Asian Journal of Communication

ISSN: 0129-2986 (Print) 1742-0911 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rajc20

The third-level agenda-setting study: an

examination of media, implicit, and explicit public
agendas in China

Yang Cheng

To cite this article: Yang Cheng (2016): The third-level agenda-setting study: an examination
of media, implicit, and explicit public agendas in China, Asian Journal of Communication, DOI:
10.1080/01292986.2015.1130159

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2015.1130159

Published online: 11 Jan 2016.

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 ASIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION, 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01292986.2015.1130159

The third-level agenda-setting study: an examination of

media, implicit, and explicit public agendas in China
Yang Cheng
School of Journalism, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Through two separate studies in the context of Hong Kong, a Received 27 May 2015
Chinese society, this research tests the third-level agenda-setting Revised 30 November 2015
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effects and examines the differences between the explicit and Accepted 8 December 2015
implicit public agendas based on the attributes consciously and
KEYWORDS
unconsciously reported by the public. A total of 1667 news Third-level agenda setting;
reports and 680 responses to a public survey are collected for explicit public agenda;
analysis. Evidence from both studies shows strong attribute implicit public agenda;
agenda-setting effects at the third level, no matter the focus of network analysis; Hong Kong;
the issue is obtrusive or unobtrusive. Results also demonstrate China
that the media agenda is positively associated at a higher level
with the implicit public agenda than the explicit one. Findings
well extend the network agenda-setting research.

Introduction
Traditional agenda-setting theories assumed that the human mental representation oper-
ates in a logical and linear way (Kiousis & McCombs, 2004; McCombs, Lopez-Escobar, &
Llamas, 2000; McCombs & Shaw, 1972). In recent years, Guo and McCombs (2011a) pro-
posed a third-level network agenda-setting model, which focuses on the network-like
structure of individuals’ cognitive representation of attributes where one node can be con-
nected to many other nodes (Kaplan, 2005). As a reflection of the first- and second-
agenda-setting research, the public agenda at the third level, also called the public
network agenda discusses ‘what’s the picture in the human mind’ and explores how
objects (e.g. public issue, political figure, or other topics) or attributes of objects form a
network-shaped picture. Furthermore, the public agenda is divided into two levels: the
explicit and implicit public agendas depending on whether individuals’ cognitive networks
consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly connect two things in their minds
(Guo, 2012).
Underlying the traditional and the emerging third-level theories, the agenda-setting
serving as a theory paradigm develops in the Western societies only, where the media
has the function to monitor the government and policy initiatives (Dearing & Rogers,
1996). Whether the third-level agenda-setting effects exist within contemporary China
as a non-democratic society, and what the differences may be between the implicit and
explicit public agenda networks remain unknown.

CONTACT Yang Cheng ccylove2010@gmail.com

© 2016 AMIC/SCI-NTU
 2 Y. CHENG

To address these gaps, this paper seeks to test the third-level agenda-setting effects
through examining attribute-based media and public agenda networks in two studies.
Study 1 is about a controversial political figure, the newly elected chief executive of
Hong Kong, CY Leung (Chun-Ying Leung). In June 2012, Leung was disclosed by the
media that unauthorized building works existed in his luxury house. This seemingly
easy case quickly evolved into a politically sensitive issue in Hong Kong. Local residents
questioned his personal credibility, political orientation, and the capability of continually
leading the society. In December 2012, although Leung apologized for his own behavior
(Lai, 2012b), his lying to the public and the zero resistance to the control of Beijing gov-
ernment have aroused much anger from the public. Large scale of demonstrations
attracted at least 130,000 protesters in January 2013, although the police said the
number was more like 26,000 (BBC, 2013).
Study 2 focuses on a significant event – the anti-moral and national education (MNE)
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movement. In June 2012, a school teaching handbook was distributed as a curriculum

