragraph, The Prime Minister is only half right. Finally, in an article from 18 December 1998, Times correspondent Peter Riddell pointed out that Blairs speeches demonstrated that the alliance of convenience between new Labour and the sceptic press, always bogus, was now, at last, over. Blair and his Government had emerged in their true pro-European colours. The British papers also allowed many more negative sources to be heard, in the case where they stayed neutral; an anti-Euro source is quoted 21 percent of the times, where the paper remained objective. Hypothesis 2 seems to be largely supported as well. Hypothesis 3 argues that the British papers will apply an episodic style, which will allow for negative real-life examples and personal comments about the Euro by inuential individuals, while the German papers will use a thematic style, whose factual tone will give data without much opinion. Table 2 illustrates that the British press used feature stories and commentaries about as much as hard news (49.4 percent vs 50.6 percent), while the German press used the hard news angle 74 percent of the time. The data support the initial assumption that the British newspaper applied an episodic news style more often than the German newspaper, which was largely committed to a thematic style. The heavier use of the episodic style was

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TABLE 2 Comparison of News Style and Newspaper Position by Country Media Position __________________________________ Pro-Euro Britain News style News Features Comment 36a 62.1b 4 6.9 18 31.0 Total Germany News style News Features Comment 22a 48.9b 2 4.4 21 46.7 45
b

Total

Neutral

Anti-Euro

217 68.1 48 15.0 54 16.9 319

61 25.0 28 11.5 155 63.5 244

314 50.6 80 12.9 227 36.5 621

58

243 82.1 12 4.1 41 13.9 296

15 41.7 17 47.2 4 11.1 36

280 74.3 31 8.2 66 17.5 377

Total
a

Raw totals, column percentages.

2 2

(Britain) = 165.57, p < .001, p < .001.

(Germany) = 110.08, p < .001,

(Total) = 238.85,

also the vehicle through which the anti-Euro position was communicated. While only 25 percent of all anti-Euro paragraphs were hard news (vs over 60 percent for pro-Euro or neutral tones), 75 percent were features or commentaries. Interestingly enough, the German papers used the commentary as well to support the Euro (47 percent of all news styles) but overall remained predominantly neutral (79 percent of the paragraphs). Hypothesis 3 is largely supported by the data. It was nally asserted in Hypothesis 4 that the different news styles result in different width in the coverage of connected subissues, which in turn serves to illustrate the impact points of the Euro issue. In other words, an episodic style allows for analyses of more subissues, such as cultural, social and political, areas where the more personal approach makes sense, but also can be used to rationalize why a position is maintained. The thematic style, which is by its nature matter of fact and removed, will only make sense for subissues where pure data delivery is most applicable.

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Table 3 shows that the British press used the feature story style in particular when dealing with cultural, personal and even economic issues, and the commentary style when dealing with cultural, nancial and economic issues. The German press reverted to these styles only rarely. Overall the table shows that the British papers looked at many more subissues impacted by the Euro than did the German papers, which devoted about 50 percent of their coverage to the monetary aspect of the Euro debate. These data largely support the hypothesis.
TABLE 3 Comparison of Subissues and News Style by Country News Style _______________________________________ Subissues Britain Economic Social Tax Financial Cultural Personal Hard News Feature Story Comment Total

86a 28.6b 20 6.6 13 4.3 128 42.5 50 16.6 4 1.3 301

17 25.8 7 10.6 2 3.0 10 15.2 20 30.3 10 15.2 66

49 27.4 16 8.9 11 6.1 37 20.7 61 34.1 5 2.8 179

152 27.8 43 7.9 26 4.8 175 32.1 131 24.0 19 3.5 546

Total Germany Economic Social Tax Financial Cultural Personal

44a 16.2b 7 2.6 3 1.1 175 64.3 22 8.1 21 7.7 272

b

4 15.4

14 21.2

62 17.0 7 1.9 3 0.8 181 49.7 74 20.3 37 10.2 364

3 11.5 3 11.5 16 61.5 26

3 4.5 49 74.2

Total
a

66

Raw totals,
2

column percentages.
2

(Britain) = 71.91, p < .001, p < .001.

