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SI: Studying Instagram Beyond Selfies
Introduction
Following the rise of the Internet and then the dawn of the
social media era, the mass media landscape has vastly
changed. Today, “mass media” comprises a wide variety of
user-controlled, online platforms, such as Facebook,
YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, which have altered the
mainstream media’s role as the sole gatekeeper of news and
information. Citizens themselves can create and share con-
tent and have greater control over the content they read and
watch. In many ways, citizens embrace participatory prac-
tices by writing blogs, producing podcasts, creating memes,
sharing images, and shooting live video (see Porlezza, 2019).
Therefore, these online platforms often rival traditional
broadcast and print mediums, challenging the traditional pro-
duction, presentation, and consumption of media. This raises
the question: who is setting the agenda? Do traditional media
sources still set the agenda for the citizenry, influencing the
public’s concerns and priorities? Alternatively, in the social
media era, do citizens influence the mainstream media’s
agenda, encouraging professional journalists to cover spe-
cific issues? Or perhaps there is simply a weak tie between
the agendas of the citizens and mass media? Indeed, the
agenda-setting influence of the mainstream media on the
citizenry is well known, but there is limited research on the
role of social media in agenda setting. We seek to extend the
body of agenda-setting research to newer, unstudied social
media sites, mainly the visual-social networking site,
Instagram, on the mainstream media and vice versa.
Instagram, launched in 2010, took its first leading role in
US political campaigning during the 2016 presidential elec-
tion, as every major candidate employed an Instagram
account (Hootsuite, 2015). In January 2015, The Washington
Post wrote an article titled “2016 May Yet be the First
‘Instagram Election,’” discussing Jeb Bush’s use of Instagram
rather than a traditional press release, to announce his newly
released Super PAC (Schwarz, 2015). Throughout the 2016
campaign, Instagram was dubbed as the new digital battle-
ground (Frumin, 2015; Sanders, 2015), with candidates post-
ing snapshots with family members, informative infographics,
graphics of the latest polling, pictures from backstage
moments at events and rallies, and videos of debates, events,
and interviews (see Munoz & Towner, 2017). Undeniably,
voters took notice of the visual, digital war (see Towner,
2017, 2019). During the campaign’s height, Donald Trump
and Hillary Clinton’s Instagram accounts boasted about 4.5
940803SMSXXX10.1177/2056305120940803Social Media <span class="symbol" cstyle="Mathematical">+</span> SocietyTowner and Munoz
research-article20202020
1Oakland University, USA
2University of North Georgia, USA
Corresponding Author:
Terri Towner, Political Science Department, Oakland University, 318
Meadow Brook Road, Rochester, MI 48309, USA.
Email: towner@oakland.edu
Instagramming Issues: Agenda Setting
During the 2016 Presidential Campaign
Terri Towner1 and Caroline Lego Muñoz2
Abstract
Mass media can set the public’s agenda, particularly during political campaigns. In the social media era, the public can now
also set the mass media’s agenda, resulting in intermedia agenda setting. This study’s purpose is to examine the intermedia
agenda-setting effects between Instagram posts and mainstream newspapers during the 2016 presidential primary period.
To test this relationship, a content analysis was conducted, recording the frequency of political issue mentions in newspaper
articles and Instagram posts throughout the presidential primary period. Cross-correlations were then estimated to examine
the direction of the influence of the frequency of issue mentions in newspaper articles and Instagram posts. Findings indicate
differences between the salient issues in traditional newspapers and Instagram posts during the presidential primary. Additional
results suggest a limited intermedia agenda-setting relationship between the issue agendas of mainstream newspapers and
Instagram posts.
Keywords
Instagram, agenda setting, election, newspaper, issue, primary
2 Social Media + Society
million followers and Bernie Sanders with 2 million follow-
ers (Hendricks & Schill, 2017). Those on Instagram not only
shared content from the candidates and campaigns, but they
also posted their images and videos from campaign rallies
and events, photographs and digital art expressing political
views, and repurposed memes, GIFs, and screenshots. Thus,
much of this political content on Instagram is produced and
distributed by people outside of the mainstream press, chal-
lenging the agenda-setting function of professional journal-
ists and reporters.
To examine the agenda-setting effects between Instagram
and the mainstream media, this research focuses on the rela-
tionship between Instagram posts and newspaper coverage
about the top political issues mentioned during the 2016
presidential primary campaign. It is possible that Instagram
captions and hashtags about the candidates and campaign
may influence journalists and reporters to cover top trending
political topics or issues found on Instagram. The relation-
ship could also be reversed: mainstream news covers emerg-
ing and popular campaign topics which users then post
about on Instagram. Considering the latter, we argue that
there will be a reciprocal relationship between Instagram
posts and mainstream media coverage. Hence, this research
is looking for evidence of a correlation between the
Instagram posters’ issue agenda and the newspaper’s issue
agenda. To do this, we coded the number of daily issue men-
tions in Instagram captions and hashtags as well as in news-
paper articles. Then, a series of cross-correlations are
estimated of the top 10 issues of the 2016 presidential pri-
mary campaign, testing whether Instagram posts are a pre-
dictor of newspaper coverage or if the relationship is
reversed. Evidence of a reciprocal relationship between
Instagram posts and newspaper content would suggest that
the traditional agenda-setting process has diminished in the
social media era (Williams & Delli Carpini, 2004).
Agenda Setting
Agenda-setting theory is a well-explored topic within media
effect theories (McCombs, 2005; Rogers et al., 1993; Wanta
& Ghanem, 2000). It acknowledges the important role that
the mainstream media (i.e., journalists, editors, and report-
ers) play in helping to form and craft public agenda
(McCombs & Shaw, 1972). First originated by McCombs
and Shaw (1972), agenda theory demonstrated that unde-
cided voters’ 1968 presidential election issue responses cor-
related with issues mentions in traditional mainstream media
(McCombs & Shaw, 1972). In the years following, agenda-
setting theory has been widely researched with later studies
largely confirming the important role that media plays in
forming citizen’s agendas (Ghanem, 1997; Kiousis et al.,
1999; McCombs, 2004; McCombs et al., 2000; Weaver et al.,
2004). It has also evolved to include two different levels; the
first level focuses on the media informing citizens on the
agenda topics, whereas the second level examines “how”
citizens think about issues or candidates by focusing on the
agenda’s attributes (i.e., attribute agenda setting) (Balmas &
Sheafer, 2010; K. Kim & McCombs, 2007; McCombs et al.,
1998). Research has shown the powerful role that main-
stream media can play in influencing citizen’s political atti-
tudes and politicians, yet the rise of new media (e.g., social
media) is changing the flow of communication and thus, the
direction of political communication. Citizens now can influ-
ence mainstream media.
