Mass Communication and Society

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Media Salience Shifts and the Public’s Perceptions

About Reality: How Fluctuations in News Media
Attention Influence the Strength of Citizens’
Sociotropic Beliefs

Monika Djerf-Pierre, Adam Shehata & Bengt Johansson

To cite this article: Monika Djerf-Pierre, Adam Shehata & Bengt Johansson (29 Jan 2024): Media
Salience Shifts and the Public’s Perceptions About Reality: How Fluctuations in News Media
Attention Influence the Strength of Citizens’ Sociotropic Beliefs, Mass Communication and
Society, DOI: 10.1080/15205436.2023.2299209

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2023.2299209

© 2024 The Author(s). Published with

license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

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MASS COMMUNICATION AND SOCIETY
https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2023.2299209

Media Salience Shifts and the Public’s Perceptions

About Reality: How Fluctuations in News Media
Attention Influence the Strength of Citizens’
Sociotropic Beliefs
Monika Djerf-Pierre , Adam Shehata , and Bengt Johansson
Department of Journalism, Media and Communication, University of Gothenburg, Goteborg,
Sweden

ABSTRACT
This article examines whether shifts in news media
attention to societal issues matter for how strong
beliefs citizens have about those issues. Based on
an issue signal approach, in which media salience is
conceptualized as signal strength, the study analyzes
whether sociotropic beliefs become more prevalent,
extreme, and certain when news media salience
rises, and less prevalent, extreme, and certain when
media salience drops. Using a four-wave panel sur­
vey dataset collected over a two-year period, the
empirical analysis links media content analyses of
issue salience to panel survey data, comparing four
issues with different levels of baseline salience and
political controversy: violent crimes, immigration, cli­
mate change, and antibiotic resistance. The analysis
shows that issue-specific news media exposure and
issue-specific use of alternative media offer two dif­
ferent pathways to the formation of beliefs. The
hypothesized relationship with news media salience
was supported for the two controversial issues with
high baseline salience (immigration and violent
crimes), but not for climate change and antibiotic
resistance. The results indicate that issue attributes
matter and that audiences may respond differently
to salience shifts depending on the level of contro­
versy of the issue.

CONTACT Monika Djerf-Pierre monika.djerf-pierre@jmg.gu.se Department of Journalism,

Media and Communication, University of Gothenburg, PO Box 710, SE-405 30, Goteborg, Sweden
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.
2023.2299209
© 2024 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of
the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
2 M. DJERF-PIERRE ET AL.

The waxing and waning of news media attention to issues is a pervasive

feature of how the news media operate with media attention cycles, news
spirals, media hypes, and news waves as a few related conceptualizations of
the phenomenon (Geiß, 2018; Vasterman, 2018). Even the most prominent
issues will fade from public view when new problems arise. We have seen
this most recently when news about the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020–21
was displaced by a similar surge in news about the energy and cost-of living
crises following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The aim of this article is to examine if such oscillations in news media
coverage of issues affect citizens’ perceptions about reality; more specifi­
cally, whether shifts in news media salience influence the strength of
citizens’ sociotropic beliefs. Sociotropic beliefs refer to peoples’ perceptions
of societal problems or issue domains, such as climate change, the national
economy, immigration, or crime (Kiewiet & Lewis-Beck, 2011; Mutz, 1994;
Shehata, 2022). In this study they comprise both descriptive or observa­
tional (e.g., “Global average temperatures have increased in the past 100
years”) and causal (e.g., “Emissions of greenhouse gases cause climate
change”) assessments of problems, and the terms beliefs and perceptions
will be used interchangeably hereafter.
The effects of shifts in news media salience on public opinion is certainly
not a new area of study. Since the 1970s, studies on agenda setting have
provided a host of empirical evidence for the transfer of salience from the
news media to the public, demonstrating that people tend to think about
and prioritize the same issues that are salient on the media agenda
(McCombs, 2014; McCombs & Valenzuela, 2014; McCombs et al., 2014).
Agenda-setting research has also shown that both the baseline salience and
the magnitude of shifts in media attention influence the salience of issues
among the public (Geiß, 2019). Our study draws from this area of research
but asks whether media salience shifts can influence the dynamics of
opinion formation in other ways than making issues more salient in
peoples’ minds. Our focus is not on what people hold to be true about
societal matters, but rather on how strong those beliefs are.
By drawing from research on agenda setting (Geiß, 2019, 2022;
McCombs, 2014), attitude stability (Druckman & Leeper, 2012; Wilson &
Hodges, 1992) and attitude strength (Howe & Krosnick, 2017), we aim to
provide a new piece to the puzzle of the role of the news media in the long-
term dynamics of belief formation (Shehata et al., 2021). The study builds
from an issue signal approach, where signal strength refers to the visibility
of an issue and its related attributes on the news media agenda within the
larger information environment (Djerf-Pierre & Shehata, 2017, p. 3; cf.
Higgins, 1996, p. 135). By conceptualizing media salience as signal strength,
the study examines if the strength of issue signals emanating from the news
media influences the strength of citizens’ sociotropic beliefs. Belief strength
 MASS COMMUNICATION AND SOCIETY 3

(Howe & Krosnick, 2017) is examined in terms of prevalence (if people

have beliefs or not about an issue), extremity (how extreme those views
are), and certainty (how convinced people are of their beliefs). The main
research question explored in this article is, consequently, if beliefs become
more or less prevalent, extreme, and certain when news media salience
shifts.
Using a four-wave panel survey dataset collected in Sweden over a two-
year period from March 2018 to June 2020, the empirical analysis links
media content analyses of issue salience to panel survey data and asks to
what extent the prevalence, extremity, and certainty of beliefs are rein­
forced, maintained, or attenuated in response to shifts in issue salience on
the news media agenda. The analysis focuses on four issues with different
salience trajectories in the Swedish news media: violent crimes, immigra­
tion, climate change and antibiotic resistance. Over the four waves of the
survey, climate change sharply increased in media salience, violent crimes
also increased in salience, immigration decreased but from a very high level,
and antibiotic resistance was consistently low in salience throughout the
period, as shown in Appendix 1 in the online supplementary materials.
However, all four issues displayed significant drops in media attention in
the last wave when the COVID-19 pandemic effectively overshadowed all
other issues in 2020. This allows us to analyze both how sharp increases and
steep declines in media salience influence belief dynamics at the individual
level.

