Review Reports - News Media Effects on Policy Priorities: A Second-Level Agenda-Setting Analysis of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Projects in Myanmar

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The study is an epistemological attempt to implement a media effect second level agenda setting theory and attempts to move beyond media and conflict or political communication. The methodological apsects are quite clear in terms of Media effects and agenda setting theory. The fundamental problem arises with the intermixing of agenda setting theory and framing theory. I would suggest you to instead using frames focus on issues and agendas only as framing analysis is altogether a different set of study where literature of Inductive and deductive frames and scholars like entman, cottle and others will help. The study is clear in terms of Second level agenda setting and methodology of content analysis and survey suffice the hypothesis that have been extensively studied in this paper. The only concern to me is the introduction part to me instead of building on the significance of the study there is too much emphasis on the theoretical aspects of agenda setting. The scholar can have a re look at the way introduction has been established as it misses on the key problem statements and rather focusses on theoretical aspects of agenda setting.

The methodological apsects are well defined and even two methods content analysis and survey answers the corelation between media agenda and the public agenda. The political economy structure of media has not been mentioned and assumptions have been made that US funded channels will be anti- china. I would suggest not to presume hypothesis with out any evidence and if this is not the concern of the study avoid discussing it in methodology. This is the matter of discussion post data analysis once hypothesis is proved or rejected.

The study is a good attempt to contribute to the scholarship of media effects and agenda setting and by making minor changes and adding Lippman's, Cohen's debate in the introduction it is recommended for publishing.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Please kindly accept the attached file that contains our detailed responses to your comments and suggestions. We thank you so much for reviewing our manuscript. Once again thank you so much.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This research investigates how media coverage influences public perception and government policy on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in Myanmar. By analyzing news coverage, conducting public opinion surveys, and conducting in-depth interviews, the study found a strong correlation between media coverage, public opinion, and government policy priorities regarding BRI projects. Importantly, the study demonstrates that media coverage indirectly influences government policy by shaping public opinion. Overall, this research is interesting and has valuable practical implications. The research is particularly relevant given the increasing influence of China's BRI projects worldwide and the significant impact these projects can have on host countries. But there are some issues authors should address or clarify in their writing.

First, the concept of second level agenda setting should be clarified. Authors’ definition and explication of this concept demonstrates inconsistencies. For example, in line 31 and 32 and line 535-536, authors imply that second-level agenda setting refers to the extension from media’s influence on public perception to media’s influence on policy attitudes among political elites. Such second-level agenda setting indicates the extension of the subjects that are affected by media. While in line 89 to 105, authors explain second-level agenda setting as the salience of specific attributes associated with issues or objects. This second-level agenda setting extends the details and depth of agenda-setting from the salience of certain issues or topics to the salience of certain attributes associated with the topic. Therefore, it is important for authors to review the whole article and clarify what they really mean by second-level agenda setting.

Additionally, besides clarifying second-level agenda setting, authors should explicate more on how this theory or concept inspires or connects to their study. A closer connection between the theory and the study design should be explicitly and sophisticatedly articulated in the theoretical part.

Moreover, authors should make clear why media agenda and policy agenda is not bidirectional as demonstrated in Figure 1. The conceptual model of the extended agenda-setting effects. Media and government have a close relationship; that means, the government can affect media. For example, previous studies have found that news media largely follows governmental descriptions about a certain topic (Köstler & Ossewaarde, 2022). Why in Myanmar’s case, the government does not affect the agenda of the media. Authors should include more background information about the media system in Myanmar and the relationship between news media and the government, like what roles played by journalists in Myanmar, as watchdog or role facilitator. Regarding the media system at large or journalist’s role, authors should refer to more theoretical piece in journalism studies, see some examples at the end.

For the methodology, authors need to provide rationale why selecting the time frame between 2011 to 2024 since they just aggregate these data and do the cross-sectional analysis. There is no longitudinal analysis. Thus, it is confusing why authors make this decision. Besides, authors should acknowledge the limitation of using survey with 385 participants to represent public opinion. Authors should include a characteristics table for the sample included and whether they are representative of the population. And they should include the time of data collection. Additionally, how authors address the ethical issues involved in data collection for the survey.

Additionally, for the analysis and results, authors perform both correlational analysis and path analysis (SEM). Since path analysis is normally used for reporting the direct effect of media agenda on public opinion and policy priority as well as the indirect effect of media agenda on policy priority via public opinion, therefore, it is normally to report the correlational results but use path analysis results to interpret the hypothesis.