guideline of MNE (Lai, 2012a). The public, especially young students actively questioned
the handbook was biasedly supporting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and MNE
was a brainwashing tool for political propaganda. A series of large-scale social movements
such as hunger strike and protests occurred and persisted for a few months (Cheng &
Chan, 2015). In October, the Hong Kong Government announced that the MNE curricu-
lum guidelines was formally shelved.
To recap, by collecting and analyzing two databases in a non-western context, this
research solidly examined the theoretical power of the third-level agenda-setting in
China. The relationship between the media and public network attribute agenda, and
specifically the correlation among the media and implicit and explicit public agenda net-
works were explored as well. It is expected that this research can yield contributions from
the following three dimensions: (a) the extension of agenda-setting research in China by
testing the third-level agenda-setting effects in two separate studies within a non-demo-
cratic society, (b) the enrichment of theoretical knowledge of agenda-setting theories by
exploring the effects at the third level and comparing the correlation between media, expli-
cit, and implicit public agendas, and (c) the enhancement of the mind-mapping approach
by applying it on both obtrusive and unobtrusive issues.

Traditional agenda-setting research

The basic idea of news media agenda-setting was introduced in 1963 when Cohen posited
that mass media might not tell the public ‘what to think’, but they were very successful in
telling the public ‘what to think about’ (p. 13). In 1972, McCombs and Shaw conducted an
empirical study on the relationship between key issues of the Chapel Hill campaign in
voters’ mind and contents of the mass media during the 1968 US presidential election.
Their study tested and supported the original agenda-setting hypothesis – the transfer
of salience from the media agenda to the public agenda, which was well known as the
first-level agenda setting. Since then, hundreds of empirical studies have been conducted
to support the evidence of the agenda-setting effects (Kiousis & McCombs, 2004;
McCombs et al., 2000; McCombs & Shaw, 1972; Winter & Eyal, 1981). In performing
the first-level research, scholars identified the media agenda by content analyzing news
stories, measured the public agenda by asking survey questions, and then compared the
 ASIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION 3

rank order of objects to determine the relationship between the media and the public
agenda (McCombs, 2005, 2014).
Through a steady theoretical development, the agenda-setting research has evolved into
the second-level in 1990s. McCombs et al. (2000) proposed that not only a set of objects,
but also the attributes of objects or issues ‘fill out the picture of each object’ (p. 78), which
refer to any specific quality or characteristics that detail the image of an object or issue.
These attributes were assumed to occur discretely with the object salience, being empha-
sized by the news media and affecting the salience of those attributes in the public’s mind
(Golan & Wanta, 2001; Kim, Kiousis, & Xiang, 2015; McCombs, Llamas, Lopez-Escobar,
& Rey, 1997). A detailed example was Kim et al. (2015)’s study in a business communi-
cation context, where corporate attributes (substantive attributes) and the tone of attri-
butes (affective attributes) were coded from online communication messages and
ranked by the importance to describe the dominant business corporations. Results
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showed that a positive connection exists between the media and online consumers’
agenda in a business context.

Third-level agenda-setting studies

Guo and McCombs (2011a, 2011b) proposed the third-level agenda-setting model to refine
the first- and second-level theories based on the following three assumptions. First, tra-
ditional agenda-setting assumed that the human cognitive representation operates linearly
in learning or perceiving the world, however, research showed that cognitive representation
of attributes, or objects or a mix of both can be presented as a network-like structure (Kaplan,
2005). Individuals can achieve information by searching the connected nodes in the memory
network for specific information and re-stimulating it in the working memory (Lang, 2000).
Hence, the third-level research theorized that when people describe an object, for example
social media, they can easily generate a network-shaped picture and connect the most
readily retrievable information such as Facebook with other information in individuals’
memory network such as Mark Zuckerberg as the chief executive officer of Facebook.
Second, traditional agenda-setting research emphasized on the salience of discrete
objects and attributes, while the third-level approach argued that the news media not
only tell us ‘what to think about’ and ‘how to think about it’, they can also tell us ‘what
and how to associate’ (Vu, Guo, & McCombs, 2014, p. 669). The more often news
media associate issues and attributes at the same time, the more likely the public correlates
them together (Lang, 2000). Thus, the media agenda, also called the media network agenda
consists of attributes, objects, or combinations of objects and attributes (Guo, Vu, &
McCombs, 2012). Accordingly, the public network agenda describes how the attributes
or objects, or both of them associate together and form a network-shaped picture in the
public’s mind. The third-level agenda-setting model hypothesized that the news media
network agenda should be theoretically connected with the public or other network
agendas by the transmission of issues or attributes (Guo et al., 2012).
Thirdly, the third-level agenda-setting model assumed that two levels of public agenda
exist, which refer to the implicit and explicit public agendas. ‘Implicit’ here means uncon-
scious, indirect, and automatic (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). When individuals connect
two things in their minds implicitly, they do not elaborate the relationship or may not
even notice the connections. In contrast, the explicit public agenda refer to a conscious,
 4 Y. CHENG

