ABSTRACT
The conviction that mass communications are a powerful political force has survived the frustration of researchers trying to tease out direct effects from the fabric of surrounding social influences. During the past decade the conviction has gained new strength from studies documenting the correspondence between the amount of media attention a problem receives and the amount of public concern, findings that have been cast into the language of “agenda setting.” The theorem that the mass media set the public agenda boils down to the proposition that, during a political campaign and on other occasions, “people learn from the media what the important issues are.” As a result, the search for political effects has changed direction. The focus of inquiry has turned away from persuasion and toward changes in the salience of certain objects on the political landscape; away from the content of public opinion (what people think) and toward the things about which the public has opinions (what people think about).
