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News Influence on Our
Pictures ofthe World
MAXWELL McCOMBS
University of Texas at Austin
News impacts many facets of our daily lives! How we dress for work,
sometimesthe route we take to work, what we plan to do this weekend,
our -genere1 feelings of well-being or insecurity, the focus of our
attention toward the world beyond immediate experience, and ow
concernsabout the issues of the day all are iduenced by the daily news.
Occasionally, our total behavior is instantly and completely dictated
by the news. E v e ~ o n eold enough to remember at 41remembers ivhere
they firstheard the news of John F. Kennedy's assassination and how so
much of the next 3 or 4 days was spent absorbing and discussing the
news. Even an less traumatic occasions, millions of Americans follow
the national political conventions, watch the presidential candidates
debate, or follow the tabulation and projection of the nation's vote on
election night. And dally, millions of citizens dutifully glean their
knowledge of politics and public affairs from the pages of their local
'
newspaper.
For the vast majority of Americans, this use of the mass media,
coupled with brief visits to the voting booth on election day, represents
thet total participation in politics. This is one of the reasons why the
imost enduring and sustained line of scholarly research on mass com-
munication traces the influence of the news media on voter behavior.
Beginning with the classic study of Erie County, Ohio,'bv Columbia
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University sociol~gists~azarsfefd,Berelson, and Gaudet (1944) during
the 1940 U.S. presidential election, there has been an ever-widening
array of studies exploring the impact of news media on voter behavior.
But as sociologists Lang and Lang (1959) noted, the influence of the
news media extends far beyond the political campaigns:
A1 news that bears on political activity and beliefs-and not only carn-
paign speeches and campaign propaganda-is somehow relevant to the
vote. Not only duringthe campaign, but also in the pm'ods between, the mass
media provide perspectives, shape images of candidatesand parties, help
highlight issues around which a campaign will develop, and define the
unique atmosphere and areas of sensitivity which mark any particular
campaign. (p. 226)
Over a half century ago, Lippmann (1922) also noted this role of the
news media in defining our world, not just the worldof politics during
and between elections, but almost all of our world beyond immediate
personal and family concerns. The issues, personalities, and situations
toward which we hold feelings of endorsement or rejection, those points
of attention about which pollsters seek the public pulse, are things about
which we depend on the media to inform us.
Lippmann made an important distinction between the environment
(i.e., the warld that is reafiy out there) and the pseudo-mvironnrent (i.e,,
our private perceptions of that world.) Recallthat the opening chapter of
his book, Public Opinion, is entitled "The World Outside and the Pictures
in Our Heads." And, as Lippmann eloquently argued, it is the news
media that sketch so many of those pictures in our heads. This view of
the impact of news was congruent with both scholarly and popdar
assessment in Lippmann's day of the power of mass communication,
views that grew out of experiences with mass communication and
propaganda during World War I. Btlt subsequent scholarly investiga-
tions, such as the Erie County study, led scholars down another path in
later decades.
Focused sqtlarelyqn the abilityof the news media and mass commu-
nication to persuade and change voters' attitudes, early empirical
studies of mass communication instead discovered the strength of the
individual, secure in his or her personal values and social setting and
inured fromchange. The result was the law of minimal consequences, a
scientificstatement of a limited-effectsmodel for mass communication.
Although this law may have been the proper palliative for the some-
times near-hysterical ascription of super persuasive powers to mass
communication, such a constrained view of mass communication over-
looks many effects that are plausibly ascribed to the mass media,
especially to the news media.
After all, it is not the goal of professional journalists to persuade
anybody about anything. The canons of objectivity, which have dorni-
nated professional journalistic practice and thought for generations,
explicitly disavow any effort at persuasion. This is not to say that the
news stories of the day are not exactly that, news stories. They are
indeed! And like all stories, they structure experience for us, filtering
out many of the complexities of the environment and offering a
polished, perhaps even literary, version in which a few objects and
selected att~ibutesare highlighted, Many scholars have shifted their
attention to the audience's experience with these stories.