direct, and controlled cognitive network in the human mind. Operationally, the traditional
survey approach only tests implicit association of public agenda attributes by asking
respondents questions such as ‘what would you tell your friends about a certain political
candidate?’ (Kim & McCombs, 2007, p. 304). In contrast, this third-level approach pro-
vides a more accurate method to examine both the public’s explicit and implicit associ-
ations of elements (Guo, 2012). The mind-mapping survey is adopted to test the
explicit meanings of connections by asking respondents to directly draw lines and
connect any pair of attributes. The relationship (i.e. explicit association) between elements
is determined according to the explicit connections elaborated by respondents themselves
on the mind-mapping survey sheets. The implicit public agenda is made according to
words unconsciously written by participants (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995).
To test the third-level agenda-setting theory, several empirical studies have been con-
ducted. For example, the attributes of network relationships between the media and public
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agenda were supported by studies in the state of Texas, USA (Guo & McCombs, 2011a,
2011b). Data showed that the correlation coefficient between the media and public
agenda at the third level is close to the one at the second-level. In 2014, Vu et al. extended
the third-level research to the national level of the USA and supported the agenda-setting
effects based on object-based agenda networks. Vargo, Guo, McCombs, and Shaw (2014)
further validated the network agenda-setting effects by using the big database on Twitter.
In the Chinese context, Cheng and Chan (2015) found a strong third-level agenda-
setting effect based on attribute-based networks. However, only studying one typical
case in China may lack the power of concluding that the third-level agenda-setting
effects do exist in a non-democratic society. As scholars suggested (Demers, Craff,
Choi, & Pessin, 1989; McCombs, Shaw, & Weaver, 2014), the obtrusiveness of issues influ-
ences the media setting effects on the public agenda at the first- and second- level. For
example, the public may easily understand the topic of inflation because of the high
food price. While, unobtrusive issues such as the Iraq war may stay far away from their
daily life. The obtrusiveness of an issue depends on the audience’s personal experience
with the topic and can become a contingent factor that influences the network agenda-
setting effects.
Furthermore, the examination of the relationship between the media and explicit and
implicit public network agendas remains lacking. As Greenwald and Banaji (1995) pro-
posed, compared with the explicit cognitive processing, individuals may connect two
things in their minds implicitly without even realizing the connections they made. As
such, the media agenda may become easier to influence the implicit public agenda than
the explicit one (Guo, 2012). Thus, more empirical studies should be conducted to
verify the findings and enrich the non-Western third-level literature review.
To address these gaps, this paper included two studies as a solid testing of the third-
level agenda-setting effects in China. First, in both studies (Study 1 discussed an obtrusive
issue; Study 2 focused on an unobtrusive issue), the third-level agenda-setting effects were
tested. Second, the relationship between the media and explicit public agenda were tested
in H1a and H1b. The relationship between the media and implicit public network agenda
were examined in H2a and H2b. The differences between the public explicit and implicit
associations with the media agenda provided another layer of research focus in H3a and
H3b:
 ASIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION 5

H1a: In Study 1, there is a significant positive correlation between the media and expli-
cit public agenda at the third level.
H1b: In Study 2, there is a significant positive correlation between the media and expli-
cit public agenda at the third level.
H2a: In Study 1, there is a significant positive correlation between the media and
implicit public agenda at the third level.
H2b: In Study 2, there is a significant positive correlation between the media and
implicit public agenda at the third level.
H3a: In Study 1, the media agenda is positively correlated at a higher level with the
implicit public agenda than the explicit one at the third level.
H3b: In Study 2, the media agenda is positively correlated at a higher level with the
implicit public agenda than the explicit one at the third level.
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Study 1: method
Concerning the applicability of Western-originated agenda-setting theories in a Chinese
context, this study adopted a case study approach to explore how the media and public
attribute agenda were correlated. Pattern matching between the data collection and stipu-
lated agenda-setting hypotheses were systematically organized in the case of CY Leung’s
scandal (Yin, 2014).

