9 ~,~i - National Criminal Justice Reference Service

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1986 1988 1990 1992
Figure 8 9 State Anti-Drug Initiative
Year
Results
The regression results provide significant support for the constructionist hypothesis (H3).
In the crime case, both state and media initiative are significantly associated with public concern
about crime, while in the drug case only state initiative is significantly associated with
public concern. The reported incidence of crime/drug use is not signi/icandy associated with
subsequent public concern about those phenomena. In addition, the analysis of the case studies
indicates that shifts in the level of state initiative precede rather than follow corresponding
shifts in public opinion, and thus provide support for the agenda-setting hypothesis (H4)
rather than the pluralist hypothesis (H2). In general, the results provide support for the view
that state and media definitional activities play a crucial role in shaping public opinion.
The Objectivist and Constructionist Hypotheses
The results of the OLS regressions are presented in Tables 1 and 2. The unstandardized
coefficient for each variable is shown, and the standard error appears beneath it in parentheses.
The results of the OLS analysis of the crime case indicate that media and state initiative
are associated with subsequent levels of public concern about crime. These relationships are
consistent over time: state and media continue to be significantly and positively associated
with public concern when an extended time period is analyzed.
The regression coefficients may be interpreted in the following manner. The coefficient
for the crime rate (in Column 1) is -.0077: for every unit increase in the crime rate, the odds
that a person would identify crime as the nation's most important problem would decrease
e "'~176 or 1.00"7 times. A unit increase in media and state initiative, according to the regression
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