Social Media Engagement Influencing Public Agenda Setting

Abstract

Classical agenda-setting theory faces growing challenges in the age of social media. The objectives of this research are to explore the development of public agendas in digital media environments and to examine the influences of social media engagement on the formation of public agendas. Together with the literature reviews on agenda setting theory in communication study, quantitative research with online questionnaire survey was used for primary data collection from younger generation aged 18–35 years who have active social media usage habits and regularly follow social movements. The research findings are that mass media continue to be recognized as a principal institution, valued for their professional authority in shaping public issues, even as social media have emerged as the dominant medium for accessing, monitoring, and responding to contemporary social change, the engagement in social media usage has become a vital force driving the generation and development of public agendas in contemporary society, and that platform algorithms and user’s engagement habits in browsing, sharing, and liking of trendy topics, generate viral momentum and thereby constitute the dual forces converting user-generated content on social platforms into the public agenda. Cross-platform circulation, multi-layered participation, and audience perception become both the threats and the opportunities for transforming fragmented individual views into collective public voices within the framework of agenda-setting theory. Finally, the interplay of media access, user perceptions, and algorithmic governance delineates the contemporary paradigm of public agenda setting.