15.2.2.2 The Issue Intensity Approach
Like the comparison approach, the issue intensity approach draws heavily on earlier ideas,
especially the literature on agenda-setting. The theory of agenda-setting effects posits that
the amount of coverage devoted to an issue by the media can influence the importance
readers and viewers attach to that issue. Media effects in the model of
Str€omberg (2004)
are similarly driven by intensity of issue coverage. It suggests that rational voters evaluate
politicians more on issues covered in the media, simply because they are better informed
about these, and that this causes politicians to work more on those issues.
Chapter 13
discusses evidence of this.
As Cohen (1963, p. 13) famously wrote, the press “may not be