Media Agenda-Setting and Public Opinion: Is There a Link?

MOST of the media agenda-setting research in the past decade has been concerned with cognitions—public awareness of and concern over issues or problems emphasized by the mass media (Becker, 1982; McCombs, 1982; Shaw & McCombs, 1977; Weaver, Graber, McCombs, & Eyal, 1981). The key proposition tested in most agendasetting studies is that concentration by the mass media over time on relatively few issues and subjects generally leads to the public regarding these issues and subjects as more salient, or more important, than other issues and subjects.