Agenda: A tool for agenda setting research

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Kok, Yeong Haur^a | Goh, Angela^{a; *} | Holaday, Duncan^b

Affiliations: [a] Division of Software Systems, School of Applied Science, Blk N4-2B-50, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798, Singapore | [b] Division of Communication Research, School of Communication Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 639798, Singapore

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected].

Abstract: The paper describes the development of a software tool named Agenda to aid researchers in studying the correlation between the media and public agenda. Agenda processes news articles and forms clusters of topically coherent groupings. The use of clustering algorithms in document processing is therefore a key feature of the tool. In addition, the results are visualized to aid researchers in studying the data from different perspectives. Evaluation was carried out by comparing of the results produced by Agenda with that obtained using an Intelligent Readers’ method involving human coders. Findings show that the results for the two methods are comparable, thereby highlighting the potential use of the tool.

DOI: 10.3233/ISU-1999-19403

Journal: Information Services & Use, vol. 19, no. 4, pp. 265-276, 1999