Agenda setting and college sports: Examining the impact on one university campus

This study suggested the possibility that agenda setting theory could provide insight into the interest in attendance at National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) athletic events. The study used agenda setting concepts to test the interest---and/or the lack of interest---in NCAA university-sponsored athletics at one university.;Agenda setting theory points out that the news media has the ability to emphasize one story over another, through a number of different ways. The emphasis of certain stories by the media can lead to the audience perceiving some stories as more important than others, in this case the emphasis of larger state schools over a smaller local university.;The researcher issued a 28-item Likert Scale questionnaire to students within the Communication Department at the university to look at how the students were receiving their sports information and how it was affecting the attendance at the athletic events. Results found evidence suggesting there was not an active interest in sports at the university and those students interested in athletics were receiving a minimal amount of sports information from traditional news media.