Political agenda-setting in Belgium and the Netherlands: The moderating role of conflict framing

This article investigates the role of conflict framing as a moderator of the political agenda-setting effect. Conflict is at the heart of politics: Political debate arises from political actors taking opposing positions. We hypothesize that conflict framing in media coverage enhances the relevance of the news for politicians, who in turn react more to this news in parliament. We test our expectations by looking at media coverage and parliamentary questions in Belgium (1999-2008) and the Netherlands (1995-2011). Pooled time-series analyses demonstrate that conflict framing indeed matters as it strengthens the "basic" political agenda-setting effect from the media on parliamentary questions.