The 1990s ushered in a new age of media communication.
Emails, websites, and blogs became new communication
tools for citizens to disseminate political news and commu-
nication (McCombs, 2005). In later years, the era of Web 2.0
brought with it a wave of social media tools (e.g., Facebook,
Twitter, YouTube) which easily afforded anyone the ability
to create and post content online and communicate electroni-
cally. The result is that the mainstream media’s agenda-set-
ting power has potentially diminished (Groshek & Groshek,
2013; Sayre et al., 2010; Williams & Delli Carpini, 2004).
The question of “who is influencing who” is not clear as digi-
tal media has become part of the media landscape (McCombs,
2005). This research employs an intermedia agenda-setting
framework, where news can be now shared between tradi-
tional and non-traditional media, is increasingly occurring
and will be into the foreseeable future. As McCombs (2005)
correctly predicted, “Intermedia agenda setting at both the
first and second levels is likely to remain high on the journal-
ism research agenda for a very long time” (p. 549).
Intermedia agenda setting functions within a hybrid media
system; a system “built upon interactions among older and
new media logics” (Chadwick, 2013, p. 4). Social media,
newspapers, TV, and so on are all employed in the delivery
of political communication, which “adapt, interact, and
coevolve” to advance political issues (Chadwick, 2013, p.
59). However, to what extent, if at all, does one type of media
influence another? Research exploring the agenda-setting
role of new online media was first conducted on blogs.
Scholars overwhelmingly have found a mutual intermedia
agenda-setting influence between mainstream media and
blogs (Cornfield et al., 2005; Heim, 2013; Meraz, 2009;
Sweetser et al., 2008; Wallsten, 2007; Williams & Delli
Carpini, 2004). Yet, as other social media platforms rise in
popularity, what role do they play in agenda setting?
Social Media as #NewsSource
Social media plays diverse but important roles in the news-
room. The 2017 Global Social Journalism Study found that
90% of journalists surveyed used social media at least once a
week, whereas 44% used specific image sharing platforms
(e.g., Instagram, Pinterest) (Cision, 2017). Furthermore,
73% of journalists acknowledged that they use social media
each work day, and 48% noted that they would be unable to
work without it. While the perceived primary role of social
media remains to publish and promote a journalist’s work,
Towner and Munoz 3
monitoring other media/what’s going on and sourcing infor-
mation were other essential uses of social media for journal-
ists (Cision, 2017).
Journalism incorporates social media in a variety of
source-related functions: news sourcing, eyewitness con-
tacts, authenticity checks, and profile information
(Brandtzaeg et al., 2015). The general public (57%) is the
most preferred source on social media, followed by industry/
professional contacts (31%), and public relations/related
sources (27%) (Cision, 2017). Research suggests that Twitter
is the most popular social media tool used by journalists
(Brandtzaeg et al., 2015; Nordheim et al., 2018). In particu-
lar, older journalists use Twitter, whereas younger journalists
use a more diverse range of social media, embracing visual
platforms, such as Instagram (Brandtzaeg & Dominguez,
2018). In fact, Instagram was noted as an important and fre-
quently used research tool by younger journalists. Perhaps
not surprisingly, younger journalists reported using social
media more frequently than older journalists (Cision, 2017).
Journalists have become more strategic in how they moni-
tor and use social media—going beyond the platform’s pri-
mary search function and incorporating sophisticated search
and publishing tools, such as TweetDeck (Brandtzaeg et al.,
2015). Conversations on social media range from the mun-
dane to the profane, but many consumer actions and discus-
sions on social media revolve around political and social
activity. For example, a national survey conducted by the
Pew Research Center found that 53% of US adults in the past
year have been “civically active” on social media, with 14%
using hashtags related to a political/social issue. In addition,
social media sites can promote political/social issues often
overlooked or ignored. Sixty-four percent of Americans
reported that social media sites are described well or some-
what well by the statement “social media help give a voice to
underrepresented groups” (Anderson et al., 2018). Therefore,
journalists can easily search by specific hashtags (#) to find
posts on desired topics as well as issues that are underre-
ported. The catalyst behind a hashtag’s creation is often a
public relations/marketing function that organically grows.
Many hashtags originate from concerned or interested indi-
viduals and those that resonant see considerable growth and
media exposure.
In exploring the popularity and relationship between spe-
cific political/social hashtags and news events on Twitter, a
2018 Pew Research Center study found the #BlackLivesMatter,
#MAGA, #Resist, and #MeToo hashtag usage spiked around
related news events (e.g., Ferguson, election), but they also
remain consistently used after these events. Whereas other
hashtags (#JeSuisCharlie) are popular around a news event,
but rarely used after. Among a national sample of US adults
who have used hashtags related to political/social issues,
more are minorities (Blacks 19% and Hispanics 13%), less
than 30 years old (25%), and identify largely as Democrats
(16%) and Independents (16%) (Anderson et al., 2018).
Hashtag use originated out of Twitter but has since expanded
to most other social media platforms and Instagram
(Anderson, 2018).
Researchers suggest that social media civic and political
activity has influenced mainstream media. For instance, evi-
dence was found that newspaper coverage, Google News
searches, and YouTube videos of California’s Proposition 8
on same-sex marriage were interrelated (Sayre et al., 2010).
Social media (i.e., Twitter, blogs, and forums) and its rela-
tionship with traditional media was further examined finding
evidence of a reciprocal Granger causality on certain politi-
cal issues (Neuman et al., 2014). Exploring the power that
social media can wield in political protests, Black Lives
Matter tweets predicted mainstream media coverage of the
movement (Freelon et al., 2016). Further evidence of a recip-
rocal relationship between presidential candidate and cam-
paign Twitter feeds and mainstream newspapers has also
been documented (Conway et al., 2015; Conway-Silva et al.,
2017, 2018).
