The "secondary media" can be divided into elite media and popular media. The former 
primarily address the elite public. There are also specialized media that only address specific 
sub-audiences. 
Intermediary agenda-setting processes take place among all media. The members of the elite 
public use elite media not only for information purposes, but also to exert influence on the 
media agenda. Influences by popular media on elite media can also not be ruled out. Even the 
selection of issues by the news agency is influenced by which issues its "audience" — the 
popular and elite media — are interested in. 
The passive audience does not constitute a uniform, unstructured mass. Here again, the level 
of "chance encounters" is important, which the processes of framing of issues can act on 
without drawing the attention of the mass media. 
Overall, a very large number of different development lines emerges, depending on the 
interaction patterns among the various public actors. Adequate explanation attempts for social 
agenda-setting processes must therefore take account of these manifold interaction 
possibilities (see Eichhorn 2005, 153ff). 
2.4.5 Functions 
In this model, functions refer to the overarching tasks of the three spheres. The functions 
encompass the definition of individual issues (for details on issues and 1ssues management, 
see Chapter 2.2), and they also encompass the synthesis of issue structures. The participants 
in the framing-of-issues process are all also involved in the definition of issues, which is 
subject to continuous change. While these definition processes concern individual issues, the 
process of synthesis affects the entire issue structure. 
An important subprocess in this regard 1s the determination of priorities. The "significance" of 
an issue is determined by how detailed the public's consideration of the issue is. This includes 
the attention of the mass media, the extent of mobilization of the politically active population 
groups, resonance among the broad public, and the linking of issues with powerful political 
and economic areas. The process of synthesis also includes the linking of individual issues to 
larger structures which may form an identification basis for social groups. 
Events and issues can only really be interpreted, however, by means of framing, i.e. the 
embedding of issues and events in a larger framework that allows the recipient to classify the 
individual events or new events accordingly. 
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