Theoretical framework: Connecting belief strength to media salience

shifts
In opinion research, attitude stability and change constitute two sides of the
same coin. Stability thus entails the absence of change: “Opinions are stable
if they sustain or do not change when measured at two or more points in
time” (Druckman & Leeper, 2012, p. 53). The trajectory of belief develop­
ments over time is not necessarily an outcome of media exposure. People
encounter various sources of information in their everyday life that influ­
ence their perceptions of reality, such as talking to friends and family,
personal experiences, and exposure to different forms of communication,
including news and social media (McCombs & Valenzuela, 2014; Shehata,
2022). The mechanism of interest in this study is the specific role news
media salience plays when people maintain or alter their beliefs about social
reality. We therefore consider belief change and stability as potential out­
comes of an individual’s exposure to media messages, that is, as media
effects (Potter, 2011, p. 903). We are, furthermore, interested in examining
how such media effects develop over a longer period of time.
4 M. DJERF-PIERRE ET AL.

Shehata et al. (2021, p. 81) defined long term-media effects dynamics as

“what happens to citizens’ sociotropic beliefs when they are continuously
exposed to belief consistent and inconsistent news coverage over time.” The
authors presented a theoretical framework for analyzing long-term media
effects and categorized several effect dynamics models, such as belief for­
mation, maintenance, reinforcement, moderation, and conversion (Shehata
et al., 2021). This study focuses on three of these models as potential
outcomes of shifts in media salience: belief maintenance, reinforcement,
and moderation (specifically attenuation). Belief maintenance is defined as
belief stability induced by communication; beliefs remain stable over time
when exposed to media messages about an issue. Belief attenuation refers to
the weakening of previously held beliefs, whereas belief reinforcement
entails beliefs about reality becoming stronger over time as a response to
media exposure.
Departing from the issue signal approach, the core idea pursued in this
study is that shifts in media salience should affect the strength of peoples’
beliefs about reality. In their seminal study on the stability of public
opinion, Druckman and Leeper (2012) state that peoples’ opinions about
the world are influenced by the strength and persuasiveness of the stimuli
they encounter. In absence of a stimulus, beliefs tend to remain stable, or as
Wilson and Hodges (1992, p. 54) wrote: “Stable attitudes are those with
stable contexts.” Media salience equals the signal strength emanating from
the news media environment, and the strength of citizens’ beliefs should
respond to the fluctuations in signal strength when media salience shifts.
To identify and select the key aspects of citizens’ beliefs on which these
effects can be observed and tested, we draw from previous work on attitude
stability (Druckman & Leeper, 2012) and attitude strength (Howe &
Krosnick, 2017). In this research, belief prevalence, extremity, and certainty
constitute three significant domains of attitude strength. Focusing specifically
on sociotropic beliefs, belief prevalence refers to the extent to which citizens
actually have beliefs about an issue. It is a prerequisite for the other belief
domains, since having no opinion or perception about an issue renders the
other domains irrelevant. Once one has beliefs about an issue, extremity
indicates how moderate or extreme those beliefs are. Finally, belief certainty
refers to how confident citizens are about their beliefs. Relating these belief
domains to the three effect dynamics, belief maintenance is subsequently
defined as an unaltered state of sociotropic beliefs over time, in all three
domains of prevalence, extremity, and certainty. Belief reinforcement is
defined as an increase in the strength of those belief domains and, finally,
attenuation refers to a decline in the strength of beliefs.
To provide a basis for comparison with the three domains of belief
strength, we also want to examine how news media salience affects how
salient an issue is in citizens’ minds. This is the classic, defining feature of
 MASS COMMUNICATION AND SOCIETY 5

agenda-setting: the most obvious effect of media salience shifts on attitudes is

the shift in citizens’ issue agendas—the news media’s ability to influence what
issues people think about and prioritize (McCombs, 2014; McCombs &
Valenzuela, 2014; McCombs et al., 2014). For this study, we included
a measure of people’s interpersonal agenda; what people talk about and
discuss with family and friends. The interpersonal agenda provides in itself
“an instance of the agenda-setting power” of the media (Shaw, 1977, p. 69),
although the research on the relationship between the interpersonal agenda
and the media agenda is scant and results fairly inconclusive (Lasorsa &
Wanta, 1990). Consequently, we examine if the interpersonal issue agenda is
maintained, reinforced, or attenuated when media salience shifts. This com­
parison allows us to observe whether media salience shifts influence the
interpersonal agenda and the domains of belief strength in a similar way.

Shifting strength of issue signals in the news and the effects on belief
strength
Based on the issue signal approach, the main thesis of this study is that the
strength of societal beliefs should be related to the strength of the issue
signals emanating from the news media, that is, the salience of an issue and
its attributes in the news. Previous research on agenda-setting has shown
that the magnitude of spikes and drops in issue salience on the media
agenda correspondingly influence the salience among the public (Geiß,
2019). Our first hypothesis is, therefore, that both the interpersonal agenda
(interpersonal talk) and the three domains of belief strength should respond
to the fluctuations in media attention in a similar way:

H1: Interpersonal talk (a), belief prevalence (b), belief extremity (c) and
belief certainty (d) increase with growing news media salience and decrease
with a drop in salience.

Still, agenda-setting research also claims that the relationship between

media salience and public salience is not always linear (Brosius &
Kepplinger, 1992; Geiß, 2019), indicating that the public could respond
quite differently to surges and drops in media attention. The salience
trajectories for the four issues in the study vary quite extensively, including
both large increases and sharp declines in salience as shown in Appendix 1
in the online supplementary materials. A key question is thus if citizens
responded to the increases and decreases in salience in the same way. Since
research in this area is rather limited, we pose this as an empirical question:

RQ1: Do increases and drops in media salience influence belief strength

in the same way?
6 M. DJERF-PIERRE ET AL.