Evidence of social media’s influence on mainstream
media’s agenda is mixed, suggesting only a moderating
influence (Groshek & Groshek, 2013; Kwak et al., 2010;
Vargo et al., 2015). To illustrate, Kwak et al. (2010) found
that CNN was ahead of Twitter in reporting a majority of the
time. Whereas Groshek and Groshek (2013) found evidence
that traditional mainstream media influenced social network
sites, but social networking site’s ability to impact traditional
media was restricted to specific issues (i.e., cultural cover-
age). There also simply may be a weak tie between the citi-
zens’ agenda and the mainstream media’s agenda. Recent
research examining the agenda-setting ability of dual-screen-
ers reveals an inverse relationship between the agenda of
Twitter users and the agenda of second screeners’ Twitter
users (i.e., citizens who tweet while watching television);
however, second screeners react to Twitter trends in the
opposite direction of the general Twitter user (Ceron &
Splendore, 2019). The latter implies that second screeners do
not have a second-level agenda-setting influence on the
Twittersphere. Overall, this research illustrates that interme-
dia agenda setting is complex and not fully understood. Thus,
these inconsistent results suggest that more research is
needed. In particular, we need to understand the role of citi-
zen accounts on Instagram’s ability to influence agenda
setting.
Instagram as #PoliticalPlatform
In 2016, 32% of US online adults (28% of all Americans)
reported using Instagram (Greenwood et al., 2016). At this
time, Instagram claimed over 700 million monthly active
users, growth outpacing Facebook and Twitter (Instagram,
2017). During the 2016 US presidential election primaries,
Instagram users were mostly young adults (59% being 18–
29 years old in the United States), more often women (38%
vs. 26%), completed some college (37%), and made less than
$30,000 a year (38%) (Greenwood et al., 2016). Instagram
4 Social Media + Society
relies prominently on visual interactions. Users communi-
cate with images and a short video that is accompanied by a
caption, text, or tags to other users. Uniquely, Instagram has
a high character limit of 2,200 and 30 hashtags. Compared to
other social networks, hashtags are used more extensively
within Instagram (Anderson, 2018). Many hashtags used by
users relate to civic movements. To illustrate, in 2018,
#metoo was used 1.5 million times, #timesup 597K and
#marchforourlives 562K (Instagram, 2018b). Recently,
Instagram sought to further strengthen their political involve-
ment by promoting a voter registration website in advance of
the 2018 midterm elections and providing an “I Voted” selfie
sticker. Tapping the sticker led users to a polling location
look-up website (Instagram, 2018a). These recent efforts in
driving political action signal the potential political influence
that Instagram can wield.
Few political science, marketing, or communication
scholars have sought to study Instagram’s use in politics.
Research conducted has primarily explored how US,
Austrian, Canadian, and Swedish political candidates use the
platform as a communication and image management tool
(Eldin, 2016; Filimonov et al., 2016; Hendricks & Schill,
2017; Lalancette & Raynauld, 2019; Liebhart & Bernhardt,
2017; Ludwig, 2017; Munoz & Towner, 2017; Towner &
Munoz, 2017). In relationship to the United States, scholars
have noted that 2016 presidential candidates applied differ-
ent communication strategies on Instagram (Hendricks &
Schill, 2017; Ludwig, 2017; Munoz & Towner, 2017).
During the 2016 presidential primary campaign, Trump
commonly posted attack ads, whereas Clinton posted images
of campaign photos and videos (Hendricks & Schill, 2017).
Employing a content analysis of presidential candidate
Instagram posts, Towner and Munoz (2017) and Ludwig
(2017) found that candidates primarily used Instagram to
cover campaign events and address policy issues. Despite the
different issues and image content communicated by the can-
didates, Munoz and Towner (2017) research illustrates that
candidates sought to present themselves as the “ideal candi-
date” to Instagram users. Yet, there may be little effort by the
parties or candidates to actually interact with Instagram users
on the platform, as Russmann and Svensson’s (2017) research
on the 2014 Swedish national elections suggests.
While some research has explored political candidates’
Instagram use, less attention has been allocated to how citi-
zens are politically using Instagram to discuss civic and
political issues. As mentioned, Instagram posters have uti-
lized political issue–related hashtags (e.g., #metoo)
(Instagram, 2018b). Anecdotally, the large follower counts of
the presidential political candidates, coupled with active con-
sumer engagement within these accounts suggest that these
political conversations are also occurring within Instagram.
To date, however, none of this work has examined citizen’s
conversations as they relate to US politics. Instead, it focuses
on Instagram usage around the 2014 Scottish independence
referendum by Scottish citizens and the 2015 UK General
Election (Feltwell et al., 2015; Mahoney et al., 2016).
Feltwell et al. (2015) followed relevant hashtags (e.g.,
#IndyRef) and conducted a thematic image analysis. Their
findings revealed a variety of visual communication strate-
gies that users employed: referendum-related leaflets and
signs, selfies and photos that display their issue position, and
images of referendum-related symbolic flags and bagpipes.
In a similar study about the Scottish Independent Referendum
(#IndyRef) and the 2015 UK general election (#GE2015),
Mahoney et al. (2016) examine the type of content Scottish
Instagram users post. Instagram images were coded for
themes, such as political expression, symbolism, process,
and egocentrism. Findings reveal that political conversions
furthering the democratic process were occurring on
Instagram. These results, in the international context and
consistent with previous research conducted on Twitter
(Freelon et al., 2016), suggest that political conversions
facilitated by political and issue-based hashtags do occur
within Instagram and have the potential to influence and be
influenced by mainstream media.
Expectations
As previously discussed, the rise of social media sources has
not debunked the conventional understanding of agenda set-
ting. In other words, there is no evidence that the mainstream
media no longer influence the citizenry in the Internet era
(Johnson, 2014; Tran, 2014). In fact, there is an acknowledg-
ment that political communication exists in an interrelated,
interdependent hybrid media system (Chadwick, 2013).
Research on citizen-generated websites, blogs, and social
media sites indicates extending the traditional theory of
agenda setting into intermedia agenda setting. Intermedia
agenda setting asserts that citizen-generated content overlaps
or intersects with traditional media content (McCombs,
2005). That is, one medium is influencing the other and vice
versa. Building on relevant intermedia agenda-setting
research (Conway et al., 2015), we examine whether main-
stream newspapers influenced citizen’s issue agenda on
Instagram or whether the citizen’s issue agenda, measured by
their Instagram posts, predicted the issue agenda of newspa-
pers. We expect an intermedia agenda-setting relationship
between newspaper issue content and Instagram posts about
issues. Specifically, we anticipate that the traditional under-
standing of agenda setting will hold—that newspaper’s issue
agenda during the campaign period will predict citizen’s
issue agenda on Instagram (Hypothesis 1). To find evidence
that the newspaper agenda does not influence Instagram
posters would be surprising, especially as prior work finds
that the mainstream press can predict the agenda among
social media users (Groshek & Groshek, 2013; Neuman
et al., 2014; Sayre et al., 2010; Vargo et al., 2015; Wallsten,
2007).
