Locating the Asymmetry in Information Flow between Local and National Media on Transgender Discourses

Mainstream news outlets set the agenda and terms of discussion for public discourse. As transgender people experience increasingly vitriolic attacks on their fundamental rights in the US, understanding the dynamics governing media discussions of transgender people becomes even more salient. Intermedia agenda-setting theory suggests that the interplay between news outlets with different geographical scopes—national and local—is an important aspect of media discourse circulation. We analyze this interplay by leveraging a mixed methods approach, employing a combination of causal inference methods and critical discourse analysis to determine whether, and how, transgender discourses spread across local and national media. We find that transgender discourses on a particular topic propagate from national to state-level outlets; however, this process often involves two steps: national outlets influence particular state(s), which, in turn, influence the other states. Therefore, local outlets play a more complex role in agenda-setting for transgender discourses than previously thought. We conclude by presenting recommendations for interventions to reduce transphobic misinformation and uplift transgender voices in the US news ecosystem.