Setting the Agenda

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).

"In many countries, professional journalism is in crisis, undermined by a perfect storm of collapsing business models and political attacks on its authority to speak the truth. Reese shows how institutional power matters deeply for journalism's crucial public role, but he goes further, by showing how such power now depends upon assemblages of actors far beyond the traditional newsroom. A fresh and exciting account that takes the field in new directions."—Andrew Chadwick, Loughborough University"Reese delivers an insightful analysis of the crisis of the modern press, and shows how journalism is reinventing itself in these challenging times for democracy."—W. Lance Bennett, University of Washington"Agenda setting remains the core theoretical foundation of political communication research. McCombs and Valenzuela's new edition of Setting the Agenda should be considered a canonical text for the field. All students of political communication need to consume this valuable and approachable overview of the theory's central tenets."—R. Lance Holbert, Temple University"To explore and understand how traditional and new media influence the public opinion process, theory-driven approaches are greatly needed. Agenda-setting theory, as McCombs and Valenzuela’s book demonstrates, has been and still is an excellent guide for scholars pursuing this problem."—Toshio Takeshita, Meiji University"Setting the Agenda: Mass Media and Public Opinion, since its first edition was printed in 2004, has become one of the most important textbooks on agenda-setting research.... This book contains clear theoretical frameworks, introduces diversified research methods to test media effects, and conveys interesting discussions on the applications of agenda setting in a variety of contexts.... This groundbreaking work is the best choice for students in the fields of communications, media, journalism, or politics."—International Journal of Communication

• Foreword: ‘Messages and Residues’ Donald L. Shaw and David H. Weaver PrefaceNotes1 Influencing Public OpinionOur pictures of the worldContemporary empirical evidenceThe accumulated evidenceThe 1972 US presidential election in CharlotteThe 1976 US presidential election in three communitiesNational concern about civil rightsBritish and American concern about foreign affairsPublic opinion in GermanyAgenda setting in a Swedish electionPublic opinion in LouisvilleLocal public opinion in Spain, Japan, and ArgentinaReplication with other issuesCause and effectA new communication landscape1. 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 upNotes2 Reality and the NewsIdiosyncratic picturesA decade of American public opinionCreating a crisisNational concern about drugsFear of crimeDiscovering the environmentAlarmed discoveryPerspectives on agenda-setting effectsContent versus exposureAgenda setting in past centuriesSumming upNotes3 The Pictures in our HeadsPictures of political candidatesCandidate images in national electionsCandidate images in local electionsVisual images and attributesAttributes of issuesCompelling argumentsAgenda setting and other communication theoriesAttribute agenda setting and framingSumming upNotes4 Networks of Issues and AttributesAssociative memoryNetworks of candidates and attributesAccumulated evidence on network agenda settingA new gestalt perspectiveSumming UpNotes5 Why Agenda Setting OccursRelevance and uncertaintyOccurrence of agenda-setting effectsRelevancePersonal experience with public issuesIndividual differencesIncidental learningAgenda-meldingSumming upNotes6 How Agenda Setting WorksCarrying capacity of the public agendaDiversity and volatility of the public agendaEducation and agenda settingExplaining the transfer of salienceTimeframe for effectsDiversity of salience measuresSumming upNotes7 Shaping the Media AgendaThe president and the national agendaSubsidizing the media agendaCapturing the media agendaThree election agendasMedia agendas in local electionsAttributes of local issuesThree elements of electionsA broader portraitIntermedia agenda settingSumming upNotes8 Consequences of Agenda SettingPriming public opinionAttribute agendas and opinionsForming opinionsInfluencing behaviourAgenda setting role of business newsSumming upNotes9 Communication and SocietyTransmission of cultureNew agenda-setting arenasOther cultural agendasConcepts, domains, and settingsContinuing evolution of agenda-setting theoryNotesBibliographyIndex