CHANGING PERSPECTIVES I
Explorations of audience attention and awareness signal a shift to
research on the cognitive, long-term implications of daily journalism,
research that begins to test empirically the ideas put fonvard by
Lippmann in $he 1920s. Rather than addressing mass communication
from the perspective of a model of limited effects, research in the 1960s
began to consider a variety of limited models of effects,
As the history of science repeatedly demonstrates, just changing the
perspective-or dominant paradigm, as Kuhn (1970)termed it-changes
the picture sketched by the empirical evidence. Consider, far example,
the large body of evidence on knowledge of public affairs. From the
perspective of a model of limited effects, H p a n and E~heatsTey's(1947)
portrait of lo* levels of knowledge about public affairs and the existence
of a sizable group of "chronic know-nothings" is hardly surprising.
But shiftingthe perspective to limited m~delsof media effectsfocuses
attention on those situations in which the transfer of functional infor-
mation of some sort fromthe mass media to individuals in the audience
does take place. Part of the scientific puzzle, of course, is to identify
exactly what is transfened-the denotative message and its "facts," the
cultural and individual connotations associated with those facts and the
style of their presentation, or some other qtqbute df the message.
Part of this new look at mass communicationhas been the discovery
that the audience not only learns some facts from exposure to the news
media, but that it also learns about the importance of topics in the news
from the emphasis placed on them by the news media. Considerable
evidencehas accumulated that journalists play a key role in shaping our
pictures of the world as they go ab~uftheir daily task of selecting and
reporting the news.
Here may lie the most important effectof the mass media: their ability
to structure and otganize our world for us. As Cohen (1963)remarked,
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Určenopouzeprostudijníúčely
such indicatdrs as the number of troops committed to Vietnam, number
of campus demonstrations, and number of civil disturbances.
More recently, the agenda-setting power of the news media has been
established experimeritally in the labaratory. In a series of controlled
experiments conducted by Iyengar and Kinder (1987), participants
viewed television news programs that had been edited to highlight
certain issues, such as national defenseor pollution of the environment.
When the participants' ratings of the importance of these experimentally
manipulated issues were compared to the salience for them of other
issues of the day, clear agenda-setting effects emerged. The issues
emphasized in the experimental versions of the newscasts were per-
ceived as more important. In some experiments, exposure to a single
television news programcreated agenda-settingeffects.Usually, agenda-
setting effects were found only after viewing a number of newscasts.
In what may be the dtimate field study of the- agenda-setting
influenceof the news media, Brosius and Kepplinger (1990) replicated
the design of the original McCombs and Sha\-lt study by comparing a
content analysis of the major West German television news programs
for an entire year with weekly public opinion polls on the issues
considered most importan! by West Germans. Strong agenda-setting
effectswere foundfor five issues: energy, East-West relations, defense,
the environment, and European Community politics, For other issues,
news coverage trailed public opinion, or there simplywas no correlation
between the two. This pattern of findings makes the important point
that the news media are not a monolithic "Big Brother" totally dictating
public attention.
Agenda setting is a theory of limited media effects. One goal of
contemporary research is to identify the conditioils under which this
aganda-setting influence of the news media does and does not occw.
But the existence of an agenda-setting phenomenon is clear. Findings
generated by two kinds of fieldwork methodologies, content analysis
and survey research, provide evidence of its external validity, and
experiments provide evidence of its internal validity. Additionally, the
fact that much of this recent evidence, for example, the Iyengar and
Kinder experimentsand the Brosius and Kepplinger fieldwork, is based
on television news further strengthens support for the basic hypothesis
because other evidence in the literature (e.g., Shaw & McCombs, 1977)
suggests that tele\*isionnews has weaker agenda-setting effects than
newspapers.
Other major s~lpportfor the basic idea of agenda-setting is found in
Mack~en's(1981)comparison of national public opinion on eight issues
from 1960 to 1977 with coverage in Time,Nauszueek, and US.News 0
World Rrpr-f;Smith's (1987)examination of 19local issues and Loliism'l~c
Times coverage over a period of 8 years; and Eatoh's (1989)comparison
of national concern about 11major issues between 1983 and 1986 with
news coverage of these issues on network television, in news maga-
zines, and five major newspapers.
