The Ethics of Agenda Setting

Abstract

Agenda setting is the process through which certain issues emerge as objects of collective attention in public discourse and policymaking. How the agenda is set is extremely important. Attention to a given issue is a precondition for political action; an issue can only be addressed either by the public or by policymakers if it is on the agenda. This raises the normative question of how the agenda should be set. Political philosophers have not yet extensively engaged with this question. Although vast empirical scholarship exists on how the agenda is set, the corresponding normative question of how the agenda should be set, remains largely unaddressed. In this paper I outline a theory of good agenda setting. I argue that good agenda setting, on the one hand, is organized so as to ensure the egalitarian distribution of agenda influence in society, and, on the other hand, it produces agendas which promote certain instrumental as well as non-instrumental values.