ABSTRACT
Agenda-setting researchers have explored various types of "objects", such as news items, political candidates and leaders, corporations and institutions. Cultural agenda-setting explorations constitute an outward expansion of agenda-setting theory, as scholars recognize a primarily centrifugal trend of theory development. Salience has emerged as a key construct of agenda-setting theory and is actively sought by all cultural organizations. The central idea, that the media attribute significance to any "object" or "issue", has guided scholarly explorations for almost half a century. This chapter describes a useful differentiation of media outlets that takes two forms: vertical and horizontal. It then focuses on four different indicators of public salience, based on different conceptualizations of digital activity on the part of consumers: conventional public salience, word-of-mouth salience, mediated trends salience and behavioral public salience. The chapter proposes two case studies focused on specific organizations, providing additional substantive information on agenda-setting influences.