Data collection
A self-administered survey was conducted to collect data for the public attribute network
agenda. The sample group was Chinese residents in Hong Kong. Compared with the tra-
ditional surveys where only implicit connections between issues or attributes were
explored, the instrument adopted for this study was a mind-mapping approach in measur-
ing both explicit and implicit associations of public attributes, which has already been
widely applied in fields such as communication, advertising, and education (e.g. Anon-
ymous, 2000; Guo & McCombs, 2011a, 2011b; Paxman, 2011). Participants reported
that they were familiar with the issue of CY Leung, and then they were asked to write
down attributes that they first came up in minds and expand extra branches and sub-
branches of these attributes as fast as they could (McCutchin, 2008). Meanwhile, they
explicitly drew lines between attributes to specify the explicit connections. Thus, in
current survey study, respondents were able to write down a maximum number of
words (i.e. 6 words) describing the features of CY Leung, which represented as an obtru-
sive issue. Meanwhile, they could draw lines to connect any pair of attributes if they per-
ceived the two attributes were related.
The multistage sampling method was applied to collect self-reported surveys during a
33-day span from 13 March to 15 April 2013. Two universities were first randomly
selected from a list of public funded institutions identified by the University Grants
Committee (Education Bureau, 2012). Then two classes from each university were ran-
domly drawn based on class schedules. In the final stage, this study collected 337 com-
pleted surveys from university students (minimum response rate: 91%). The sample
 6 Y. CHENG

consisted of 124 (37%) men and 213 (63%) women. Fifty-eight per cent of the respon-
dents fell into the 18–24 age range. As for the level of education, 216 (64%) of respon-
dents were postgraduates. Among all participants, 262 (78%) came from Hong Kong, 72
(21%) came from Mainland China, and 3 (1%) came from other areas such as Macao or
Taiwan.
Regarding the media attribute agenda, data were collected from WiseNews, which is a
widely used database covering more than 1500 full-text news from newspapers, magazines,
and websites in Greater China, and allowing a keyword search with prompt results of rel-
evant news. Over a period of 16 weeks (111 days) ranging from 21 June to 10 December
2012, an online keyword search of ‘Chun-ying Leung’ or ‘CY Leung’ or ‘Chief Executive’
was conducted on WiseNews. Results were confined to four representative local newspa-
pers with different political positions, which included Hong Kong Economic Journal, Ta
Kung Pao, Apple Daily, and Ming Pao. Among the total number (9030) of news reports
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collected, every 10th report was systematically sampled out of the pool, meaning a total
of 903 news articles were used for the content analysis.

Coding scheme
Building upon previous issue categories (e.g. Guo, 2012; Kim & McCombs, 2007), two
coders reviewed hundreds of news articles and public descriptions of CY Leung to
revise and finalize the issue list. Issue terms were further classified into eight broad cat-
egories to provide a rigorous test of the attribute agenda-setting effects: (a) political orien-
tation refers to an orientation that characterizes the thinking of a person, for example,
‘Leung is a communist’, (b) biographical background refers to an account of the personal
life such as ‘born in Hong Kong, Leung was a chartered surveyor’, (c) personal credibility
means descriptions demonstrating discussions of a person’s trustworthy and reliability
such as ‘Leung lied to the public’, (d) style and personality refers to descriptions of the per-
sonal traits and patterns of behavior such as ‘Leung was nicknamed as the wolf of Hong
Kong by detractors’, (e) morality refers to assertions on the person’s principles of conduct
such as ‘Leung may use millions of dollars for bribery in the election’, (f) competence
means the ability to lead successfully or not, for example, ‘Leung has the strong leadership’,
(g) support and endorsement means the public support or approval given to politicians,
and (h) policy addresses refer to those policies announced by Leung.
The inter-coder reliability was established by randomly selecting 10% of the sample
(903 coded news articles and 337 public surveys) for every coder to analyze. The inter-
coder reliability was 0.82 for media attributes’ categories and 0.76 for public attributes’ cat-
egories by applying Krippendorff’s alpha (Hayes & Krippendorff, 2007).

