| For decades, researchers have maintained that the president has a significant role in setting the policymaking agenda. In this study, a grounded theory approach was applied to determine President George W. Bush's success in focusing the media's attention toward policies mentioned in his State of the Union Addresses (2002--2008). Bush's issue priorities were determined by coding individual paragraphs as themes. To identify the frequency of these same themes in the media, the front pages of The L.A. Times, The New York Times , and The Washington Post were analyzed one week before and after each address. Coding was limited to every other speech year. Once themes were collapsed, Pearson's chi square tests indicate changes in theme frequency for subsequent media coverage of speech issues in 2002 and 2006. Results suggest, however, that the speech only seemed to affect media coverage in 2002, which could be attributed to Bush's waning public approval. |
