ABSTRACT
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other citizen groups aiming to influence public policy outcomes frequently use media-centric advocacy strategies, seeking access to the media as a conduit to shaping policymakers’ issue attention and stance on issues. However, national policy styles differ as to how permeable they are for this type of ‘outside’ or media-driven agenda-setting. This chapter explores the conditions shaping media-driven agenda-setting in a broadly comparative perspective. It posits that this element of a national policy style is structured by two interacting factors varying across and within countries, specifically the institutional context and the issue context. First, macro-institutional structures, in particular media and associational freedoms, as well as a functioning electoral link between the citizenry and policymakers, provide more or less opportunity for media-driven agenda-setting. Second, characteristics of the policy issue being lobbied on make them more or less amenable to media-driven agenda-setting, specifically its urgency, its deviance, and it being related to public goods provision. The chapter illustrates some of these propositions with data on human rights NGOs’ media-driven agenda-setting in more than 60 countries.