CONTINGENT CONDITIONS
Because the agenda-setting perspective is a model of limited media
effects-unlike earlier views of powerful mass communication effects-
Shaw and McCombs (1977) turned their attention in 1972 to simulta-
neous examination of the basic hypothesis and the contingent condi-
tioqs that limited that hypothesis. Unlike the small-scale Chapel Hill
study, which sought agenda-setting effects among undecided voters
during the 1968 presidential election, their study during the next
presidential election was a three-wave longitudinal study among the
general population of voters in Charlotte, North Carolina. Its seatch for
the contingent conditions limiting agenda setting established a theoret-
ical goal that has prompted researchers to venture in many directions.
Some scholars sought to identlfy the personal characteristicsof voters or
the content characteristicsof news stories that limited ar enhanced their
influence (Winter, 1981). But the most ruitful examinations have
examinednot isolated properties of people, issues, or news content, but
rather the interaction of issues and individual situations. Whereas broad
descriptors, such as the income or level of educationfor an individualor
the emotional content of an issue, are surrogates for this interaction,
more explicit conceptualizations of this interaction have been the most
valuable. Two examples are considered here in some detail.
Issues can be arrayed dong a continuum ranging from obtrusive to
unobtrusive. As the term implies, some issues literally obtrude in our
daily lives. In 1990, the rapidly rising price of gasoline followingIraq's
invasion of Kuwait was such an obtrusive issue, NQone depended on
television or newspapers to inform them about the existence of this
inflation. Daily experience put this issue in conversations and on the
national agenda. 1~ contrast, our knowledge of other issues, as Lipp-
mann pointed out in Public Opinion, is virtually dependent on the news
media, What most Americans knew about the situation in the Middle
East and U.S. foreign and military policy came entirely from the news
media.
For a great many issues there is considerable similarityin where they
fall on the obtrusi\tel~nobtrusivecontinuum for most Americans.This is ,
true for the two examples just presented, inflated gasoline prices and
the Middle East crisis. But there are issues where considerablevariation
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e,wsts among individuals. Unemployment is a good example. For
tenured college professorg and even for most college students, employ-
ment is an unobtrusive issue. The salience of unemployment in our
minds is essentially the product of our exposure to the issue in the news
media (Shaw & Slater, 1988). But for many industrial workers in
declining or cyclical industries, such as steel and automobiles, unem-
ployment is a highly obtrusive issue. Even if it has not been experienced
firsthand, these workers are aware of the trends in their industry and
most likelyhave friends or familymembers who have been unemployed
in recent years.
Broad brush portraits of the agenda-setting role of the media reveal
strong effects for unobtrusive issues and no effects at aU on obtrusive
issues (Weaver, Graber, McCqmbs, & Eyal, 1981; Winter & Eyd, 1981;
Zucker, 1978). More finely etched portraits, which require knowing
tvhere an issue falls on the continuum for each individual, show similar'
results (Blood, 1981),
The concept of need fororientation is the psychological equivalent bf
the physical axiom that nature abhors a vacuum, Based on the idea of
cognitive mapping, this concept recognizes that individuals who are in
an unfamiliar setting will strive to orient themselves. For the voter
confronted with the issues of a political campaign, there are two
important criteria defining his or her level of need for orientation: the
individual's level of interest in the electionavd the degree of uncertainty
in that individual's mind about what the important issues are. Voters
characterized by high irlterest in the election and a high degree of
uncertainty about the issues, that is, those voters with a high need for
orientation, are open to considerable agenda-setting influence. These
individuals are exposed to more news about the campaign and its issues
3nd-in line with the basic agenda-setting hypothesis-have personal
lgendas that more closely reflect the agenda of the news media. In
:ontrast, voters with a low need for orientation are exposed less to news
the political campaign and show less agreement with the agenda of
ssues advanced by the news media. For example, among Charlotte
.oters with a high need for orientation, the correlation between their
genda and the coverage of issues in the local newspapers was t-68in
Ictober of 1972; among voters with a low need for orientation, the
ol~elationwas +.29 h October of 1972.