Issue specific news media exposure and the susceptibility to media

salience shifts
Thus far, media salience has been considered as part of the general infor­
mation environment, a contextual factor that surrounds and influences all
citizens regardless of how often a person uses the news media. There are
many good arguments for this approach. We know from previous research
that the top issues of the day usually travel across media agendas (Guo &
Vargo, 2015; McCombs & Valenzuela, 2014; Skogerbø et al., 2015). If the
issue agendas in social, alternative and mainstream news media overlap,
citizens develop similar issue agendas, despite having different media diets.
Moreover, research has shown that citizens are often exposed to hetero­
geneous issue signals through incidental exposure to a variety of media
content (McCombs & Valenzuela, 2014). True echo-chambers are indeed
quite rare (Dahlgren, 2021; Geiß et al., 2021; Nelson & Webster, 2017) and
most citizens have quite diverse media diets (Andersen et al., 2021; Fletcher
& Nielsen, 2017).This still does not mean that all citizens are affected by
media salience to the same extent. When Geiß (2022) tested 20 different
analysis configurations in agenda-setting research, all of them supported the
predictions of the agenda-setting hypothesis, but the models that linked
individual users to content yielded richer models of agenda-setting effects.
We consequently need to turn our attention to the individuals’ media
orientations, which in turn affect the extent to which people de facto are
exposed to news media messages about an issue. The next step of the
analysis is to examine whether citizens’ issue-specific news media exposure
influences their susceptibility to salience shifts.
The issue signal approach posits that that the magnitude of effects should
be directly related to the level of exposure to issue signals, and a logical
hypothesis is thus that responsiveness to salience shifts in the news media is
greater among heavy users of news media. An individual’s issue-specific
news media exposure should therefore influence the effects of news media
salience shifts:

H2: Exposure to issue-specific news media messages about an issue

increases interpersonal talk (a), belief prevalence (b), belief extremity (c),
and belief certainty (d) about this issue.

Differential effects of issue-specific exposure to mainstream and

alternative media
Although it is reasonable to assume that heavy users of mainstream
news media are more susceptible to attention shifts in the news media
than low and nonusers, there are still several routes to acquiring an
agenda of salient issues of the day. In agenda-setting research, agenda-
 MASS COMMUNICATION AND SOCIETY 7

melding refers to the process in which an individual forms an inter­

personal issue agenda from different sources (McCombs et al., 2014):
through direct news media use or through alternative and social
media. The composition of the media ecology, that is, the information
provided by mainstream news media, social media, and alternative
media, affects the quantity and quality of signals about various issues
in the information environment (Castro et al., 2021). The degree of
inter-media agenda-setting (Vliegenthart & Walgrave, 2008) differs
between national contexts, as does the level of confluence of issue
agendas in mainstream, alternative, and social media. How people
access the news in different countries also varies: directly from the
print or digital news media or indirectly through aggregators, mobile
alerts and/or social media sharing.
This study is conducted in Sweden, a country where news journalism is
comparatively nonpartisan and homogeneous, public service broadcasting is
strong, and mainstream newspaper readership is high. This means that, on the
one hand, Swedish citizens have more limited opportunities for selective
exposure through partisan news media choices than, for example, citizens in
Southern Europe or in the United States (e.g., Newman et al., 2020). Sweden,
and the other Scandinavian countries, also stands out in international compar­
ison by favoring direct access to the news (Newman et al., 2019). All the above
factors make Sweden a most likely case for finding direct effects of issue-
specific news media exposure on societal beliefs. On the other hand, Sweden
also has a widespread use of social media and a flourishing alternative news
media sector with significant reach (Newman et al., 2019), which means that
access to alternative sources of news and information is generally high.
All these contextual factors considered, we conclude that it must be an
open question whether there are direct effects of issue-specific news media
exposure on beliefs when social and alternative media use are considered.
Based on this we ask:

RQ2: What is the influence of issue-specific news media exposure on

interpersonal talk, belief prevalence, extremity, and certainty, relative to
issue-specific alternative media use?

Issue attributes as moderators: Baseline salience and controversy

The proposed analysis has so far focused on the general effects of salience
shifts on citizens’ issue beliefs, but there are also reasons to believe that the
results may vary depending on the qualities, or attributes, of the issues at
hand (Brosius & Kepplinger, 1992; Geiß, 2019, 2022; Soroka, 2002). Based
on previous research, we identify two key attributes for further analysis:
baseline salience and level controversy.
8 M. DJERF-PIERRE ET AL.

First and foremost, the public’s responsiveness to media salience shifts

should differ between issues with a high baseline salience and issues that are
consistently low in salience. Research on attitude stability clearly indicates
that change is less likely for high salience issues, particularly if those issues
have been salient for a significant amount of time (Druckman & Leeper,
2012). Agenda-setting research has also shown that a higher baseline media
salience of an issue is associated with weaker agenda-setting effects (Brosius
& Kepplinger, 1992; Geiß, 2019). Issues that have been salient on the
agenda for a long time reach a ceiling effect where additional media cover­
age fails to further increase public interest or awareness. Citizens’ beliefs
about issues with low baseline salience are therefore expected to be more
volatile.
Secondly, the level of elite controversy and politicization of an issue
should also influence the likelihood of salience effects on belief strength.
Previous research has shown that news media are highly dependent on elite
sources and that media discourse often echoes elite opinion (Bennett, 2015).
Since elites and conflicts are two staple news criteria, elite controversy
drives news attention, which in line with agenda-setting theory should
impact on the public’s susceptibility to shifts in issue salience on the
media agenda. Consensual issues incite lower levels of public engagement
and interest, and beliefs should consequently be less affected. Furthermore,
elite controversy generates higher levels of message competition in the
information environment (Chong & Druckman, 2007), increasing the avail­
ability of competing views and perspectives on an issue. This should
positively influence belief strength as it encourages citizens to form beliefs
(increase in belief prevalence) Additionally, it allows people to seek out
belief-sustaining information that helps maintain or even strengthen exist­
ing beliefs (increase in belief certainty and extremity). Beliefs about con­
sensual issues should consequently be more stable.
If we define baseline salience as the average volume of messages about
the issue on the media agenda over an extended period of time, climate
change, violent crimes, and immigration, are highly salient in the Swedish
context, whereas antibiotic resistance is a low salience issue as shown in
Appendix 1 in the online supplementary materials. With regard to con­
troversy, immigration and crime can be regarded as controversial issues in
the Swedish context, while political consensus is true for antibiotic resis­
tance and, to a large extent, climate change (climate skepticism has been
relatively marginalized; Anshelm & Hultman, 2014, p. 85).
Although the observed differences in baseline salience and controversy
are expected to influence the stability of beliefs it is difficult to formulate
specific hypotheses to be tested, due to the contradictory qualities of the
four issues in the study. They differ both in salience and controversy, but
not in combinations that lend themselves to straightforward predictions.
 MASS COMMUNICATION AND SOCIETY 9