In addition, we expect that Instagram posts about political
issues will predict the newspaper issue agenda (Hypothesis 2).
Towner and Munoz 5
The latter expectation is consistent with evidence suggesting
that social media content can significantly predict the main-
stream media agenda (Conway et al., 2015; Conway-Silva
et al., 2017, 2018; Freelon et al., 2016; Sayre et al., 2010;
Towner & Munoz, 2017). As Instagram posters engage with
the campaign and candidates, they react to and create digital,
visual content that they share on Instagram. Campaign sup-
porters (and non-supporters), as well as candidate surrogates,
can craft sensational captions, memorable memes, and eye-
catching images that gain momentum on Instagram, capturing
the attention of a keen journalist. In this bi-directional media
environment, professional journalists and editors now monitor
their audience, relying on social media and websites for leads
and trending topics. As prior research illustrates, we expect
that professional journalists and reporters will likely use
Instagram as a news and information source, particularly dur-
ing campaign periods (Cision, 2017; Parmalee, 2013, 2014).
Indeed, several studies conclude that traditional journalists
rely on blogs for sources and topics, often referencing some of
the top blogs in their reports (Cornfield et al., 2005; Meraz,
2009; Messner & Garrison, 2011; Sweetser et al., 2008;
Wallsten, 2007).
Data Collection
Instagram Posts
This study examined the Instagram posts about the
Republican, Democratic, and Independent candidates during
the 2016 presidential primary. To gather Instagram posts
about the presidential primary candidates, a novel, visual
intelligence platform, Beautifeye, (www.Beautifeye) was
contracted to scan and collect images, videos, captions, and
tags of Instagram posts made by regular citizens during the
primary period: 1 January 2016 to 30 June 2016. The logic
for the starting point was that 1 January 2016 marked 1 month
before the Iowa Caucuses held on 1 February 2016. Since the
last presidential primary was held on 14 June 2016, in the
District of Columbia, the 30 June 2016 endpoint was appro-
priate. Beautifeye crawled worldwide Instagram posts,
searching and collecting posts with the following hashtags
and tags: #hillaryclinton, #hillary2016, #imwithher, #clin-
ton2016, #hillary, #bernie, #berniesanders, #feelthebern,
#bernie2016, #berniesanders2016, #donaldtrump, #trump,
#makeamericagreatagain, #trump2016, #trumptrain, #don-
aldtrump2016, #tedcruz, #cruz2016, #cruzcrew, #marcoru-
bio, #rubio, #rubio2016, #kasich, #johnkasich, #garyjohnson,
and #garyjohnson2016. Specifically, Beautifeye used these
hashtags as entry points in their Instagram application pro-
gram interface (API) to gather and download relevant posts.
Any hashtags not listed above were not included in the sam-
ple. This search resulted in a sample of N = 638,977 Instagram
posts.
Beautifeye’s Instagram API carefully crawled username
type and username data for each post. Therefore, the result-
ing 638,977 Instagram posts in this sample include posts
from regular citizen posters and did not include posts from
professional journalists, media outlets (e.g., @nytimes, @
washingtonpost, @foxnews), professional pundits, the presi-
dential candidates, the political parties, official interest
groups, universities, companies, and businesses. During the
content analysis, the first author examined all usernames in
the final sample, confirming that these posts did not include
journalists, media outlets, political candidates, and so forth.
As a result, this sample represents all Instagram posts from
the average citizen poster. We acknowledge that this sample
may include posts from bots or inauthentic Instagram
accounts, as it was not possible to manually identify spam
accounts. Based on location id and location tagging informa-
tion provided by Beautifeye, the authors removed all
Instagram posts that originated from outside of the United
States (except for Puerto Rico), leaving N = 636,100
Instagram posts. We do acknowledge, however, that this
sample may include posts from non-US citizens. From the
636,100 posts, about 1% of the Instagram posts were ran-
domly selected and extracted for content analysis. Therefore,
the final sample includes N = 5,573 Instagram posts.1 All
Instagram posts are examined as an “Instagram Index” to
measure the overall Instagram issues mentioned.
Mainstream Newspapers
To compare Instagram posts to mainstream media content,
we examined four of the highest circulating national newspa-
pers in the United States (MediaMiser, 2016). The newspa-
per sample included The New York Times, The Washington
Post, USA Today, and The Los Angeles Times. The New York
Times and The Washington Post were selected because they
are considered the national newspapers of record, read by
political elites and highly engaged citizens. The USA Today
was included because it targets the more general reader who
has some interest in politics. To include West Coast political
perspectives, we also included the Los Angeles Times. Lexis-
Nexis and Pro Quest were employed to gather all newspapers
articles published in these newspapers during the primary
period: 1 January 2016 to 30 June 2016. To search for rele-
vant articles and editorials in each database, we used the key
term “U.S. Presidential elections,” in combination with “pri-
maries” or “caucuses.” The final sample includes 724 rele-
vant articles. In our analysis, the four newspapers are
examined as a “Newspaper Index” to measure the overall
issue agenda in the mainstream press.
