The authors empirically explore whether and to what extent the content and thematic structure of television news influence the perceived importance of an issue among the population. They present several methodological and conceptual innovations to traditional agenda-setting research. First, they utilise a data set that is somewhat unique in the Czech scientific community. It was constructed by combining data from repeated public opinion surveys and from content analysis of television news; both segments were collected over a period of more than four years. Unlike in most research, the data are not aggregated before the analysis. Second, the authors' choice of issue overcomes the problem of endogeneity that is ubiquitous in agenda-setting research. Third, the authors employ hierarchical linear models to represent adequately the multi-level and clustered data structure and to obtain unbiased estimates of model parameters. Finally, in addition to using standard measures of the intensity of media exposure, they utilise a rather unique set of explanatory variables that represent the homogeneity of media coverage and the relative salience of the issue. They conclude that the media salience of an issue does indeed increase its perceived importance among the population, but media homogeneity and relative salience induce no effect on perceived importance. Owing to a number of methodological improvements, the authors' results are more robust than those produced in previous research.
This article outlines several techniques for analyzing panel data with a dichotomous dependent variable. This presentation is inspired by the classic work of Paul Allison [1999]. An example analysis is presented where public attitudes toward restitution of church property in the Czech Republic is explored using panel data. Here the focus is on exploring changes in the intra-personal agenda of respondents on this specific issue. There are three main conclusions from this research: (1) media exposure and (2) the education level of the respondent increase the odds of the church restitution issue being mentioned by a respondent as being important, and (3) mention of the church restitution issue in a particular wave of the panel survey is negatively associated with mention of this issue in later waves of the panel study examined. These findings are discussed in terms of their methodological and substantive implications., František Kalvas ... [et al.]., and Obsahuje bibliografii a bibliografické odkazy