Scenario 1 Part B.1: The Rise and Decline of Subtopics Attention in Congress

The Policy Agendas Data is organized according to 19 Major Topics, each of which is delineated further into subtopic categories.

This exercise asks you to evaluate the patterns of attention to subtopics within the rising and declining issues identified in Part A of this scenario. For example, Health issues have become increasingly significant on the congressional agenda, but are there some health issues that are more important than other?

For more information about the Major Topics and their related subtopics, see our Topics Codebook.

Basic Instructions

1. Click here to open a new window with the analysis tool.
2. Select the appropriate dataset. In this case, our target dataset, "Congressional Hearings," is the default.
3. Select the major topic that you are interested in.
   (We recommend selecting only one topic when comparing subtopics within that topic.)
4. Select to graph the activity as a "percent of all activity."
5. Finally, click the button "Use Advanced Search Features." This allows you to select the subtopics within the major topic that you have already selected.
6. On the Advanced Features Form, you will see a list of subtopics relevant to the topic you selected on the first page. Select the subtopics that interest you.
   Press the [ctrl] key (or Apple Command Key) while clicking to select multiple subtopics.
7. Select the "Submit Search Button"
   This takes you to the chart showing the hearings trends for the subtopics that you have selected.
   (The Chart Tutorial provides detailed instructions about changing the chart appearance.)