Study 1: results
To test H1a and H2a, eight major attributes (i.e. political orientation, biographical back-
ground, personal credibility, style and personality, competence, morality, support and
endorsement, and policy addresses) were included for analysis. Findings showed how
these descriptive attributes are connected with each other in the news media and the
public’s mind. The network associate analysis was applied to test the third-level agenda-
setting effects.
 ASIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION 7

To present the media network agenda portraying CY Leung’s attributes, a matrix of 8

rows * 8 columns was created. Each row or column represented the above mentioned eight
descriptive attributes of CY Leung. Each cell in the matrix calculated the frequency of co-
occurrence of any two attributes in the same news article. For example, if the two attributes
‘morality’ and ‘competence’ appear together in eight news articles, the entry is 8 in the cell
corresponding to the two attributes in the matrix; if the two attributes ‘competence’ and
‘support and endorsement’ occur together in 23 news articles, accordingly the entry is 23
in the cell.
To measure the implicit public network agenda, a matrix of 8 rows * 8 columns was
created. The number in each cell of the matrix represents the relationship between two
attributes by calculating their co-occurrence in the same respondent’s narrative. Based
on the survey data, if two attributes, for instance ‘morality’ and ‘competence’ appear
together in 32 respondents’ descriptions, the entry is 32 in the cell corresponding to the
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two attributes in the matrix. Moreover, the more frequent the co-occurrence appears,
the stronger the relationship exists between ‘morality’ and ‘competence’.
To transfer the mind-mapping survey data and test the explicit association between
elements, a matrix was created in a similar way with each row or column representing
a descriptive attribute of CY Leung. However, different with the implicit public network
agenda, each cell in the explicit public network agenda was determined according to the
explicit connections made by respondents themselves on the mind-mapping survey
sheets. For instance, the entry of the cell that corresponds to ‘morality’ and ‘competence’
is 42, which means 42 out of 337 participants make explicit connections by drawing direct
lines between the attributes ‘morality’ and ‘competence’ in the mind-mapping surveys.
To test the relationship between the media and implicit and explicit public network
agendas, the Quadratic Assignment Procedure (QAP) correlation in UCINET 6 (Borgatti,
Everett, & Freeman, 2002) was applied. Table 1 shows that media and public attribute
network agenda were significantly correlated with each other (r = 0.50, p < .001). Specifi-
cally, the media agenda was positively correlated with both explicit (r = 0.46, p < .05) and
implicit (r = 0.48, p < .01) public agendas. Thus, H1a and H2a were supported.
For H3a, I preformed the nested model comparison in Amos 20 to assess whether the
correlation coefficient between the media and implicit public agenda was significantly
larger than the one between the media and explicit public agenda. Two models were con-
structed: the first one was regarded as the correct model; the second one assumed that no
significant differences exist between the two correlation coefficients. The resulting Chi-

Table 1. The third-level agenda-setting effects in Study 1 and Study 2.

Study 1 Study 2
Implicit public Explicit public Public Implicit public Explicit public Public
agenda agenda agenda agenda agenda agenda
Correlation r r r r r r
coefficient
Media agenda 0.48** 0.46* 0.50*** 0.88** 0.79** 0.85***
Note: Figures are standardized Pearson (r) correlation coefficients.
*p < .05
**p < .01
***p < .001
 8 Y. CHENG

square value was 7.91 (p < .01), which increased the variance and rejected the second
model in comparison, and revealed the salience of the relationship network of attributes
on the media agenda was positively associated at a higher level (0.48 > 0.46) with the
implicit public salience (r = 0.48, p < .01) than the explicit public salience of this attribute
network (r = 0.46, p < .05). In other words, the media seems to have the stronger agenda-
setting power in influencing implicit attribute public agenda than the explicit one. There-
fore, H3a was supported.

