Agenda-Setting Theory

The focus of social science and the new field of mass media research on the social and psychological effects of new, widespread media technologies and vehicles dominated communication theory and research during the first 50 years of the 20th century. In mid-century, however, University of North Carolina researcher Maxwell McCombs and his partner Donald Shaw returned to an original theme focusing on the power and effects of media itself. Their three presidential election studies explored the relationship between media presentations of news and the resulting importance recipients of that news assigned to it. Thus was born the theory of agenda setting, which McCombs continued to study for the next four decades. This theory advances [Page 22]the theme that reporters serve as gatekeepers to filter news events and by their reporting set an agenda. The agenda results from the kind and amount of attention that are given to news events, especially in the context of elections, where candidates chase news to keep their views before the voters.

The original agenda-setting proposition was a direct reflection of 1920s public opinion scholar Walter Lippman's statement that the press formed “pictures in our heads” (Lowery & DeFleur, 1995, p. 266). McCombs and Shaw tested that idea in an exploratory study of the 1968 presidential election coverage in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. What they discovered was a high correlation between what the news media reported as issues and what voters identified as issues. Their findings helped clarify the definition of agenda setting—focusing on the cognitive (awareness) level rather than the affective (feeling) level; in other words, media make voters aware of the issues, but do not tell them how to think or feel about the issues. Also identified were suggestions about media's limitations in the process, specifically the impossible task for media outlets of covering all issues. These findings refocused attention on the media as a powerful force in its own right, rather than just another variable in the viewers' social and psychological processes.

McCombs and Shaw then used the 1972 presidential election to conduct a more comprehensive study of agenda setting in Charlotte, North Carolina. They expanded the scope of the 1968 study to include voters' information from other people as well as from the media, voters' own personal characteristics, the influence of time on setting agendas, and the role of politics in agenda setting. This study confirmed the general hypothesis about creating awareness from the 1968 study and led them to concentrate on awareness and information as critical stages in opinion formation. It also reconfirmed media limitations in covering all events and issues, and clarified how these limitations influenced the complex process of how and why media make decisions to cover or not cover certain issues.

Next came the study of the entire 1976 presidential election year in three communities: Indianapolis, Indiana; Evanston, Illinois; and Lebanon, New Hampshire. This study revealed more contributing factors: (1) newspapers and television influence voters more in the early campaign stages; (2) voters did seem to rank the importance of issues in the same sequence as the media did; and (3) voters with personal characteristics such as higher educational levels, more political knowledge, and more interest in political matters were more inclined to use media on a regular basis, making them more likely to be influenced by the media.

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