Method
Content Analysis
For Instagram, the unit of observation was the daily post,
including the caption, hashtags, and tags. For newspapers,
the unit of observation was daily content about the presiden-
tial primary election published in a newspaper. The lead
author conducted the coding of the newspaper articles and
6 Social Media + Society
Instagram captions, hashtags, and tags. To develop an initial
coding sheet, we drew upon previous studies that content
analyze issue coverage during campaign periods (Conway
et al., 2015; Conway-Silva et al., 2017, 2018; Hansen &
Benoit, 2001; K. Kim & McCombs, 2007; Tedesco, 2001,
2005). Based on this prior work as well as preliminary cod-
ing, we then randomly selected 20 newspaper articles and
20 Instagram posts for preliminary coding.
The initial coding produced a more detailed coding sheet,
including the major issues expected in an election campaign,
such as economy, environment, and health care. But also,
many issues, and some sub-issues of the major issues,
unique to the 2016 election cycle. Indeed, every election
cycle is different, with candidates and parties emphasizing
some policy issues while downplaying others. In the 2016
primaries, some of these more uniquely emphasized issues
include #blacklivesmatter, climate change, email, and
Muslim. For instance, “climate change” was a highly parti-
san issue during the primary season, with Democratic candi-
dates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders arguing about who
is doing more to fight climate change, and Republican can-
didates Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz signing a “no climate
change tax” pledge. As a result of the FBI’s investigation
into Hillary Clinton’s use of her personal email for State
Department official business, another unique issue, “email,”
was noted in the preliminary coding. The issue “Muslim”
was also included, as Donald Trump’s campaign proposed
to create a policy banning Muslims from entering the United
States as well as proposing to build a wall to slow the num-
ber of immigrants. Many of these unique issues are consis-
tent with recent research focusing on the prevalent policy
issues in the 2016 primary period (Ludwig, 2017; Nawara &
Bailey, 2017).
Therefore, our final coding sheet includes a comprehen-
sive list of 33 main issues and unique issues in the 2016
presidential primary: abortion, affirmative action, banking,
#blacklivesmatter, budget, campaign finance/donate, civil
rights, climate change, corruption/ethics, crime, deport,
drugs, economy, education, email, employ/job, environment,
equality, foreign policy/trade, gay/LGBTQ, gun, health care/
Affordable Care Act, immigration, income equality, military,
minimum wage, Muslim, racial, religion, social security, tax,
weed, and welfare.
With the final coding sheet, the lead author coded the
newspaper articles and Instagram captions, hashtags, and
tags for issue frequencies.2 The newspaper article and
Instagram post were coded for how many times an issue—or
issues—was mentioned, meaning that more than one issue
could be coded per article or post. For example, one newspa-
per article may mention banking five times, the economy
twice, and immigration 10 times. A minimum threshold of
five issue mentions for at least one newspaper was employed
to identify the primary campaign’s important issues.
Similarly, the same minimum was applied to Instagram cap-
tions and hashtags—a minimum threshold of five issue
mentions for each issue in total. Instagram issue coding did
not include coding of images or video. Considering the set
threshold, three issue categories were removed from the
analysis—religion, affirmative action, and weed—as they
did not meet the threshold.
To calculate intercoder agreement, a random subsample
of 10% of all newspaper articles and Instagram captions and
hashtags were coded by a second coder. This second coder
was a political science student trained in coding and content
analysis. We calculated the percent agreement, relying on the
proportion of agreement of coded units between the two cod-
ers. The intercoder agreement ranged from 82% to 100%
agreement across the 30 issues coded.
Findings
Table 1 reports the frequency of issue mentions for the
Newspaper Index as well as the Instagram Index. Instagram
issue mentions (N = 5,248) exceeded the number of issue
mentions in newspapers (N = 4,433) (See Table 1). The latter
finding is not surprising, as Instagram has more carrying
capacity for issue mentions than newspapers. For instance,
Instagram posters have sufficient space to post about an issue
with a generous character limit (2,200) and hashtag limit
(30). Moreover, unlike mainstream journalists and reporters,
Instagram posters have no limit on their number of posts per
day.
The mainstream press and Instagram posts contrasted on
the issues at the very top of their agenda, but overall there
were some commonalities of the issues in the top 10 rank-
ings. To more easily examine the issue agendas, the issue
frequencies were ranked from 1 = the top issue mentioned to
30 = the least issue mentioned in Table 1. For example, the
Newspaper Index illustrates that the top five issues in the
mainstream press were immigration (N = 578), followed by
the economy (N = 339), campaign finance (N = 324), banking
(N = 321), and health care/ACA (N = 300). On Instagram, the
top five issue were civil rights (N = 582), followed by cor-
rupt/ethics (N = 535), climate change (N = 424), gay/LGBTQ
(N = 415), and abortion (N = 317). There are no common
issues in the top five rankings for the Newspaper Index and
Instagram Index, suggesting a divergence in issue emphasis
during the presidential primary. Among the top 10 issue
rankings, Table 1 shows that the mainstream press and
Instagram both place the issues of immigration and the mili-
tary prominently on their news agenda. The mention of “mil-
itary” shared the most commonality with 258 mentions in
newspapers and 279 mentions on Instagram. Yet, newspa-
pers placed “immigration” and “military” much higher on
their agenda than Instagram.
While Table 1 shows that the newspaper issue agenda and
Instagram posters’ issue agenda contrasted during the presi-
dential primary campaign, it remains to be tested if there is
an empirical relationship between their overall issue agen-
das. The relationship between the issue rankings (all 30
Towner and Munoz 7
issues) in the Newspaper Index and Instagram Index were
first compared by employing Spearman’s p correlation. A
Spearman’s p correlation reveals that there is no significant
correlation between the Newspaper Index and the Instagram
posts (rho = –.074, p = .697). The latter suggests there is no
relationship between the overall issue agendas of the main-
stream media and Instagram.
To examine the most salient issues covered in the presi-
dential primary campaign, the top 10 issues were identified
by summing issue frequencies across the Newspaper Index
and Instagram Index. The top 10 issues in rank order were
immigration (N = 767), civil rights (N = 627), corruption/eth-
ics (N = 626), military (N = 537), campaign finance/donate
(N = 483), health care/ACA (N = 463), gay/LGBTQ (N = 460),
climate change (N = 453), abortion (N = 417), and banking
(N = 417). The top 10 issue rankings for the Newspaper Index
and Instagram posts were compared by employing Spearman’s
p correlation. This empirical test indicates a significant and
negative relationship between the top 10 issue mentions in the
Newspaper Index and Instagram Index (rho = –.855, p = .002).
The results imply that the top issue agendas of the mainstream
press and Instagram posts are related.
Next, we seek to examine further the relationship between
the issues mentioned in the mainstream media agenda and
Instagram agenda. To test this link, cross-correlations were
estimated. In agenda-setting research, cross-correlations
empirically test the association between two agendas over
time (McCombs et al., 2013; Shaw & McCombs, 1977). We
want to note, however, that cross-correlations do not prove
real-world causality and only offer evidence for possible
intermedia agenda-setting effects. If Instagram posts influ-
ence newspaper content, then the Instagram issue mentions
will be significantly correlated with newspaper issue men-
tions. If newspaper coverage influences Instagram posts,
then newspaper issue mentions will be significantly associ-
ated with Instagram posts.
