Agenda-Setting Dynamics in Canada

Soroka's book is the first study anywhere integrating agenda setting in public policy with agenda setting in the mass media. Consequently, it will be read by public policy and mass media experts worldwide. His truly innovative use of parliamentary question period will be adopted as a standard by students of policy change in parliamentary democracies. The work will be a critical milestone in the study of comparative public policy. -- Bryan D. Jones, Director, Center for American Politics and Public Policy, University of Washington

One of the first empirical analyses of the interaction of the media, the public, and policymakers in Canada, this book makes an important contribution to the study of political communications and policymaking well beyond the Canadian context.

Why do public issues like the environment rise and fall inimportance over time? To what extent can the trends in salience beexplained by real-world factors? To what degree are they the product ofinteractions between media content, public opinion, and policymaking?This book surveys the development of eight issues in Canada over adecade -- AIDS, crime, the debt/deficit, the environment, inflation,national unity, taxes, and unemployment -- to explore how the salienceof issues changes over time, and to examine why these changes areimportant to our understanding of everyday politics.

Agenda-Setting Dynamics in Canada offers one of the firstempirical analyses of the interaction of the media, the public, andpolicymakers in Canada and, more generally, makes an importantcontribution to the study of political communications and policymakingwell beyond the Canadian context.