For instance, antibiotic resistance is a low salience (larger effects predicted)

and consensual (smaller effects) issue that displayed almost no changes in
salience over time (minimal effects), whereas violent crime is a high salience
(smaller effects) and controversial (larger effects) issue with large salience
shifts (larger effects). Due to this complexity, we decided to address the
question of differential effects of issue attributes by posing it as an open
research question:

RQ3: Do the effects of salience shifts differ between issues and are those
differences related to the issues’ baseline salience and level of controversy?

Materials and methods

The analysis in this paper relies on a four-wave panel survey from Sweden,
collected between March 2018 and June 2020, which is linked to a media
content analysis of Swedish news media presented in previous sections and
shown in detail in Figures A1 and A2 in Appendix 1 in the online
supplementary materials. By linking shifts in media salience to changes
and stability in beliefs about the four chosen issues, we analyze how news
media salience influences interpersonal issue salience, belief prevalence,
belief extremity and belief certainty.
The panel survey was conducted in collaboration with the Laboratory
of Opinion Research at the University of Gothenburg.1 The sample was
drawn from a pool of probability-recruited web survey participants. The
target population of this pool is Swedish residents aged 18 years or older.
A random sample is drawn based on the Swedish Population Register
from the Swedish Tax Agency (Skatteverket). The sample is contacted and
invited to the pool of web survey participants. From this pool, a pre-
stratified random sample of respondents were invited to the first wave of
the survey. The sample was stratified based on official census data from
Statistics Sweden (Statistiska centralbyrån) with respect to socio-
demographic variables. In total, of the 3,397 respondents—stratified on
gender, age, education, and political interest—invited to participate in the
first survey wave, 2,291 responded (AAPOR RR5: 67%). The first survey
wave was carried out between March 22, 2018, and April 16, 2018;
the second between December 10, 2018, and January 8, 2019; the third
between October 7, 2019, and October 28, 2019; the fourth between
June 3, 2020, and June 24, 2020, which was during the first wave of the
1
This study was subject of an ethical application and was deemed exempt from full
review by the Regional Ethics Board, Göteborg. The reviewing body gave an advisory
statement declaring no objections to the study (Dnr. 2017/1005–17).
10 M. DJERF-PIERRE ET AL.

COVID-19 pandemic. In total, 3,183 respondents of the original sample

were invited in wave 2, with 1,880 participants responding (AAPOR RR5:
59%), 2,823 were invited in wave 3, with 1,819 responding (AAPOR RR5:
63%), and of the 2,682 invited in wave 4, 1,567 responded (AAPOR RR5:
58%). In total, 1,508 respondents participated in all four waves of the
survey.
The key concepts measured in the study—beliefs about the four issues,
personal news media exposure and alternative media use—were operatio­
nalized using multiple survey items identical across the four waves. Detailed
information about mean values, standard deviations and reliability for all
measures described below are provided in Table A1 in Appendix 2 in the
online supplementary materials.

Interpersonal agenda (interpersonal talk)

As described above, the interpersonal agenda is included in the analysis as
one indicator of issue salience on the personal level. The rationale for this
operationalization is that people often talk about issues they are concerned
about and regard as important issues in society. The question was posed,
“How often do you talk about [ISSUE] with family or friends,” and
response categories ranged from 1 = Daily to 6 = Never. The scale was
reversed before being included in the analysis.

Beliefs
Several items were used to capture a range of beliefs about the chosen
issues: antibiotic resistance (14 items), climate change (10 items), immigra­
tion (11 items), and violent crimes (14 items). The belief items consist of
both descriptive (observational assessments about the state and severity of
a problem, e.g., “More violent crimes are committed per inhabitant in
Sweden than in our neighboring countries”) and causal (“Increased immi­
gration leads to more violent crimes”) beliefs. The items for each issue were
selected as to reflect key topics and arguments in contemporary debate in
Sweden, but many are also salient in other countries—e.g., the debate about
whether climate change is real and if humans are the primary cause. The
details about the different items are available in Appendix 2 in the online
supplementary materials. The items followed from the overall question:
“Different claims are sometimes heard in public discourse about [ISSUE].
To what extent do you agree with the following statements?” Responses to
each of the statements were registered on a five-point scale ranging from 1
= Not at all to 5 = Completely, along with a separate “Don’t know” option.
The belief items were used to construct the belief prevalence and belief
extremity measures for each issue, as described below.
 MASS COMMUNICATION AND SOCIETY 11

Belief prevalence
To measure the prevalence of beliefs, we used the “don’t know” responses
for each of all the 48 statements about the four issues. Thus, each belief item
was dichotomized with 0 = Don’t know and all other positional responses
coded as 1. For each issue, these items were then averaged into a belief
prevalence index, with high values representing positional responses on
many items within a specific issue, and low numbers representing many
“don’t know” responses.

Belief extremity
Belief extremity is defined as how extreme the views of the respondents are,
which was measured by using the responses from all 48 statements of issue
beliefs. We used the established folding procedure, whereby each survey
item is recoded so that low numbers represent a weak/moderate belief
position on the original 5-point scale, while high numbers represent end-
point responses in either direction using the following recoding: 3 = 0, 2 &
4 = 1, 1 & 5 = 2 (Levendusky & Malhotra, 2016; Wojcieszak & Rojas, 2011).
The don’t know option was excluded from this procedure. An additive
index of these folded items was then created for each issue.

