Media effects in a transitional society: Setting the political agenda in the Kosovo elections of 2007

This study suggests that during the 2007 campaign in Kosovo, political parties and mass media set the election agenda while disregarding the priorities of the public. However, neither media nor parties were able to set the public agenda independently. The results presented here empirically confirm recent claims that media and politics have achieved some balance in Eastern Europe, though mass media in this region still fail to represent society as a whole, reflecting the agendas of political elites alone. The present study stresses the symbiotic interrelation between media and party agendas during elections and that their influence on public agenda is at the highest when operating interactively.