(Germany) = 241.83, p < .001,

(Total) = 242.09,

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Discussion
This study compared the media coverage of the leading newspapers in two of the key member countries in the EU on the cross-national debate of the Euro currency. The purpose of the study was to illustrate that the media occupy a more independent position regarding nationally debated issues vis-a-vis their news sources than routinely assumed and in so doing inuence the news agenda of the public as much as political news-makers, based on their own position toward the agenda issue. Support was furthermore found for the assumption that different countries and cultures not only use different news style frames, but also use these different frames as they play different communication roles in their respective countries. Framing of a story or news writing in general is undeniably inuenced by a countrys political landscape and the position of the press in it. The case of the shutdown of liberal media organizations in Iran may attest to this notion. However, the two selected countries are in many ways similar in their political, economic and social makeup. What sets them apart are the cultural heritage and values of those covering the news. These diverse values seem to affect the different positions and frames for an issue which seemingly should be covered identically, as it ultimately has the same source (the European Community). The study found support for Iyengars assumption of the existence of two different news styles and serves to explain different media agenda phenomena in different countries. One of the most interesting ndings is the fact that the British print media seemed more opposed to the impending change than the British government. e.g., in an article from 2 December 1998 The Times noted, Mr. Blair is a man who likes to please others. He wants to be liked by his European partners. In another article, dated 6 December 1998, The Times notes,
The government underestimated Germanys nance minister and is being bounced towards a federal Europe. . . . When the crime was made more heinous by linking tax changes to the next round of European integration [which was part of the Euro debate], Blairs inner circle knew they faced trouble, especially with Britains eurosceptic media. . . . From the moment the drama broke, Alastair Campbell, Blairs ofcial spokesman, accused the press of hysteria. But the spin doctors faced a hopeless task.

If we believe the usual ow of agenda-setting effects leading from source to media to public, then we are dealing here with a break in the normal agendasetting process, in which the media activity is an intervening variable in the channel for policy-makers to provide information to the public. Of specic concern here was not only if the media would counteract their sources, but also how they would go about doing so. Since Germany was less concerned with the Euro issues implications beyond the obvious change of currency and banking, the German media seemed to concentrate on this issue and update the public on activities in the banking and stock trading arenas. The applied reporting style seemed to t with what the German public expected from its press, as the relatively few non-neutral sources attested. The German newspapers did not only maintain a relatively objective reporting style throughout the time period examined, but also concentrated on subissues that dealt with

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TABLE 4 Correlation between Euro Opinion and Media Position Public Opinion toward Euro Country Newspaper Media position News style Pearsons r Pearsons r Pearsons r Pearsons r .888a .880a .317a .255a

Source: (Public Opinion): Eurobarometer 52, Spring 1999.

a

Correlations are signicant at the .001 level. N = 998.

nancial (currency, European Central Bank, etc.) and broader economic (national business climate, stock markets, etc.) issues. Those subissues were not only by their very nature more prone to be used with a factual style, but also offered the German papers the chance to cater to the publics expectations from its newspapers. Britain, on the other hand, seems to be a country where its public expects a lively debate of issues, in particular issues that concern Britains leading position in Europe and the world. Quite contrary to Germany, the episodic style was used more often, as it gave the more opinionated British press a means to play out all the drama and personal aspects of the Euro story. Although economic and nancial subissues were still leading topics, they were reported in a way that opened avenues for personal positions. The frequent use of features and commentaries for those subissues demonstrated this. A quick comparison of contemporary public Euro opinion in the two countries (Eurobarometer 52, Spring 1999) supports these points. The data show that opinion toward the Euro is not only obviously highly correlated with the countries, but also shows a relationship with the media positions and the styles in which stories are written. This fact does show a link between the media output and public opinion (see Table 4). At the same time, the more frequent use of issues framing the Euro debate within a larger debate about Britains role in and position toward the EU in general, both from a contemporary and historic perspective, helped the British papers to fulll their role as watchful commentator and protector of British interests in the European arena. The papers position, hereby, seems to be the result of a historically growing political bias of a sufciently diverse nature to facilitate the critical debate in the public sphere (Anderson and Weymouth, 1999). Despite a fairly broad pluralism of opinions (i.e. different newspaper titles) within the public sphere, criticisms persist that the British press leans overwhelmingly to the political right (Seaton and Pimlott, 1987). An article on the Euro debate in The Times from 18 December 1998 was even headlined Gloves come off for biggest press scrap of the century and discusses Prime Minister Tony Blairs ght with the Eurosceptic news editors. Admittedly, this research looked at only two of the 15 member countries of the EU. It is possible to assume that in other pro-Euro countries a more lively

