Electoral processes and democracy: building a political campaign agenda

This article is a contribution to the intellectual history on the metaphor of agenda-setting. It seeks to show that one way to understand modern democracy is by studying the processes of construction of political agendas (agenda-building), which shed light on the relationship between the media, public opinion, politics and by extension, electoral processes and campaigns. We will show that understanding the perspective chosen, considering its two levels: the agenda of topics and the agenda of attributes, including its conceptual theoretical limitations, is crucial for the comprehension of democracy and its relationship with contemporary communication. Emphasis is made on the formation of the agenda of electoral campaigns; a variable heavily dependent on media and public agendas, whose content and dynamics are both interrelated and inscribed into the cultural, political and social context wherein it embodies.