Media political parallelism and political agenda setting in Italy

Abstract

Abstract The issue of whether and how political parallelism could play a role in the agendadynamics between media and politics is relevant. Yet, this issue has been exploredonly rarely and the findings are unclear. Using Italy as an illustration, this studyinvestigates the interactions between parallel media and the political agenda between2006 and 2011. Based on the analysis of a longitudinal dataset, this investigation aimsto assess whether and to what extent parallel media coverage may have affected thepolitical agenda concerning two policy issues: (i) reform of the labor market and (ii) theaccess of regular migrants to Italian citizenship. Specifically, the media’s attention tothese two policy issues will be analyzed based on the parliamentary questions (PQs)addressed by members of Parliament (MPs).