Manipulating the Public Agenda

 

Manipulating the Public Agenda:
Why ACORN Was in the News, and What the News Got Wrong
 Download the Full Report (PDF)

Using the controversy over ACORN as a case study, this report illustrates the way the media help set the agenda for public debate, and frame the way that debate is shaped. It describes how "opinion entrepreneurs" (primarily business and conservative groups and individuals) set the story in motion as early as 2006, how the "conservative echo chamber" orchestrated its anti-ACORN campaign in 2008, how the McCain-Palin campaign picked it up, and how the mainstream media reported these allegations without investigating their truth or falsity. As a result, the relatively little-known community organization became the subject of a major news story in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, to the point where 82 percent of the respondents in an October 2008 national survey reported they had heard about ACORN.

For more information, please contact:

Peter Dreier - (323) 259-2913
E.P Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics
Urban & Environmental Policy Program director
Occidental College

Christopher Martin - (319) 273-7155
Professor of Journalism
Department of Communication Studies
University of Northern Iowa

 

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