Media’s agenda-setting power in Lebanon : the case of the domestic violence law -

Abstract

What is the dynamic that governs the relationship between Lebanese media and politicians? A variety of studies have established that the media – depending on the type – can influence the agenda of policymakers; in other words, there is a positive correlation, indicating that the media can lead policies on certain issues and sometimes influence politicians to take an action. This study attempts to explore the agenda-setting power of the media on policy agenda in Lebanon in the context of the domestic violence law. This study assumes that the media – by extensively publishing news about domestic violence lead politicians to make a demanded change and vote in favour of the law, despite the controversy surrounding the draft bill. To test this hypothesis, the study borrows from previous studies on agenda-setting in public policy and collects data from two local newspapers including a trusted news source as well as data about public policy related to domestic violence. This study codes and quantifies the data and runs a regression to test whether there was a correlation. Results from the regressions compliment research on media agenda setting primarily theories that assume the media leads political behaviour especially prestigious newspapers on certain issues. The regression result indicates a significance and positive correlation between political activity and one of the newspapers under study. When that particular media publishes a story, it increases the probability of a political action taking place.