Setting the Agenda

News media strongly influence how we picture public affairs across the world, playing a significant and sometimes controversial role in determining which topics are at the centre of public attention and action. Setting the Agenda, first published in 2004, has become the go-to textbook on this crucial topic.

In this timely third edition, Maxwell McCombs - a pioneer of agenda-setting research - and Sebastián Valenzuela - a senior scholar of agenda setting in Latin America - have expanded and updated the book for a new generation of students. In describing the media's influence on what we think about and how we think about it, Setting the Agenda also examines the sources of media agendas, the psychological explanation for their impact on the public agenda, and their consequences for attitudes, opinions and behaviours. New to this edition is a discussion of agenda setting in the widened media landscape, including a full chapter on network agenda setting and a lengthened presentation on agenda melding. The book also contains expanded material on social media and the role of agenda setting beyond the realm of public affairs, as well as a foreword from Donald L. Shaw and David H. Weaver, the co-founders of agenda-setting theory. This exciting new edition is an invaluable source for students of media, communications and politics, as well as those interested in the role of news in shaping and directing public opinion.

Auteur

Maxwell McCombs is Professor Emeritus in the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Texas at Austin.
Sebastián Valenzuela is Associate Professor in the School of Communications at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and Associate Researcher at the Millennium Institute for Foundational Research on Data (IMFD).

Contenu

Foreword: 'Messages and Residues' Donald L. Shaw and David H. Weaver Preface

Notes

1 Influencing Public Opinion

Our pictures of the world

Contemporary empirical evidence

The accumulated evidence

The 1972 US presidential election in Charlotte

The 1976 US presidential election in three communities

National concern about civil rights

British and American concern about foreign affairs

Public opinion in Germany

Agenda setting in a Swedish election

Public opinion in Louisville

Local public opinion in Spain, Japan, and Argentina

Replication with other issues

Cause and effect

A new communication landscape

1. Do online media have agenda-setting effects among the public?

2. Has the proliferation of online media diminished the agenda-setting impact of the traditional media?

3. To what extent are there specific channel effects vs. the collective impact of a communication gestalt?

Summing up

Notes

2 Reality and the News

Idiosyncratic pictures

A decade of American public opinion

Creating a crisis

National concern about drugs

Fear of crime

Discovering the environment

Alarmed discovery

Perspectives on agenda-setting effects

Content versus exposure

Agenda setting in past centuries

Summing up

Notes

3 The Pictures in our Heads

Pictures of political candidates

Candidate images in national elections

Candidate images in local elections

Visual images and attributes

Attributes of issues

Compelling arguments

Agenda setting and other communication theories

Attribute agenda setting and framing

Summing up

Notes

4 Networks of Issues and Attributes

Associative memory

Networks of candidates and attributes

Accumulated evidence on network agenda setting

A new gestalt perspective

Summing Up

Notes

5 Why Agenda Setting Occurs

Relevance and uncertainty

Occurrence of agenda-setting effects

Relevance

Personal experience with public issues

Individual differences

Incidental learning

Agenda-melding

Summing up

Notes

6 How Agenda Setting Works

Carrying capacity of the public agenda

Diversity and volatility of the public agenda

Education and agenda setting

Explaining the transfer of salience

Timeframe for effects

Diversity of salience measures

Summing up

Notes

7 Shaping the Media Agenda

The president and the national agenda

Subsidizing the media agenda

Capturing the media agenda

Three election agendas

Media agendas in local elections

Attributes of local issues

Three elements of elections

A broader portrait

Intermedia agenda setting

Summing up

Notes

8 Consequences of Agenda Setting

Priming public opinion

Attribute agendas and opinions

Forming opinions

Influencing behaviour

Agenda setting role of business news

Summing up

Notes

9 Communication and Society

Transmission of culture

New agenda-setting arenas

Other cultural agendas

Concepts, domains, and settings

Continuing evolution of agenda-setting theory

Notes

Bibliography

Index