The Agenda-building Effect Of Televised Debate

Televised debate is a stage for political candidates to demonstrate their policies and images,which affect voters in both direct ways and indirect ways through the media.This study took the election of mayor of Taipei,Taiwan in 2014 for instance,and analysed the first and second level of agenda-building effect of the candidates' performance in the televised debate to the public and two kinds of newspapers in Taiwan.This study alsotried to compare the effects of the two kinds of communication flow,and further discuss the degree of importance of mass media in mediated politics.This paper distinguished the agenda-setting theory and the agenda-building theory anew,defining the process that the purposive information sources' effort to affect issue salience of mass media as agenda-building,defining the the function of media influencing the public's issue salience as agenda-setting.We found that Ko Wen-je,the independent candidate,did well in both first-and second-level agenda-building,but the KMT candidate Sean Lien's performance got even no significant correlation with the newspapers neither in first-or second-level agenda-building.Ko Wen-je successfully built the public agenda,but not the attribute agenda,at the same time,Sean Lien failed in both level.Comparing the agenda-building effect to the public with effect to the media,this study found that it's difficult for televised debate to oscillate the public's emotional attributes.Further comparison of the media and public agenda revealed that the media play an important role in mediated politics,and mediated politics is the main model of Taiwan democracy right.Based on this discovery,we suggest to the politicians:when making the strategies,try to affect the media,thus affect the public indirectly,this communication flow should be more effective than exerting influence on the public directly.The result also suggest that the media keep the capacity of actively setting the public agenda despite the pressure form the information source.The new production process of the business media result from the win-win or game of many kinds of structural elements,such as partisanship,commercial interests,and the responsibility as the public domain.When different elements clash,commercial interests and professionalism are their fundamental standpoint.The complexity of the media determined theirinitiative,and lead to the tearing of the structural collusion.What's more,this study discovered evidence that negative information communicate harder than the positive.The public's expectation of evolution,and Ko Wen-je's proposition of "transform the electoral culture in Taiwan",brought about the failure of negative attacks.