Belief certainty
One item was used to measure how certain respondents are about their
beliefs. The wording was: “When you think about the questions you just
answered, how certain are you about the perceptions of [ISSUE]?” This
question was posed after all the statements about each issue. The response
categories ranged from 1 = Not certain at all to 7 = Completely certain.

Correlations between the four outcome variables

Correlations between our four outcome variables—interpersonal talk, belief
prevalence, extremity, and certainty—are presented in Table A2 in
Appendix 2 in the online supplementary materials. As expected, the differ­
ent indicators are positively correlated, ranging from relatively low correla­
tions between prevalence and extremity (average r ≈ 0.1 across the four
issues) to relatively high correlations (average r ≈ 0.5) between extremity
and certainty. The latter indicates that more extreme beliefs are generally
held with higher levels of certainty.

Issue-specific mainstream news exposure

To measure issue-specific mainstream news exposure, we used a linkage
measure combining the frequency of use of mainstream news media outlets
weighted by the salience of each issue on the media agenda. News media
12 M. DJERF-PIERRE ET AL.

use was measured on a 6-point scale ranging from 1 = Never to 6 = Daily for
the question “How often do you consume news from the following news
media (on their traditional platforms or online)?” followed by a list of the
most prominent mainstream news media outlets in Sweden. These included
Sveriges Radio (public service), Sveriges Television (public service), TV4
Nyheterna (commercial), Dagens Nyheter (broadsheet), Svenska Dagbladet
(broadsheet), Aftonbladet (tabloid), Expressen (tabloid), and Göteborgs-
Posten (broadsheet). Respondents could also report news media use by
indicating another local/regional newspaper (not specified), measured on
the same 6-point scale. An index of the scores for each included medium
was constructed as a measure of an individual’s total news media use. The
scores were summed and averaged across outlets.
To allow for a linkage analysis at the individual level, respondents’ total news
usage was weighted by the salience of each issue in the news media, based on the
content data presented in Figure A2 in Appendix 1 in the online supplementary
materials. For each issue and wave, we thus created a measure based on the
relative salience of the issue on the overall news media agenda and each
individual’s total news media use. Higher values on the linkage measure
correspond not only to a higher likelihood of being exposed to the specific
issue in mainstream news media, but also to a higher dosage of exposure—
which is relevant to the type of cumulative media effects of addresses here.
Finally, the linkage variables were rescaled to range between 0–1.

Issue-specific alternative media use

To measure alternative media use we departed from Holt et al. (2019, p. 860)
relational definition of alternative media: “Alternative news media position
themselves as correctives of the mainstream news media, as expressed in
editorial agendas or statements and/or are perceived as such by their audiences
or third-parties.” The term alternative media is often used quite loosely to
describe media outlets that promote nationalist and populist discourses
(describing reality from an extremist right-wing ideological stance). The rela­
tional definition allows for the inclusion of a variety of outlets by letting the
respondents decide what they regard as alternative. Issue-specific alternative
media use was thus measured through an item where use of news sites and
social media was contrasted to traditional news media. The question was posed
“To what extent do you use news sites and social media to receive news that
provides an alternative depiction of the following issues?” The items following
this question were: “News about crime and criminality,” “News about the
environment and climate change,” “News about medicine and health,” and
“News about integration and immigration.” The response categories ranged
from 1 = Never to 6 = Daily. Similar to the linkage measures, this variable was
rescaled to range between 0–1.
 MASS COMMUNICATION AND SOCIETY 13

Modeling strategy
To estimate the effect of issue salience in the news media on each of our
outcome variables at the individual level, we used the panel structure of our
data to estimate two types of models. First, we used the wave dummies
from fixed-effects panel models to assess the general effects of issue salience
in the media on interpersonal talk, belief prevalence, certainty, and extre­
mity. This approach tests whether aggregate issue salience shifts on the
media agenda are related to belief changes at the individual level across the
sample. Second, we used fixed effects panel models to also estimate within-
person effects of issue-specific mainstream news media and alternative
media use on the belief outcomes. These models capture how intra-
individual changes in news exposure are related to interpersonal talk, belief
prevalence, extremity, and certainty, over time and account for stable
unobserved heterogeneity between respondents. To assess the sensitivity
of these findings, we also tested a number of alternative model specifica­
tions (pooled ordinary least squares [OLS] regressions with lagged depen­
dent variables, random effects panel models as well as an alternative
operationalization of the belief prevalence measure), which yielded similar
results shown in Appendix 3 in the online supplementary materials.

Results
Our findings will be presented in two steps. The first part considers
descriptive trends to illustrate the general relationship between our measure
of news salience and each dimension of citizens’ beliefs, for each of the four
issues. Here we test H1a-d and RQ1, examining the effects of shifts in news
media salience as part of the collective information environment, discount­
ing variations in individual usage of mainstream news media. The second
part takes individual media exposure into account and presents results from
a series of panel regressions, specifically examining how individual exposure
to issue-specific news coverage and alternative media influence these out­
comes, addressing H2a-d and RQ2. Finally, we address RQ3 by contrasting
and comparing the results for the four issues in the study.
Starting with the analysis of the effects of issue salience shifts in news
media as part the collective information environment. Figure 1 presents
findings regarding interpersonal issue salience through interpersonal talk.
Based on a series fixed effects panel models with wave dummy variables as
the only predictors, the figure illustrates and tests how changes of the media
agenda—i.e., increases and decreases in issue salience from one wave to the
next (x-axis)—relate to changes in issue-specific interpersonal talk over
time (y-axis). Data on changes of the media agenda are based on the
content analysis and shown in Figure A2 in Appendix 1 in the online
14 M. DJERF-PIERRE ET AL.

supplementary materials. For instance, there was an increase in news

coverage of violent crimes leading up to wave 2 of the panel survey.
However, this increase did not lead to a significant increase in interpersonal
talk about violent crimes, as illustrated by the non-significant wave 2
regression coefficient (b = 0.02, SE = 0.02, p = .45) in Figure 1. However,
the next increase in news coverage of violent crimes, leading up to wave
3, was related to an increase in interpersonal talk (b = 0.08, SE = 0.02, p
< .001). Also, the massive drop in media salience for violent crimes leading
up to wave 4 (decrease), came with a corresponding drop in interpersonal
talk about violent crimes (b = −0.14, SE = 0.02, p < .001). We see additional
supportive evidence for both immigration and climate change, where
increases and decreases in news coverage were accompanied by correspond­
ing changes in interpersonal talk. However, very little was going on with
respect to antibiotic resistance, most likely due to this issue being almost
completely absent on the media agenda. In sharp contrast to the other three
issues, news coverage of antibiotic resistance was extremely low throughout
the entire period.

