Nuclear Power Plants in Media Discourse: Features of Agenda Formation and Influence on Public Perception

Abstract

On September 2, 2024, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced the date of the referendum on the construction of the country’s first nuclear power plant. From that moment, this event sparked widespread public discussions in the media space. This study employs the agenda-setting theory to analyze how state-funded and independent media covered the issue of nuclear power plant construction in Kazakhstan. The article aims to identify the characteristics of agenda formation within the contemporary media discourse on nuclear power plant construction in Kazakhstan and examine its impact on public perception. In particular, the study seeks to answer the following questions: what kind of agenda do state-dependent and independent media promote regarding the construction of nuclear power plants? Is the same information disseminated to both Russian-speaking and Kazakh-speaking audiences? To achieve this goal, a content analysis was conducted on the Kazakh-language and Russian-language news websites of two leading media outlets. The first group consists of state-funded publications: Egemen Qazaqstan (a Kazakh-language news site) and Kazakhstanskaya Pravda (a Russian-language platform). The second group includes the independent publication Vlast.kz, which operates in both Kazakh and Russian languages. To obtain a comprehensive picture, articles and news reports from the two weeks preceding the referendum were analyzed, as this period saw a significant increase in media coverage. A total of n=12 news articles were examined, with three articles selected from each media outlet. The findings confirmed the hypothesis that in the two weeks leading up to the referendum, state-funded media predominantly promoted an agenda in favor of nuclear power plant construction.