ABSTRACT
Agenda-setting research has now spanned three decades, since the initial investigation by McCombs and Shaw (1972) was conducted during the 1968 election. In the intervening years, the role that the news media play in influencing the perceived importance of issues held by the public has been the focus of hundreds of investigations. The vast majority of these studies have found widespread support for a media influence on issue salience. In other words, the amount of press coverage that issues receive gives individuals salience cues with which they learn the relative importance of these issues.
