ABSTRACT
Long before Cohen wrote his oft-quoted phrase on the press’ presumed ability to influence what the public thinks about, Park wrote that the newspaper had taken over the job of the town gossip in providing topics for public discussion. The extent to which the newspaper can substitute for the town gossip is, of course, limited by the norms of the industry and the laws of privacy and libel, but there is little reason to believe that any item in the newspaper is exempt from becoming a topic on the community conversation agenda. People do talk to each other, but the literature examining the relationships between what they read about in the newspaper and what they talk about day-to-day is meager. Several studies have shown that the wire services set the agenda for what the newspapers print. To what extent does the newspaper set the agenda for community discussion?