The concept of need for orientation provides a general psychological
xplanatidn for the agenda-setting process and subsumes a humber of
river order variables and more limited explanations. For example,
rscarch findings based on the distinction between obtrusive and
nobtrusive issues can be explained in the more general terms of need
1r orientation. In most cases, persons should have less uncertainty
I. P J C V ~ ~INPLU~NCEON OUR PICTURES OF TI% WORLD, 9
about obtrusive issues and, hence, a lover neecl for orientation. Of
course, it might be counterargued that ihdividuals sometimes have less
interest in more distant, unobtrusive issues, thus lowering their need for
orientation. In most cases, persons should have less uncertainty about
obtrusive issues and hence, a lower need for orientation. But remember
that the role of the news media as defined by its professional traditions
and values is, at least in part, to stimulate our interest and involvement
in such issues. In any event, the concept of need for orientationprovides
more specific descriptions and predictions than does the concept of
obtrusivel~nobtrusiveissues.
SIIAFING THE NEWS AGENDA
Initially, the focus in agenda setting was on the influence of the news
agenda on the public agenda. For many persons, the term agnldu setting
is synonymous with the role of mass communicati~nin shaping public
opinion and public perceptions of what the most important issues of the
day are. But in recent yews there has been a broader look at the public
opinion process. Early agenda-settingscholars asked who set the public
agenda, The empirical answer was that to a considerable degree the
news media set the public agenda. More recently, scholars have asked
who sets the news agenda. The empirical ahswer to this question is not
quite as parsimonious. In part, as common sense would dictate, the
news agenda is set by external sources and events not under the control
of journalists. But the news agenda alsd is set, in part, by the traditions,
practices, and values of journalism as a profession. Whereas t& newer
facet of agenda setting may lack the parsimony of the original hypoth-
esis, it has integrated a substantial sociologyof news literaturewith the
agenda-setting literature.
Lookingfirst at external influences on the news agenda, thepresident
of the United States is the nation's number ope news maker. Even a
president's dog can become better known than most government
officials. Who areFeller, Checkers, and,Millie? Many people can identify
each of these dogs with a president. Can you name a secretary of state
for each of those same presidents? Presidents enjoy tremendous access
to the mass media. Teddy Roosevelt essentially invented the presiden-
tial press conference as the operational definition of the presidency's
bully pulpit, Woodrosv Wilson turned a dull report mandated by the
Constitution, the State of the Union report, into a major public event
(Juergens, 1981). Does this central role played by the president on the
media stage allow the president to be the nation's number one agenda-
setter?
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Like so many questions about contemporq history, the answer is
"Yes, sometimes" (Gilberg, Eyal, McCombs, & Nicholas, 1980; Wanta,
Stephenson, Turk, & McCombs, 1989).The State of the Union address
provides a particularly useful vantage point for observing the presi-
dent's agenda-setting influence because it is the sole occasionwhen the
president's agenda is laid out in a single document. Richard Nixon's
1970 State of the Union address did influence the subsequent coverage
of NBC, The Ntw York Times, and, ironically, the Washington Post, There
also is weak evidence of similar effects following Ronald Reagan's 1982
Stateof the Unioq address. Fyrthermore, these correlationsbetween the
president's agenda and subsequent news coverage are not spurious
relationships resulting from the influence of earlier news coverage oq
hoth the president and the press. But in contrast, comparisons of the
president's agenda and news coverage reveal that- the news media
influenced both President darter's 1978State of the Union and Reagan's
1985 State crf the Union address.
A broader look at the president's role as an agenda-setter is provided
by Wanta's (1989) detailed examination of four recent administrations,
Of course, as just noted, the news media can influence the president'::
agenda rather than the converse; or, the overall relationship between
the president's agerlda and the news agenda can be reciprocal. Across
the administrations of Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan, there are
numerous examples of all three relationships. On balance, the relation-
ships are reciprocal. Of course, the Comparisons here are between the
overall presidential agenda, eight or more issues, and the news coverage
of this entire set of issues. The president may well prevail as the
agenda-setter on individual issues. Wanta provided specific evidence,
for example, that President Carter was an agenda-setter for the energy
issue and President Reagan for foreign affairs during their administra-
tians.