Figure 1. Issue-specific interpersonal talk over time.

Issue-specific interpersonal talk was measured at each wave by a single item on how
often respondents typically discuss the respective issue with family and friends.
Estimates are unstandardized regression coefficients of wave dummies from fixed
effects panel models. Each coefficient compares one wave to the previous wave (i.e.,
W2 vs W1, W3 vs W2 and W4 vs W3) to capture salience shifts between waves. The
labels on the x-axis indicate whether news media salience for that issue was
increasing or decreasing between two waves.
 MASS COMMUNICATION AND SOCIETY 15

Figures 2–4 present identical analyses for belief prevalence (2), extremity
(3) and certainty (4). With regard to prevalence, a person who provided
a don’t know response to each of the survey statements on an issue would
display minimum prevalence. Similarly, people who expressed a substantive
position on all statements on the issue would score high on prevalence.
Figure 2 shows that belief prevalence was less volatile in response to shifts
in the media agenda than interpersonal issue salience (interpersonal talk).
Although findings are mixed, the majority of coefficients are non-
significant. Two instances revealed a significant positive effect on belief
prevalence following an increase in media coverage: violent crimes (b =
0.01, SE = 0.00, p = .008) and climate change (b = 0.01, SE = 0.00, p = .006)
in wave 2. These two effects were however sensitive to model specification.2
Significant negative effects relating to decreases in issue salience were
present for violent crimes (b = −0.02, SE = 0.00, p < .001) and immigration

Figure 2. Belief prevalence over time.

See note to Figure 1. Each measure of belief prevalence is an (inverted) additive index
of “don’t know” responses for each issue. The number of survey items per issue:
Violent crimes (13), Immigration (11), Climate change (10) and Antibiotic resistance
(14).

2
Due to skewness in belief prevalence, we tested an alternative dichotomous oper­
ationalization and a logit model specification. The recoded variable captures whether
respondents express substantive positions on all issue items of the battery ( = 1) or
provide at least one “Don’t know” response ( = 0). The two positive effects for violent
crimes and climate change turned non-significant in this specification.
16 M. DJERF-PIERRE ET AL.

(b = −0.01, SE = 0.00, p = .003) in wave 4. Taken together, there is little

evidence for substantive belief prevalence effects due to changes in issue
salience—apart from the consistent negative effects in wave 4, during the
pandemic.
Similar differences were evident for our third indicator, belief extremity,
as illustrated in Figure 3. Based on the folding procedure, perceptions of
violent crimes (b = −0.02, SE = 0.01, p = .005) became significantly less
extreme in the fourth panel wave, which was also the case in both wave 2
(b = −0.02, SE = 0.01, p = .004) and wave 4 (b = −0.03, SE = 0.01, p = .001)
for immigration. However, apart from a hypothesis-supporting positive
coefficient for climate change in wave 2 (b = 0.04, SE = 0.01, p < .001), an
opposite pattern emerges for wave 3 and 4.
For certainty, violent crimes displayed a pattern most clearly supporting
the basic hypothesis as shown in Figure 4. Increased issue salience at wave 3
was related to an increase in belief certainty (b = 0.06, SE = 0.03, p = 0.017),
while a decrease in news coverage of crime was related to a decrease in
certainty in wave 4 (b = −0.09, SE = 0.03 p = .002). Climate change revealed
one coefficient supporting the hypothesis, with increased coverage at wave 2

Figure 3. Belief extremity over time.

See note to Figure 1. Belief extremity is measured by folding each survey item scale,
with low numbers representing no or middle position on the original 5-point scale
and high numbers representing end-point responses in either direction using the
following recoding: 3 = 0, 2 & 4 = 1, 1 & 5 = 2. “Don’t know” responses are coded as
missing. An additive index on these folded items was created for each issue.
 MASS COMMUNICATION AND SOCIETY 17

being related to an increase in certainty (b = 0.13, SE = 0.03, p < .001).

However, only three coefficients in Figure 4 support H1d while the large
majority does not.
In sum, we found mixed support for H1 concerning the effects of issue
salience shifts in the news media. Support was most clear for interpersonal
talk (H1a). Excluding antibiotic resistance (which had minimal news cover­
age across all waves), seven of the nine coefficients were in line with the
shifting salience hypothesis. For belief prevalence (H1b), four of the nine
coefficients supported the hypothesis, which was the same number as for
belief extremity (H1c). For certainty, only three coefficients were in line
with expectations (H1d).
With respect to whether increases or decreases in issue salience on the
media agenda have differential effects on beliefs (RQ1), decreases generated
a somewhat larger number of significant effects; increases displayed the
expected effects in eight cases out of 20 (40%) and decreases in nine cases
out of 16 (56%). Thus, although far from clear-cut, there is some indication
that drops in media salience more often led to decreases in issue-specific
interpersonal talk and belief strength, compared to the opposite pattern. At
the same time, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic entailed not only
a massive change of the agenda in wave 4, but also represents a unique
context where virtually all other issues were crowded out.

Figure 4. Belief certainty over time.

See note to Figure 1. Perception certainty is measured by a single item for each issue,
tapping how certain respondents are about their perceptions.
18 M. DJERF-PIERRE ET AL.