Study 2: method
In Study 2, I traced the description about MNE on the media coverage and public’s mind.
According to the mind-mapping approach used in Study 1, the original survey design of
this study should require respondents to write down up to 10 words to describe features of
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the MNE and draw lines between the words that they perceived interrelated (Cheng &
Chan, 2015). However, results of the pilot test showed this issue was unobtrusive and
respondents could only recall limited words of descriptions on MNE. Thus, the survey
design was adjusted to assist respondents in answering the survey questions (Cheng &
Chan, 2015). The focus group and interviews were conducted first to generate the
public’s narrative about the MNE event, then researchers summarized a group of 30
words from these descriptions. In the redesigned mind-mapping survey, respondents
chose a maximum of 10 words from the pool of thirty words, rather than coming up
with some words by themselves.

Data collection
During a 40-day span from 13 March to 22 April 2013, 365 surveys were sent out to the
same pool of sample employed in study 1 and a total of 339 completed surveys (minimum
response rate: 93%) were received. Among the sample, 118 (35%) were men and 223 (65%)
were women. Participants were 26.1 years of age on average. Three (0.9%) were primary
school graduates, 16 (4.7%) were high school graduates, 9 (2.7%) were junior college
graduates, 195 (57.4%) were undergraduates, and 117 (34.3%) were postgraduates.
Among these respondents, 258 (76.1%) were from Hong Kong, 17 (5%) were from
Macao, 61 (18%) were from Mainland China, and 3 (0.9%) were from other areas.
In view of the media attribute agenda, data were collected from WiseNews. Over a
period of 14 weeks (100 days) ranging from 1 July to 9 October 2012, a keyword search
of ‘moral and national education’ was conducted. Results were confined to four local news-
papers with different political positions, which included Hong Kong Economic Journal, Ta
Kung Pao, Apple Daily, and Ming Pao. Among the total number (3820) of reports col-
lected, every fifth reports were systematically sampled out of the pool, meaning a total
of 764 news articles (736,767 words) were used for the content analysis.

Coding scheme
To collect data of media agenda attributes, this study conducted quantitative analysis using
content analysis of news reports. Each assertion in an article that described a certain attri-
bute of MNE constituted the coding unit. A total number of 916 assertions were identified
 ASIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION 9

by three independent coders and the reliability between these well-trained coders was 0.87
(Hayes & Krippendorff, 2007). Based on Cheng and Chan (2015)’s coding categories, these
916 assertions were further classified into 5 major attributes, which included ‘descriptions
of Mainland China’ (i.e. assertions on the mainland), ‘introduction of MNE’ (i.e. any
description on the process of MNE introduction), ‘curriculum of MNE’ (i.e. assertions
on the curriculum of MNE such as ‘content of MNE includes Chinese history, literature
and art’), ‘public perception’ (i.e. assertions on the public perception towards MNE),
and ‘public reaction’ (i.e. descriptions on the public reaction towards MNE such as ‘a
series of large-scale hunger strike and protests’).
Before the coding was completed, a total of 76 news articles (a ratio of 10% from the
coded 764 articles) were selected for the inter-coder reliability test. The composite
reliability for attributes’ categories reached 0.86 by using Krippendorff’s alpha. For
public agenda attributes, the unit of analysis was each questionnaire. Ten percent of the
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sample were randomly selected for the inter-coder reliability test. The composite reliability
of attributes’ categories between coders reached 0.75 (Hayes & Krippendorff, 2007).

