ABSTRACT
The war in Iraq dwarfed all other topics reported in the U.S. news media during the first three months of 2007. And public opinion polls during the same time showed that Americans thought the Iraq War was the most important issue as they began to think about electing a new president in 2008. Through their day-to-day selection and display of the news, journalists focus our attention and influence our perceptions of the most important issues facing the country, and in early 2007 the focus was on the Iraq war. This ability to influence the salience of topics on the public agenda has come to be called the agenda-setting role of the news media.