Before conducting the cross-correlations, the top 10 issues
in the Newspaper Index and Instagram Index were examined
for non-stationarity, specifically testing each issue series for
linear and quadratic trends. The latter was a preliminary pre-
processing step conducted to uncover any auto-correlation or
non-stationarity in each issue series. If a time-series is non-
stationary, the cross-correlation will not reflect the true rela-
tionship between the two series. This pre-processing step
uncovered trends in the Instagram issue series for immigra-
tion (linear function with R2 = .04, p < .05) and gay/LGBTQ
(quadratic function R2 = .04, p < .01). To remove linear and
quadratic trends from the aforementioned series, detrending
was employed to achieve stationarity. There were no linear
or quadric trends uncovered for issues in the Newspaper
Index.
To test Hypotheses 1 and 2, cross-correlations were esti-
mated to examine the direction of the frequency of issue
mentions between the Newspaper Index and Instagram Index
for the top 10 issues. See Table 2. When examining the daily
number of issue mentions in media content, it is important to
consider the optimal time frame to study. That is, what is the
gap between the mention of an issue in one media agenda
and the mention of the issue in another media agenda. There
is no consensus in the agenda-setting literature on the opti-
mal time lag. Agenda-setting research in the Internet era has
employed a variety of time frames, including a 2-month
period (Luo, 2014), a 7-day period (Kushin, 2010), and a
1-day period (Vonbon et al., 2016). Considering the online
environment and an accelerated news cycle during an elec-
tion campaign, a shorter time frame is ideal. Since we are
examining daily newspaper content, it is essential to consider
the lagged effects or to control for the level of content 7 days
before the present value (seven lags back). A 7-day time lag
is also consistent with previous research examining the inter-
media agenda-setting relationship between Twitter and
Table 1. Issue Frequencies and Rankings for Newspaper Index
and Instagram Accounts for 30 Issues.
Newspaper
Index
Instagram
Index
Nrank Nrank
Abortion 100 16 317 5
Banking 321 4 96 16
Black Lives Matter 14 29 172 10
Budget 63 19 47 29
Campaign finance/donate 324 3 159 13
Civil rights 44 24 582 1
Climate change 29 26 424 3
Corrupt/ethics 92 17 535 2
Crime 151 11 94 18
Deport 102 15 306 6
Drugs 63 20 24 30
Economy 339 2 48 28
Education/tuition 253 7 96 17
Email 128 13 52 25
Employ/job 245 9 93 19
Environment 36 25 170 11
Equality 18 28 79 21
Foreign policy/trade 246 8 97 15
Gay/LGBTQ 45 23 415 4
Gun 112 14 287 7
Health care/ACA 300 5 163 12
Immigration 578 1 189 9
Income equality 49 21 85 20
Military 258 6 279 8
Minimum wage 48 22 52 26
Muslim 226 10 50 27
Racial 69 18 73 22
Social security 22 27 131 14
Tax 144 12 67 23
Welfare 14 30 66 24
N = 30 issues N = 4433
mentions
N = 5248
mentions
8 Social Media + Society
newspaper content (Conway et al., 2015; Conway-Silva
et al., 2017, 2018; Kushin, 2010; Luo & Harrison, 2019). A
reported lag suggests that Instagram posts significantly pre-
dicted newspaper issue mentions 1–7 days before the issue
mentions in the newspaper indices. A lead indicates that
issue mentions in the newspaper indices significantly pre-
dicted issue mentions in the Instagram posts 1–7 days prior to
issue mentions in the Instagram posts. A reported lag of 0
indicates that any influence occurred on the same day.
Note: A reported lag suggests that Instagram posts signifi-
cantly predicted newspaper issue mentions 1–7 days before
the contemporary frequencies. A lead indicates that issue
mentions in the newspaper indices significantly predicted
issue mentions in the Instagram posts 1–7 days prior to the
contemporary frequencies. A reported lag of 0 indicates that
any influence occurred on the same day.
In general, the results in Table 2 demonstrate very little
evidence of an agenda-setting relationship between the main-
stream media and Instagram posts during the 2016 primary
period. From the top 10 issues tested, only six of the issues—
immigration, civil rights, military, abortion, health, and
bank—contained significant lags and/or leads. There were
no significant lags or leads between newspapers and
Instagram posts for four issues: corruption, campaign
finance, climate change, and gay/LGBTQ. Table 2 reports
the cross-correlations results for the six issues containing
significant lags and/or leads. Considering Hypothesis 1,
there is very little evidence that the newspaper’s issue agenda
predicted Instagram posters’ issue agenda between January
and June 2016. As Table 2 shows, there are three significant
leads for two issues: civil rights and banking. There is no
evidence that newspaper paper coverage of immigration,
military, abortion, and health care predicted Instagram posts.
Looking at the length of the leads, newspaper issue content
predicted Instagram posts more than 4 days before the issues
of civil rights. But on the issue of banking, the newspaper’s
agenda swiftly predicted—within 2 days—Instagram posts.
In addition, newspaper content on banking had a rather high
impact (r = .37) on Instagram posts.
The nine significant lags shown in Table 2 indicate that
Instagram posts predicted newspaper coverage on six issues
during the 2016 presidential primary period: immigration,
civil rights, military, abortion, health care, and banking. The
latter offers only moderate support for Hypothesis 2, which
asserts that Instagram posts predict the mainstream newspa-
per’s issue agenda. Interestingly, Instagram posts led news-
paper coverage 5–7 days prior on the issues of immigration,
military, and banking. That is, there is a longer time span
(more days) between Instagram mentions of immigration,
military, and banking issues and the newspaper’s coverage of
these issues. Looking at Column 1 in Table 2, the cross-cor-
relation indicates that Instagram posters’ mentions of immi-
gration predicted newspaper coverage 5–7 days prior with no
reverse effects: newspaper coverage of the immigration did
not predict Instagram posts. There were also no reverse
effects for military, abortion, and health care. Instagram
posts predicted newspaper coverage more quickly—1–2 days
prior—on the issues of military and health care. The latter
results suggest that Instagram posts about these issues were
rather successful in predicting issues emphasis on abortion
and health care in newspapers. It is also worth highlighting
the somewhat reciprocal relationship between Instagram
posts and newspaper content on the issue of banking. The
impact of newspaper coverage on banking, particularly at
Lead 2, had a higher magnitude than all other lags and leads
in Table 2. The latter findings suggest that newspaper content
was a stronger predictor of the Instagram posters’ agenda on
the banking issue than the reverse.