Study 2: results
For H1b and H2b, which were posited to test the network relationship between the media
and explicit and implicit agendas, the QAP correlation was employed to test the associ-
ation between the media and public network agenda. Results showed that media attribute
agenda was significantly correlated with the public agenda (r = 0.85, p < .001). In specific,
the media agenda was positively correlated with the explicit (r = 0.79, p < .01) and implicit
(r = 0.88, p < .01) public attribute network agenda. Thus, H1b and H2b were supported,
documenting a strong and significant correlation between the media and public
network agenda.
H3b asked whether the correlation coefficient between the media and implicit public
agenda was significantly larger than the one between the media and explicit public
agenda. The same nested model comparison in Study 1 was applied by using Amos 20.
Results showed the Chi-square value was 4.69 (p < .05), which means an increased variance
and a rejection of no significant differences between the above mentioned two correlation
coefficients. Thus, H3b was supported. The media agenda was positively associated at a
higher level (0.88 > 0.79) with the implicit public agenda than the explicit one.

Discussion
By examining two studies within a non-western society, current research tested the newly
proposed third-level agenda-setting theory, explored the relationships between the media
and implicit and explicit public agendas on both obtrusive and unobtrusive issues, and
compared the differences between the implicit and explicit public agenda. Theoretical con-
tributions of the results were threefold.

Comparison between the implicit and explicit public agenda

First, this study appealed to Guo et al.’s (2012) call for a more rigorous methodology in
understanding public agenda research and adopted a mind-mapping approach to
 10 Y. CHENG

achieve direct information about the media attributes in people’s minds. Researchers
observed audiences’ cognitive maps at the third level and illuminated both explicit and
implicit public network agendas within contemporary China, which extended previous
network agenda-setting research (Vargo et al., 2014; Vu et al., 2014) by providing a
more thorough exploration of the human cognitive networks and a better estimation on
how and at what level the media influenced the public.
Data showed that in both Study 1 and 2, the salience of the relationship network of
attributes on the media agenda was positively associated at a higher level with the implicit
public network than the explicit one. A possible explanation was when the media agenda
transmitted messages to the public’s mind, individuals might not explicitly realize the con-
nection between the two attributes they have made and thus were much earlier to be influ-
enced by those media messages; while when people could consciously elaborate those
connections, they might become self-determined and less influenced by the media infor-
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mation (Deci & Ryan, 2002; Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). Consequently, the relationship
between the media and implicit public agenda was stronger than the one between the
media and explicit public agenda.
Further, data from both studies showed when both implicit and explicit public agendas
were considered to measure the public agenda, the correlation coefficient between the
media and public agenda (as shown in Table 1) differed with the one between the
media and implicit public agenda. In other words, when the explicit public agenda was
tested in mind-mapping methods and considered as the measurement of the public
agenda, the agenda-setting effects became either stronger or weaker. This finding filled
the gap of previous network agenda-setting research (Guo, 2012) and supported the poss-
ible impact of explicit associations of attributes on the public’s mind.

Strong third-level agenda-setting effects

Second, this study contributed theoretically to the third-level agenda-setting model by
expanding the scope of research. Unlike previous studies conducted in the USA,
current study investigated the third-level agenda-setting effects at a non-democratic
society on both obtrusive and unobtrusive issues. Results from both Study 1 and 2 sup-
ported the strong network agenda-setting effect, which was solidly grounded in Hong
Kong, a Chinese society. Notably, in Study 2, a large five-month gap (from 9 October
2012 to 13 March 2013) existed between the collection of media content and the public
survey, which could work against findings’ support for the hypotheses that the effects
of the media could have largely dissipated after five months (Cheng & Chan, 2015).
However, still the effect of the media agenda on the public agenda has been found very
strong to persist. A possible explanation was, amidst the increasing growth of Internet
and international social media, and as one of the world’s most rapidly developing
markets, China’s media and public agendas were still largely controlled by the political
system (Jiang, 2013; Shirk, 2011). The means of communication in China were operated
as an official organ of the CCP that the CCP’s power and influence were reinforced
through the propaganda apparatus by centrally controlling the media system and public
speaking. Even though Hong Kong was ruled under the ‘one country, two systems’
policy after its returning to China, in recent years this city has witnessed increasing
control from Mainland China for its legal system, freedom of assembly, and free speech
 ASIAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION 11