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debate over the Euro is in place than in Germany, or a less detrimental media position in other countries holding out against the Euro, such as Denmark. This is obviously a limitation of the study. It is also possible to assume that the chosen newspapers are in ownership situations that led to the results here. Given the fact though that these newspapers have a certain reputation to uphold and that the issue, while politically a hotbed, does not impact the ownership structure of those papers as such, we are condent that the data are generalizable to the countries media. Also, despite the fact that the two countries settled on different sides of the Euro debate, they are not only both members of the EU, but also part of the family of countries which respect the freedom of the press. This largely guarantees their newspapers equal freedom to report independently on the Euro debate.

Conclusions
General conclusions for mass communication research should be that the source to media inuence ow is not as clear as may be assumed. It seems that, depending on the issue and the medias position toward it, media sources and the media themselves can promote different positions about the same issue, making the idea of agenda-setting oftentimes a two-way street altogether. Second, the ndings support the conclusion of Saideman (1994) that politicians are not only inuenced by other states and international organizations but as well by domestic interests, which in conclusion makes agenda-setting a highly iterative process. The gatekeeper role of the media is augmented here to the point that media can go beyond ltering information but add to it and generate their own. We cannot assume that because an issue is international in scope, every countrys media will have set the same agenda toward this issue. International agendasetting will need to specically put into consideration the culture and environment the research is done in. It will most likely be helpful to mirror to some extent the efforts of cross-cultural advertising and mass persuasion. Cultural models could be useful: understanding a culture and, in the wake, understanding the operation of media within this culture, could help explain why international agenda-setting effects seem inconclusive to date. Overall, the ndings point to the fruitfulness of including story frames (news style) and media position in the international agenda-setting process. Specically, second-level research seems to benet from looking at the news frames, given that they have an inuence on what subissues are covered and how they are covered. There seems to be, in general, an interesting relationship between media position, sources position, news frame styles, subissues and issue effect. In addition, these ndings suggest the need to examine the media to public effects, or the original agenda-setting hypothesis, based on these assumptions. This study found that differences existed between nations and between news frames in how the media position a message and comment on it. While preliminary ndings do not deny the continued workings of the agenda-setting hypothesis, the notion that the media and their sources disagree on an agenda

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as well as the notion that some stories can give individuals different emotional and rational cues about an issue deserves further attention.

Note
The author would like to thank Professor Wayne Wanta for his comments on and assistance in this project. An early version of this article was presented at the annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication,Phoenix, Arizona, 712 August 2000.

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Wood, D. and J. Peake (1998) The Dynamics of Foreign Policy Agenda Setting, American Political Science Review 92(1): 17384.

Olaf Werder is a doctoral candidate and an assistant instructor in the College of Journalism and Communications at the University of Florida. His doctoral dissertation will address the inuence of values differences on opinions about social/environmental issues. Address College of Journalism and Communication, University of Florida, 2000 Weimer Hall, POB 118400, Gainesville, FL 32611-8400, USA. [email: owerder@u.edu]

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