Overall, the cross-correlations of these issue series in
Table 2 reveal that there are more lags (12) and leads (3),
which implies that Instagram posts have more predictive
power over newspaper’s issue agenda. The evidence for
intermedia agenda setting is not overwhelming; however, as
only 15 lags/leads out of the possible 84 lags/leads were sig-
nificant (Considering that a total of 10 issues were empiri-
cally examined, technically 15 lags/leads out of 140 lags/
leads tested were significant). It is also notable that there are
no same-day correlations (Lag 0) for any of the issues tested.
That is, newspaper issue content and Instagram issue content
does not predict “day of” coverage or posts.
Discussion
This research strived for a deeper understanding of how the
mainstream media’s issue agenda and the agenda of the citi-
zen’s accounts on the visual-social networking site, Instagram,
intersected during the 2016 presidential primary. It further
sought to understand whether the conventional agenda-setting
relationship between traditional media and audience held, or
whether the issue agenda on Instagram was linked to the main-
stream media’s agenda. The results in Table 1 indicate that
issue emphasis in Instagram posts differs substantially from
top issues in the mainstream press. During the 2016 primary
period, Instagram posts and newspapers shared only two
Table 2. Daily Lag and Lead Cross-Correlations for Instagram Posts and Newspaper Index.
Immigration Civil Rights Military Abortion Health care Bank
Lag 5: .10
Lag 6: –.14
Lag 7: .11
Lead 4: .14
Lag 3: .11
Lag 4: .19
Lag 5 .18 Lag 2: .15
Lag 6: .15
Lag 7: .11
Lag 1: .30 Lead 4: .18
Lead 2: .37
Lag 6: .12
Lag 7: .14
Towner and Munoz 9
issues among the top 10 issues. Instagram posters cover more
about civil rights, corruption, climate change, gay rights/
LGBTQ issues, and abortion rights, whereas newspapers
cover immigration, the economy, campaign finance reform,
banking, and health care. Indeed, Instagram is more popular
among young adults and minorities than it is among adults
overall (Pew Research Center, 2018); therefore, Instagram’s
issue content predominantly includes political issues more
important to these individuals (Ember, 2018). The traditional
press continues to cover traditional, political issues—foreign
affairs, economic concerns, and health and medicine (Pew
Research Center, 2010). Instagram posters discuss issues that
tend to focus on matters that garner much less attention in the
mainstream press, suggesting that this platform is a supple-
mentary place for political issue discussion.
Findings suggest minimal evidence for an intermedia
agenda-setting relationship between newspapers and
Instagram posters’ issue agendas. There is unconvincing evi-
dence that the newspaper issue agenda influenced the
Instagram posts during the primary period, indicating that
the agenda-setting effect of the mainstream media is not
strong among Instagram posters. Presently, daily newspaper
circulation (print and digital) is at an all-time low in the
United States (e.g., 52,329,000 in 2006 vs. 34, 657,199 in
2016) (Barthel, 2018). Digital newspapers have increased
the number of younger newspaper readers; however, news-
paper readers are disproportionately college-educated and
affluent (annual household incomes over US$100,000)
(Neilsen Insights, 2016). These demographics are not consis-
tent with Instagram users (Pew Research Center, 2018).
Research from Pew Research Center also supports Instagram
users turning away from traditional print newspapers (12%
access) to access news more readily from local TV (33%),
cable TV (25%), and news websites and apps (42%)
(Gottfried & Shearer, 2016). One could argue that Instagram
users, who are mostly young, non-Whites (Gottfried &
Shearer, 2016), perceive today’s mainstream media to be
“out of touch,” unrepresentative, and unresponsive to issues
important to their demographic profile.
There is more convincing evidence that Instagram posts
influence the newspaper’s issue agenda. However, the cor-
relations between the newspaper agenda and Instagram
agenda on the six issues reported are not strong and are
somewhat inconsistent. Presently, the median age of journal-
ists is 47 (Thompson, 2014), which is considerably older
than the vast majority of Instagram users. Willnat and Weaver
(2018) report that about half of journalists (53%) working for
newspapers incorporate social media into their reporting rou-
tine, with most journalists using micro-blogs—Twitter—as a
news source. Therefore, it is likely that Instagram is not fre-
quently used in the newsrooms of the top US newspapers.
Also, journalists would also be unlikely to pick up informa-
tion gleaned from other individuals indirectly. Research from
Pew Research Center indicates that platforms such as Reddit,
Facebook, and Twitter were used more often as news sources
for US adults compared to Instagram and those that did use
Instagram as a new source did not align demographically
with newspaper readers (e.g., Instagram users are mostly
young 18–29 years [58%], no college degree [69%], and
non-White [57%]) (Gottfried & Shearer, 2016).
In line with prior research (e.g., Groshek & Groshek,
2013), these findings continue to suggest that the agenda-
setting relationship between traditional media and social
media is complicated and likely issue specific. For example,
both outlets mentioned military issues with about the same
frequency, but there is no evidence that Instagram users fol-
lowed military issues covered by newspapers during the
2016 primaries. Perhaps, Instagram posters do not turn to
mainstream newspapers for military information. However,
newspaper journalists and Instagram posters may diverge on
what aspects of the military in which to focus. For instance,
newspapers tend to analyze how presidential candidates will
lead the military and act as military commander as well as
how candidates feel about funding the military budget,
whereas those on Instagram post about family and friends
who are military veterans, the veteran’s health care program,
general feelings about patriotism and protecting the flag, and
supporting our troops. For example, one Instagram poster
captioned, “Support the Troops #military #usmilitary #navy
#veterans #usveterans #Bernie #berniesanders #bernie2016
#feelthebern #berniesandersforpresident #clinton #history
#Hilary #clinton #militaryfamily #war #troops #brin-
gourtroopshome” along with an image of Bernie Sanders
(Instagram, 24 February 2016). This may explain why
Instagram posts influenced newspaper’s military content, but
there was no reciprocal effect from newspaper coverage.
The cross-correlations offer some evidence of a bi-direc-
tional or reciprocal relationship between newspaper content
and Instagram posts on the issues of civil rights and banking.