(BBC, 2015). The businessmen and political leaders avoided any offense against the central
Chinese government and tried to preserve Hong Kong’s stability and prosperity (Hunting-
ton, 2011). Consequently, even a five-month gap existed between the content analysis and
survey study, and new issues such as presidential elections emerged, still the public agenda
was strongly determined by the media agenda on the issue of MNE.
In addition, this paper advanced the scope of third-level agenda-setting research on
both obtrusive and unobtrusive issues. In Study 1, an obtrusive issue on CY Leung’s
scandal was discussed. It was found that the media network agenda was significantly
related with the public network agenda. In Study 2, an unobtrusive issue on MNE was
explored. A significant and positive QAP correlation between the media and public
network agenda was also supported. Consequently, findings from both Study 1 and 2 sup-
ported the argument that the unobtrusive agenda-setting effect at the thirdlevel was stron-
ger than the obtrusive one. The underlying explanation was when individuals were
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familiar with an obtrusive topic, they were less influenced by the media agenda and
relied more on their own agendas (Demers et al., 1989; McCombs, 2014).

Extension of agenda-setting research in China

The agenda-setting theory has been extensively examined in Western countries since 1968,
however, very few studies published in the West tested this effect in Chinese societies (Luo,
2014). Current limited research were only based on non-empirical observations and
seldom adopted the quantitative method applied in the 1968 Chapel Hill study. Other
studies focused on the first- or second-level of agenda setting, while a systematic examin-
ation of the third-level approach in a non-western context such as China remained
lacking.
This study responded to the appeals for more context-sensitive perspectives in com-
munication research (Miike, 2007). It extended the theorization of the third level of
agenda setting in a non-western context from two dimensions. On the one hand, this
empirical research acted as a leading multiple-case study on both obtrusive and unobtru-
sive issues. By discussing both a political figure and a social event at the third level of
agenda setting, it improved the applicability of the mind-mapping research by testing it
on both obtrusive and unobtrusive issues. In Study 1, it might be easy for participants
to understand the obtrusive issue and describe the attributes of a public figure,
however, in Study 2, a pool of available words were needed to make choices when partici-
pants faced difficulties in describing the event as an unobtrusive issue. On the other hand,
young participants in this study might not represent the general public, however they
played an increasingly important role and represented a strong public agenda in social
movements of contemporary China (Fairbrother, 2003). By focusing on the specific attri-
butes within the young adults’ agenda, this study provided valuable data about the
relationships between the media and implicit and explicit young public agendas at the
third-level agenda setting in China.

Limitations
Findings of this article also contain several limitations. First, as scholars (Kiousis, Popescu,
& Mitrook, 2007) posited that attributes agenda shared multi-dimensions (e.g. valence or
 12 Y. CHENG

arouse), future research could explore the affective attributes agenda at the third level and
discuss whether the negative attribute media agenda has stronger setting effects than the
positive one. In addition, other options such as objects or combination of objects and attri-
butes could also be explored at the third level. Second, contextual factors in Hong Kong
such as the ever-escalating public engagement among the youth and a mixed media land-
scape including the oppositional free press and propaganda media machine deserved
future exploration on the contingent factors in agenda-setting theories. Third, as the uni-
versity students might not represent the whole public agenda in Hong Kong, future study
should enroll a comprehensive sample and re-examine the network agenda-setting effects.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
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Notes on contributor
Yang Cheng is a full-funded Ph.D. student in the School of Journalism and MBA. student in the Tru-
laske College of Business, University of Missouri-Columbia, USA. Her research interests include public
relations effectiveness and value, crisis communication and management, conflict resolution, and
cross-cultural communication. Some of her publications have appeared in New media & Society,
International Journal of Communication, Public Relations Review, and Encyclopedia of Public
Relations, among others. She has also presented research papers at international conferences
(e.g. ICA, NCA, AEJMC, IPRRC, and IAMCR), and received the Grunig PRIME Research Fellowship
in 2015, Best Student Paper from the International Communication Association (ICA) in both 2013
and 2014; Top Student Paper Award from the ICA in 2014; Peter Debreceny Corporate Award in the
18th International Public Relations Research Conference in 2015.

ORCID
Yang Cheng http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0321-7956

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