In reporting the results, authors should be more careful. For example, in line 544, authors state that both CF and TLI values exceeding 1. But actually, in Table 3, CFI is equal to 1. And authors should note that CFI value range from 0 to 1, cannot go beyond 1.

For SEM analysis part, it is a little confusing. The authors should include an SEM conceptual model as a figure to illustrate the path included for analysis. From Table 4, it seems like authors only analyze the path from media agenda to public agenda and from public agenda to policy agenda. Authors should make this clear. If that is the case, authors may need to change their conceptual model to include the direct path from media agenda to policy agenda as well to keep consistent with the hypothesis. And for the indirect effect path, in SEM, authors should define the indirect effect path and then analyze the p value and bootstrapped value to evaluate its significance level. We can’t just infer that the indirect effect is significant if the two direct path is significant. That is not scientific. Finally, authors should say what software they apply to perform SEM analysis.

References:

Hallin, D. A. N. I. E. L., & MANCINI, P. (2015). Media systems. The international encyclopedia of political communication. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Ji, X., Kuai, J., & Zamith, R. (2024). Scrutinizing algorithms: assessing journalistic role performance in Chinese news media’s coverage of Artificial Intelligence. Journalism Practice, 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2024.2336136

Köstler, L., & Ossewaarde, R. (2022). The making of AI society: AI futures frames in German political and media discourses. AI & Society, 37, 249-263. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01161-9

Mellado, C. 2015. “Professional Roles in News Content: Six Dimensions of Journalistic Role

Performance.” Journalism Studies 16 (4): 596–614. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2014.922276.

Mellado, C., L. Hellmueller, and W. Donsbach, eds. 2017. Journalistic Role Performance: Concepts,Contexts, and Methods. New York: Routledge.

Mellado, C., L. Hellmueller, M. Márquez-Ramírez, M. L. Humanes, C. Sparks, A. Stepinska, S. Pasti, A.-M.Schielicke, E. Tandoc, and H. Wang. 2017. “The Hybridization of Journalistic Cultures: A Comparative Study of Journalistic Role Performance.” Journal of Communication 67 (6): 944–967. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12339.

Mellado, C., and A. Van Dalen. 2014. “Between Rhetoric and Practice: Explaining the Gap between Role Conception and Performance in Journalism.” Journalism Studies 15 (6): 859–878. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2013.838046.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Please kindly accept the attached file that contains our responses to your comments and suggestions. Thank you so much for reviewing our manuscript and giving your time on it.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Comments to the Author(S)

Thank you very much for providing me an opportunity to read and review the manuscript “News Media Effects on Policy Priorities: A Second-Level 2 Agenda-Setting Analysis of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Projects in Myanmar?" which was submitted to Journalism and Media. This study is an excellent exploration of the use of the second agenda-setting impact on public perception and policy priorities regarding the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in Myanmar from 2011-2024. The paper is largely well-written and well-organized. It is a good addition to the body of knowledge exploring the second level of agenda-setting from different contexts. I’ve made some comments to improve the manuscript. However the manuscript needs revisions and proper conceptualization to differentiate between frames and attributes.

Abstract

1. The abstract is missing research design.

2. I suggest using a cross-sectional research design.

Introduction:

1. The second level of agenda setting, lines 91-93, the author(s) narrative that “The first level of media informs the audience of what to think about, and the second level tells them what to think about”. The second level of agenda-setting argues that how to think of, not what to think about. What to think about is the first level of agenda-setting.

2. In Lines 102 and 103, the in-text citation is not correct, and line 114 COOK needs correction.

3. Line 186, in-text citation needs correction, and line 189 initials need removal.

4. Line 198, in-text citation needs initial removal.

5. Line 245, in-text citation not correct.

6. Line 268, in-text citation needs correction.

7. Line 273, an in-text citation isn’t correct.

8. Lines 271 and 273, Entman (1993) talks about frames, not attributes. This argument needs correction and rephrasing.

9. Line 283, the role of media in the discourse of politics. This should be the role of media in political discourse.

10. Line 291, an in-text citation isn’t correct.

11. Line 311, sectional data should be cross-sectional data.

12. Lines 325-329, the author (s) used frames. At he second level of agenda-setting it is suggested to use attributes rather than frames. Frames and attributes are different. Most frames fall in the micro-macro spectrum, however, most of them are complex and are composed are of micro-attributes. For instance, stereotyping is a macro-attribute that is composed of a number of thematically related micro-attributes. From this point of view, all frames are attributes because they describe objects but all attributes are not frames. An attribute can only be a frame when it is a macro-attribute and is composed of thematically related lower-level attributes. For better clarity and conceptualization, I suggest the following two studies.

