Sato Hajime
Department of Public Health, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan.
J Health Commun. 2003 Jan-Feb;8(1):23-40. doi: 10.1080/10810730305731.
Agenda setting is regarded as a key process in policymaking. This study first examines the trends in newspaper articles on smoking and health and the debates on the issue in the Diet in Japan for the period 1945-1990. Then relationships of those articles and debates with national administrative actions are analyzed. Although the media helped set the agenda in the Diet before the emergence of the nonsmokers' rights movement, it did not do so thereafter. On the other hand, media reports continued to be associated with various aspects of administrative policy making throughout the study period and played an important role in mobilizing administrative agencies. Effects of mass media on agencies were regarded as largely independent of the debates in the Diet. It is also noted that simple "scientific" reports on the health hazards of smoking had no association either with agency action or with Diet debates. This indicates that issue building, which consists of creating a package of ideas about the facts, the causal theories, the responsibilities, and the feasible solutions, is important when scientific facts are to be dealt with by policymakers.
议程设置被视为决策过程中的关键环节。本研究首先考察了1945年至1990年期间日本报纸上关于吸烟与健康的文章趋势以及国会对此问题的辩论情况。然后分析了这些文章和辩论与国家行政行动之间的关系。尽管在非吸烟者权利运动出现之前，媒体有助于在国会中设定议程，但此后并非如此。另一方面，在整个研究期间，媒体报道继续与行政政策制定的各个方面相关联，并在调动行政机构方面发挥了重要作用。大众媒体对各机构的影响在很大程度上被认为与国会辩论无关。还需要指出的是，关于吸烟对健康危害的简单“科学”报道与机构行动或国会辩论均无关联。这表明，当政策制定者要处理科学事实时，构建议题（包括形成一套关于事实、因果理论、责任和可行解决方案的观点）非常重要。