It is worth noting that Instagram posts on banking took 7 days
to permeate the newspaper agenda, whereas newspaper cov-
erage took fewer days (2 days) to influence Instagram posts
on the topic. For example, on the issue of banking, on 17
February 2016, the New York Times covered the primary can-
didates’ plans to create jobs among poor and minority com-
munities, noting that Clinton’s job plan “. . . would be paid
for by a ‘risk fee’ imposed on Wall Street banks and changes
in the tax code” (Chozick & Alcindor, 2016). On Instagram,
someone posted: “#HillaryClinton represents #Banks,
#Corporations and #Media. #BernieSanders represents the
people. Do you think corporations give $ for no reason? No
matter what party you’re for . . . the people of the #usa should
NOT stand for it!” (Instagram, 21 February 2016). The afore-
mentioned post on Instagram was not uncommon, as many
posted about corruption on Wall Street, financial reform,
Hillary Clinton’s paid speeches to Wall Street, taxes on the
middle class, and more.
Our findings reinforce the speculation that the news media
is not actively monitoring Instagram as the same level of
intensity compared to other new media platforms such as
blogs, Twitter, and Facebook. With only half of newspaper
journalists incorporating social media into their reporting
10 Social Media + Society
(Willnat & Weaver, 2018), it would be wise for all journalists
(young and old) to regularly monitor Instagram, as it is vital
to reach the next generation of readers, watchers, and view-
ers. On the issue of civil rights, both outlets influenced each
other’s agenda within 4 days. One may only speculate this
quick, robust reciprocal effect is the result of campaign events
focused on these issues. Civil rights, particularly women’s
issues, human rights, and racial equality were important
issues echoed throughout the presidential primaries, covered
during debates, rallies, and press releases. For instance, an
Instagram user rallying for Bernie Sanders posted,
. . . #berniesanders marching with #martinlutherkingjr
#civilrights #peacefulprotests #mlk #blackhistorymonth
#feelthebern #rockthevote #ihaveadream Bernie Sanders has
been #forthepeople and a public servant his whole career. He
cares about ALL people and not special interests. #realdeal He is
consistent with his beliefs and doesn’t flip flop. We are lucky he
is running and will likely not get a chance like this again.
(Instagram, 7 February 2016)
Similarly, in February 2016, the USA Today reported that
Bernie Sanders campaigned to Black voters by emphasizing
that he was active in the 1960s civil rights movement (Page,
2016). Both professional journalists and Instagram posters
covered these issues on almost the same days, likely respond-
ing to campaign events.
This analysis also shows no contemporaneous relation-
ships on any issues, suggesting that newspapers and
Instagram posters are not covering the same issues on the
same day. This is surprising because mainstream media and
social media often cover the same “hot” issues and signifi-
cant events on the day of occurrence (Conway et al., 2015;
Conway-Silva et al., 2017, 2018; Towner & Munoz, 2017).
This lag time implies that issues covered by newspapers are
not transferred to Instagram at a fast rate and vice versa:
issues covered by Instagram posters are not quickly trans-
ferred to newspapers. On the one hand, this is likely because
professional journalists and reporters place a priority on
monitoring other online outlets for political topics, mainly
blogs and Twitter, and then turn to Instagram. The same
thinking could also be applied to Instagram—Instagram
users may be relying on candidate and campaign content first
and then mainstream media coverage when posting about
political issues. Instagram is still a relatively new social
media platform in the political-digital sphere; therefore, this
may be why there are no immediate “day-of ” effects.
This is the first empirical examination of the intersection
between the top circulating US newspapers and Instagram
posts. Although the mainstream media includes television,
radio, newspapers, and magazines, this study was limited to
examining issue mentions in hard-copy newspapers. We
acknowledge that this is an incomplete look at the main-
stream media issue agenda. Broadening to television—cable
and network coverage—would give more insight into inter-
media agenda setting. Television coverage may do a better
job of covering often-overlooked issues pertinent to young,
non-Whites. Given Instagram’s focus on visual communica-
tion, a reciprocal relationship may be more evident in televi-
sion coverage. The largest limitation of this study is that we
cannot suggest causality. That is, Instagram posts do not
cause newspaper content and vice versa. We can only sug-
gest that there is a correlation or link between the two online
platforms regarding political issues. Consistent with the
hybrid media system, we also acknowledge that other media
sources (television, other forms of social media) may have
influenced our findings. This research is also limited in
scope, as we only examine media content during the 2016
presidential primary period. The media landscape may be
very different in future special elections, midterm election
periods, and presidential primary campaigns. As the digital
landscape is ever changing, scholars should continue to
examine intermedia agenda-setting effects.
Increasingly more Americans prefer to watch their news,
as opposed to reading it (Mitchell, 2018). In the future, as
Instagram’s user adoption rate continues to climb, and as its
core audience becomes older and more diverse, we may
expect to see stronger evidence for intermedia influence
between newspapers and Instagram. However, for now,
Instagram scholars should turn their attention to television to
explore potential intermedia agenda-setting effects.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.
ORCID iD
Terri Towner https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8046-7086
Notes
1. In the final sample, 15 “entry_point” hashtags representing
Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz,
and Gary Johnson are included: #bernie2016 (N = 442), #ber-
niesanders (N = 1461), #berniesanders2016 (N = 410), #clin-
ton2016 (N = 59), #cruz2016 (N = 70), #cruzcrew (N = 25),
#donaldtrump (N = 1219), #donaldtrump2016 (N = 46), #feel-
thebern (N = 254), #garyjohnson (N = 16), #garyjohnson2016
(N = 14), #hillary (N = 288), #hillary2016 (N = 219), #hillary-
clinton (N = 962) #imwithher (N = 86). These “entry_point”
hashtags were used to configure the Instagram search API.
In other words, it is the “seed” keyword Beautifeye used to
download relevant data.
2. The coding sheet is available by request from the lead author.
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Author Biographies
Terri Towner (PhD, Purdue University) is a professor of Political
Science at Oakland University. Her research interests include public
opinion, elections, voting behavior, and quantitative methodology.
Caroline Lego Muñoz (PhD, University of North Georgia) is an
associate professor of Marketing at the University of North Georgia.
Her research interests include social media in education, social
media curriculum for higher education, the role of social media in
political campaigns, regifting, and the importance of authenticity in
themed environments.