Turning to our second hypothesis (H2a – d) and RQ2 concerning the

effects of issue-specific news media exposure and alternative media use, our
findings are summarized in Figure 5. For each outcome, we present findings
from two models: a bivariate model with issue-specific traditional news
media exposure as the only media variable (left plot) and a multivariate
model that includes issue-specific alternative news use (right plot). Both are
fixed-effects panel models focusing on within-person variation only.
Appendix 3 in the online supplementary materials presents findings from
alternative model specifications.
Starting with the interpersonal agenda (interpersonal talk), the bivari­
ate model in Figure 5 shows that issue-specific news media exposure had
positive effects across all issues: crime (b = 0.72, SE = 0.10, p < .001),
immigration (b = 0.92, SE = 0.08, p < .001), climate change (b = 1.16, SE
= 0.07,
p < .001) and antibiotic resistance (b = 0.11, SE = 0.05, p = .037). The find­
ings were consistent across waves and issues, although substantially
weaker for antibiotic resistance: the more citizens were exposed to issue-
specific news in mainstream media, the more frequently they talked about
the problem. These effects also held when issue-specific alternative news
use was added—a variable that had unique effects on interpersonal talk as
well.

Figure 5. Effect of issue-specific mainstream (traditional) news and alternative news

(unstandardized b-values).
The figure displays unstandardized b-values from fixed effects panel models. For each
issue and outcome, two models were estimated: one with issue-specific mainstream
news (“bivariate”) and one including issue-specific alternative news as well
(“multivariate”).
 MASS COMMUNICATION AND SOCIETY 19

The pattern was somewhat less consistent concerning belief prevalence,

however. Positive effects were present for violent crimes (b = 0.05, SE = 0.01,
p < .001) and immigration (b = 0.04, SE = 0.01, p < .001) but not for the
other two issues. This pattern remained when issue-specific alternative
news use was controlled for. Additionally, issue-specific alternative media
use had a consistently positive effect on belief prevalence for all four issues.
Notably, the coefficient for violent crimes is weaker, but still statistically
significant (b = 0.01, SE = 0.01, p = .018). Appendix 3 in the online supple­
mentary materials shows that these findings held with an alternative oper­
ationalization of belief prevalence which addressed the skewed distribution
of the variable.
Findings for belief extremity lent additional support for effects of main­
stream news media on beliefs about violent crimes (b = 0.07, SE = 0.03,
p = .029) and immigration (b = 0.09, SE = 0.03, p = .003). While higher levels
of issue-specific mainstream news media exposure were related to higher
levels of beliefs extremity over time, this was not the case for climate change
or antibiotic resistance. The effect for climate change was even negative,
suggesting that higher issue-specific news media exposure to climate change
news related to weaker beliefs. These effects remained when alternative
media use was controlled for. Issue-specific alternative media use, however,
did not have any unique effects on belief extremity.
Regarding belief certainty, issue-specific news media exposure showed
positive effects for violent crimes (b = 0.38, SE = 0.11, p < .001) and immi­
gration (b = 0.22, SE = 0.09, p = .014), but not for climate change (b = 0.05,
SE = 0.08, p = .53) and antibiotic resistance (b = −0.01, SE = 0.09, p = .95).
These effects held when issue-specific alternative news use was included.
Issue-specific alternative media use also had consistently positive effects on
belief certainty across all four issues: the more people used alternative
media for issue-specific purposes, the more certain they felt about those
issues.
In sum, with respect to H2, the findings support that exposure to issue-
specific news media messages about an issue increases issue-specific inter­
personal talk (H2a). Results for belief prevalence (H2b), belief extremity
(H2c) and belief certainty (H2d) were only partially supported as violent
crimes and immigration displayed the expected pattern but not climate
change and antibiotic resistance.
In addition, these effects of issue-specific news media exposure on
interpersonal talk, belief prevalence, extremity, and certainty remained
after controlling for issue-specific alternative media use (RQ2). In most
cases, apart from belief extremity, issue-specific alternative media use also
had unique effects on these outcomes.
Finally, a comparison of issue differences (RQ3) across the eight models
—four domains, two models for each with and without control for issue-
20 M. DJERF-PIERRE ET AL.

specific alternative media use—in Figure 5 shows that all eight models for
violent crimes and immigration supported the hypothesized effect. For
climate change only two and for antibiotic resistance none of the models
displayed hypothesis-supporting coefficients. This indicates that issue con­
troversy matters; the hypothesized effect of news media salience shifts were
present for the two controversial issues (violent crimes and immigration)
but not for the consensual issues (climate change and antibiotic resistance).

Discussion
This paper examines whether fluctuations in news media salience matter for
peoples’ beliefs about societal issues. This effect dynamic has previously
been shown in agenda-setting research, but we extend the approach to
examine if shifts in media attention to issues also can affect the strength
of citizens’ sociotropic beliefs.
The analysis compared the effects of salience shifts on three domains of
belief strength—prevalence, extremity, and certainty—for four sociotropic
issues with different levels of baseline salience and political controversy:
violent crimes, immigration, climate change and antibiotic resistance. The
study’s main hypotheses were that sociotropic beliefs should become more
prevalent, extreme, and certain when news media salience increases, and
less prevalent, extreme, and certain when media salience decreases. The
findings, however, yielded mixed results. We found significant relationships
with news media salience shifts for violent crimes and immigration: two
controversial issues with high baseline salience. Beliefs about climate
change (a high-salience and consensual issue), and antibiotic resistance (a
consensual, low-salience issue), did not align with shifts in media attention
as predicted.
Taken together, the results appear to indicate that issue attributes matter.
Audiences respond differently to salience shifts depending on the level of
controversy of the issue. A possible explanation for the divergent dynamics
observed for consensual and controversial issues is the difference between
one-sided and competitive framing environments (Chong & Druckman,
2007; Zaller, 1992). Beliefs remain stable when there are few competing
frames available. Increased media coverage of controversial issues
encourages undecided individuals to form beliefs and allows those with
prior beliefs to seek out belief-sustaining media messages to reinforce their
previously held positions. Salience shifts can thus contribute to the crystal­
lization, and possibly polarization, of reality perceptions in periods of
heightened media attention, but also stimulate de-polarization when
media attention declines (cf. Wojcieszak et al., 2017).
The effects of salience shifts were measured both by examining how
aggregate measures of media salience related to belief changes across the
 MASS COMMUNICATION AND SOCIETY 21

