Agenda-building and Agenda-Cutting in U.S. Media Coverage of International Student Visa Restrictions

This study investigates the agenda-building and agenda-setting process on the coverage of international students’ visa restrictions in the U.S. media organizations between 2018 and 2024 within highly polarized and platform-driven communication environments. Employing agenda-building, agenda-cutting, agenda-setting, and framing perspectives, the analysis explores how ideological media systems selectively amplify or marginalize competing narratives related to immigration governance, national security, digital surveillance, and international student mobility. This study conducted quantitative content analysis on 160 news articles from five ideological media tiers: mainstream, conservative, progressive, higher education, and policy-oriented outlets. The study compared dominant frames, source prominence, immigration salience, privacy concerns, and strategic communication practices across these media environments. The results show that administrative and restriction-oriented frames dominated coverage across ideological media systems. Conservative and policy-oriented outlets more frequently emphasized security and immigration-vetting narratives, while progressive and higher education publications prioritized humanitarian and economic frames. Regression analysis showed that strategically sophisticated communication practices significantly increased source prominence and stakeholder visibility, reflecting stronger agenda-building capacity within media narratives. The analysis also identified agenda-cutting processes, whereby ideological media systems selectively minimized competing narratives and amplified preferred interpretive frames. Furthermore, articles focusing on social media screening exhibited higher levels of critical tone and privacy concern compared to general visa denial coverage. The linkage of immigration salience increased over time, suggesting that international student mobility became progressively integrated into broader political discourse on immigration governance and national security. This research contributes to political communication scholarship by illustrating how media organizations influence salience through selective amplification, suppression, and narrative prioritization in polarized, platform-driven competitive media environments.