Agenda-building linkages between public relations and state news media during the 2010 Florida Senate Election

•This study examined the role of political public relations in contributing to the news media agenda during the 2010 Florida Senate Election involving three major candidates.•A total of 1503 public relations messages and 709 state newspaper stories were analyzed.•The findings confirm the key role of public relations in agenda building for object and attribute salience in political campaigns.•Some marked differences were observed across the different types of information subsidies on traditional and online/social media. Grounded in first- and second-level agenda building, this study examined the role of political public relations in contributing to the news media agenda during the 2010 Florida Senate Election involving three major candidates. The findings offered support for agenda building at both the object (issues and stakeholders) and attribute levels of salience (issue frames and candidate attributes) between candidate information subsidies and news coverage. Some marked differences were observed across the different types of information subsidies