a. McCombs, M. E., & Ghanem, S. I. (2001). The convergence of agenda-setting and framing. In S. D.Reese, J. Oscar H. Gandy & A. E.Grant (Eds.), Framing public life: Perspectives on media and our understanding of the social world. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

b. Yousaf, M., Hu, Z., & Raza, S. H. (2023). News Media Exposure and Community Consensus on Terrorism in a Developing Country: First and Second Level Agenda-Setting Effects. Media Watch, 14(1).

c. The second study has been conducted on a terrorism issue and attributes of terrorism issue at the first and second levels of agenda-setting. This study from a South Asian context supports agenda-setting findings.

13. Line 368, in-text citation needs correction.

14. Line 403, the in-text citation should be corrected.

15. Line 585, in-text citation needs correction.

16. Line 611, in-text citation needs to be corrected.

17. Lines 272-674 again use framing, which differs from attributes. Therefore, I suggest making a clear distinction between frames and attributes.

18. A similar problem exists throughout the paper regarding in-text citations. The author(s) need to address the issue of in-text citations to make the manuscript more refined.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Please kindly accept the attached files, containing our responses to your comments and suggestions. We are grateful to you for spending your time in reviewing our manuscript. Once again , thank you so much.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Clarity and Specificity of Research Objectives

Clarify the research question: While the title mentions media effects on policy priorities in Myanmar, the article could benefit from a clearer definition of terms such as "effects," "policy priorities," and the relationship between these concepts within the specific context of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects.
Specific objectives: Although the article addresses a second-level agenda-setting analysis, it would be useful to better break down the specific research objectives. What variables are being analyzed, and how will these effects be measured?

Deepening the Local Context

More context on Myanmar: Myanmar is a country with a complex political, social, and economic situation, which can influence how the media covers international projects like the BRI. The article could provide more details about Myanmar's media landscape, how the media covers issues related to China, and how these projects impact the local population.
Explore Myanmar's media dynamics: Considering how both state and private media in Myanmar approach BRI-related topics would enhance understanding of how messages are shaped, especially given the censorship and limited media autonomy in the country. This perspective could help provide a clearer picture of media influence in the region.

Stronger Theoretical Framework

Expand second-level agenda-setting theory: While the agenda-setting concept is used in the article, expanding the discussion on how second-level agenda-setting theory specifically applies to Myanmar and BRI would add depth. How is the role of media interpreted in shaping policy priorities in a non-democratic governance context?
Include complementary theories: Including additional theories, such as framing theory or media power, could enrich the analysis. Since how the media frames an issue can be as influential as the issue itself, these theories would provide a broader theoretical base for the analysis. It is recommended to include the theoretical reference on "ultramediate society" to contextualize the new spheres of communication and mediated society. The text is available in Spanish: https://palabraclave.unisabana.edu.co/index.php/palabraclave/article/view/22137

Methodology and Justification

Detail the research design: If content analysis or surveys are used, the article should provide more specific details on how media outlets, topics, and time periods were selected. It would also be beneficial to explain how "policy priorities" are measured and how media influence on politicians and the public is identified.
Justify the sample selection: It would be important to justify the choice of media outlets (national, local, digital, etc.) and how their coverage might influence the audience differently. This would enhance the robustness of the study's methodology.

Data Analysis and Results

Clearer presentation of results: Improving the presentation of findings using tables, graphs, and visualizations would help clarify the observed effects and trends in the media coverage of BRI projects in Myanmar.
Deeper interpretation of results: The results should not only be described but also interpreted in a broader context. What are the implications for Myanmar’s public policies? How do these findings relate to existing literature?

Discussion and Conclusion

More detailed political implications: The article could provide a deeper analysis of how the study's findings directly influence public policy in Myanmar, especially regarding the Belt and Road Initiative and its implementation.
Study limitations: Including a more explicit section on the limitations of the research, such as media selection or lack of access to certain data due to political or logistical restrictions, would be valuable.

Consideration of External Variables

Influence of international actors: Exploring how external actors, such as China, influence media coverage and policy priorities in Myanmar would be relevant, especially in the context of BRI.
Interaction between traditional and digital media: Considering how digital media, such as social networks, may play a different or complementary role to traditional media in agenda-setting around key topics would offer a more comprehensive view of media influence.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Please kindly accept the attached file, containing our responses to your comments and suggestions. We thank you for reviewing our manuscript.