Intermedia Agenda Setting In 2017 UK General Election

In 2017,a “snap” general election took place in the UK,three years earlier than it was expected to take place.The British prime minister promised not to hold a general election before 2020.However,because of the difficulty in pushing “Brexit” forward,she broke her promise.The main target of the 2017 general election was to form a stronger council in May's charge and to push forward Brexit.And it seemed the most important issue was also “Brexit”,and others issues were ignored and weakened.With time went by,the issues ignored at the beginning were strengthened.The conservative party was believed to win according to the poll at first,but it turned out that they “failed”,making it harder for May to bargain for Brexit.What were the causes? In new media age,social media is one of the most important fields to listen to “people's voices”,with the usage of intermedia agenda setting theory.Besides,in a new media environment,the internet makes it quicker to have information.;in the age of big data,researchers are not satisfied with samples in small scale any more,but rather apply computer-based software to analysing endless information.Based on this real and theoretical background,this research aims to compare the online versions of The Guardian,The Times,Daily Mail and social media Twitter using computer-based content analysis and cross-lagged analysis,in order to study whether there is between-day intermedia agenda setting influence in this big data age.