Agenda Setting Readings on Media, Public Opinion, and Policymaking [Hardcover]

The role of the news media in defining the important issues of the day, also known as the agenda-setting influence of mass communication, has received widespread attention over the past 20 years. Since the publication of McCombs and Shaw's seminal empirical study, more than one hundred journal articles and monographs have appeared. This collection exemplifies the major phases of research on agenda-setting: tests of the basic hypothesis, contingent conditions affecting the strength of this influence, the natural history of public issues, mass media influence on public policy, and the role of external sources from the president to public relations staffs on the news agenda.
Contents: Part I:The Public Agenda.W. Lippmann,Public Opinion. M. McCombs, D. Shaw,The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media. A. Downs,Up and Down With Ecology: The Issue-Attention Cycle. G.R. Funkhouser,The Issues of the Sixties: An Exploratory Study in the Dynamics of Public Opinion. Part II:Measuring Agenda-Setting Effects.J. McLeod, L.B. Becker, J.E. Byrnes,Another Look at the Agenda-Setting Function of the Press. M. Benton, P.J. Frazier,The Agenda-Setting Function of the Mass Media at Three Levels of Information Holding. M.T. Gordon, L. Heath,The News Business, Crime, and Fear. K.A. Smith,Newspaper Coverage and Public Concern About Community Issues. S. Iyengar, M.E. Peters, D.R. Kinder,Experimental Demonstrations of the Not-So-Minimal Consequences of Television News Programs. Part III:The Agenda-Setting Process.J.P. Winter, C.H. Eyal,Agenda-Setting for the Civil Rights Issue. P. Palmgreen, P. Clarke,Agenda-Setting With Local and National Issues. L.E. Atwood, A.B. Sohn, H. Sohn,Daily Newspaper Contributions to Community Discussion. K. Schoenbach,&l“8