Rethinking Agenda Setting in low-mediatization contexts of the Global South: a constructivist-communicational study

Agenda-Setting Theory continues to face socio-anthropological limitations in explaining thematic relevance production in low-mediatization Global South contexts, where media may not be central to the phenomenon. Building on empirical and reflexive experience from research in a Cuban municipality, this study tests a constructivist-communicational framework conceptualizing social agendas as outcomes of thematic relevance communication among interaction fields. A mixed-methods design with ethnographic foundation and abductive orientation was employed. The first phase characterized political, media, and public agendas and examined temporal relationships through correlations and the Rozelle-Campbell baseline. The second phase ethnographically reconstructed the structures and habitualized practices through which each field produced its agenda. Results showed broadly shared objects across agendas, greater differentiation in substantive and affective attributes, and no cross-lagged evidence of salience transfer. The qualitative phase revealed continuous issue circulation across fields, subject to selection, ranking, and reworking through differentiated structures and practices. By explaining the phenomenon from its situated socio-anthropological particularities, the framework deepens Agenda-Setting Theory and contributes to its de-Westernization.