sample and by linking media content to individual users, estimating the

direct effects of individual-level issue-specific news media exposure. Our
results showed that although effects of media salience shifts were detectable
with both approaches, the pattern was much stronger and more consistent
in the linkage-models where individual news media exposure was taken
into account. This corroborates Geiß (2022, p. 128) finding that user-to-
content linking pays off and that linkage-approaches are particularly rele­
vant when examining media effects in heterogeneous media environments.
Direct effects of the aggregate information environment on citizens’ beliefs
operate through incidental exposure and intermedia agenda-setting and are
thus contingent on the extent to which news media, social media, and
alternative media simultaneously generate fluctuations in attention in the
information environment by focusing on the same hot issues (Azrout et al.,
2012; Brosius et al., 2018; Hopmann et al., 2010; cf. Zukin & Snyder, 1984).
Still, the effects we found were generally quite weak and stronger on
interpersonal issue salience than on any of the three domains of belief
strength. Since the study employed a panel-design measuring within-
person changes in beliefs over time, we should, however, expect weaker
effects. Comparing different research designs in agenda-setting research,
Geiß (2022, p. 130) found that longitudinal designs were more conservative
and thus presented a much tougher test on the theory. Moreover, attitudes
to chronically accessible issues that have been on the agenda for a long time
are particularly hard to change (Druckman & Leeper, 2012; Geiß, 2019).
The latter applies to all issues in this study. The fact that we still find
support for a relationship is therefore notable. When we tested whether the
effect of drops in salience differs from the effect of increases, we found that
negative relationships were somewhat more prevalent. On the other hand,
most of the latter occurred in the fourth wave, which was dominated by the
COVID-19 pandemic.
This highlights some of the limitations of this study. The dramatic
displacement of other issues due to the COVID-19 crisis is certainly unique,
and it remains to be seen whether the results attained in this study can be
replicated under less extraordinary circumstances (cf. Brosius &
Kepplinger, 1992). Although we employed a panel design over an extended
period of time, the timespan is still quite short and belief change should
possibly be observed over a much longer period to identify long-term
patterns. Additionally, even though we compare four issues with different
baseline salience and level of controversy, we did not analyze them in
a single model; such a research design could have provided stronger
empirical evidence for the moderating effects of issue attributes.
Furthermore, a controversial issue with low salience would have completed
the sample. Antibiotic resistance was, unfortunately, very low in salience
throughout the period with small salience shifts, making it difficult to
22 M. DJERF-PIERRE ET AL.

reliably measure how the public would respond to larger shifts in attention
to this issue. Still, the prevalence of non-significant effects in the linkage-
models for antibiotic resistance clearly aligns with both Druckman and
Leeper’s (2012) and Wilson and Hodges (1992) views that stable media
environments should result in stable attitudes.
Although opinion formation processes have become more complex with
the growth of social and alternative media, the four-issue comparison, the
panel design and linkage method employed in this study provide further
evidence for the important role mainstream news media still play in media
ecology. On the one hand, the results corroborate other studies showing
that mainstream news media still have a central role in contemporary
hybridized and competitive political information environments (Djerf-
Pierre & Shehata, 2017; Langer & Gruber, 2021). There were significant
effects of news media salience on interpersonal issue salience—a traditional
agenda-setting effect—as well as on citizens’ sociotropic beliefs across
several societal issues. We also found that the direct effects of issue-
specific news exposure remained when controlling for alternative media
exposure, further substantiating the distinctive role of mainstream news
media. On the other hand, we also found significant direct effects of issue-
specific alternative media use on both interpersonal issue salience and two
of the domains of belief strength, indicating that actively seeking out
alternative information about an issue in alternative and social media
could play an important and independent role when citizens form their
beliefs about societal issues. The linkage-models showed that issue-specific
mainstream news media exposure and issue-specific use of alternative
media may offer different pathways to the formation of beliefs. Still, the
relational definition (Holt et al., 2019) of alternative media applied in this
study makes it difficult to know exactly which news sources the respondents
perceive as alternative, and further studies should benefit from more ela­
borate measures of alternative media use.
In conclusion, this study shows that the influence of salience shifts—
that is, the ubiquitous and recurring fluctuations in media attention to
issues—on opinion formation can go beyond affecting citizens’ issue
agendas, i.e., the classic agenda-setting effect. The effect of salience shifts
on belief prevalence, extremity, and certainty were, however, conditional
on the level of controversy of the issue. This is an interesting finding since
researchers often examine politically contested issues when they are wax­
ing or peaking on the public agenda. Less is known about what happens
to people’s beliefs when such issues fade away. Our analyses showed that
with a drop in salience, people become less extreme and less certain in
how they perceive a controversial issue. This should in turn increase
susceptibility to political communication messages since weaker attitudes
are more prone to change. Salience shifts are consequently part of the
 MASS COMMUNICATION AND SOCIETY 23

larger processes through which beliefs are formed, maintained and, pos­
sibly, moderated. This result provides additional nuance to the ongoing
scholarly discussion about the supposed “minimal effects” of the news
media initiated by Bennett and Iyengar (2008), by highlighting the impor­
tance of incremental reinforcement and maintenance effects as well as
foregrounding the prospects for belief depolarization when media salience
decreases.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding
The work was supported by the Swedish Research Council (VR 2016-02262).

Notes on contributors
Monika Djerf-Pierre is a professor at the Department of Journalism, Media and
Communication at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her research focuses on
journalism, political communication, and gender & media.
Adam Shehata is an associate professor at the Department of Journalism, Media,
and Communication at the University of Gothenburg. His research focuses on
media use as well as media effects on public perceptions, opinion, and political
engagement.
Bengt Johansson, PhD, is a professor in journalism and mass communication at
the University of Gothenburg. His research focuses on political communication and
risk/crisis communication. His special interests are news media coverage, political
advertising and opinion formation during election campaigns.

ORCID
Monika Djerf-Pierre http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7754-0636
Adam Shehata http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8992-088X
Bengt Johansson http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8980-1677

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