SOURCES OF NEWS
In any event, because the president is the nation's number one news
maker, the media spend considerable energy, time, and money on this
coverage. In contrast, much of the daily news report is prepared from
materials not just provided, but initiated, by the public information
officersand public relationsstaffsof government agencies, corporatibns,
and interestgroups. At the beginning of this century, the president read
all his own m d , the Washington press corps literally could gathel'
aroundhis desk to findout what the entire federal establishmentwas up
tn and 1w 1 . w wag iust inventine:~ublicrelations. In todav's cornorate
1. NEWS INFLUENCE ON OUR PICI'LJRES OF THE WORLD. 11
and government world, public relations is a key component. Despite
professional myths to the contrary, public relations also is necessary to
today's news media. As Lippmann (1922)observed, all the reporters in
the world could not keep an eye on all the events in the world because
there are not that many reporters. Even the largest and best national
newspapers with their huge staffs of reporters and editors, newspapers
such as The New Yduk Times and washing tor^ Post, obtain over half their
daily material from press releases, press conferences, and other routine
channels created by government agencies, corporations, and interest
groups. Only a small proportion of the daily news results from the
initiative and innovation of the news organizations (Sigal, 1973).
But to contradict another myth, this one especiallypopular along one
stretch of the political continuum, public relations pronouncements on
behalf of the establishment do not control the news agenda. Judy Turk
(1985, 1986) examined the success of public informqtion officers in six
Louisiana state government agencies in placing their press releases in
the major newspapers of the state. Their batting averagewas about .500.
What the readers of Lnuisiana's major dailies knew about their state
government was not limited to what the government passed out in press
releases nor to those issues emphasized in those press release;.
Because the daily news obviously is rooted in the events and trends
of the day, it is hardy surprising thqt those who are major players in
these events and those who can enhance access to many of these events
have some impact on the news agenda. But news media are not mirrors
tha<,"lmplyreflect the deeds of the president or the pronouncements of
public information offices. Journalism is a long-established profession
with its own entrenched traditions, practices, and values. These &rethe
filters through which the day's happenings are filteredand refracted for
presentation in the newspaper or on television. The news is not a
reflection of the day: it is a set of stories conshucted by journalists about
the events of the day,
Like Molierels gentleman who learned that he had been speaking
prose all his life, it sometimes is difficult to assess a situation in which
we are immersed as producers and consumers of the news. To better
highlight the situation here in the United States, two studies based on
European observations are cited as exqmples of the power that these
journalistic traditions, practices, and values have on the daily set of
news stories. The first example comes from Sweden, where political
parties often have direct connections with, including outright owner-
ship of, daily newspapers. But as jownalisrh increasingly has become
professionalized, there is little benefit to the political parties from these
affiliations. Although one might regard a party newspaper as a captive
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I!?
case when he compared party agendas, a? reflected in the acceptance
speeches of party leaders, with the news coverage of the major cam+ Y
$
paign issues, Party leaders fared little better in their own newspaper's :t
#ti
coverage than in the coverage affordedby the ~ommercialnewspaperg ;
and newspapers of other parties. The dominant filters on the political .!.
,.I
news of the day were journalistic values, not partisan values. ' a
?A
n e strength of news values over partisan values also is reflected in
The Formation of Campaign Agendas, a comparativestudy of American and a:l
;;
British press coverage of national dections (Semetko, Blumlet, Guro-
vitch, & Weaver, 1991).Whereas there obviouslyis variation among the
behavior of each nation's news corps, the modal pattern among British
journalists during the 1983general election was to follow the lead ~f the $:I'
parties. Television, especially, placed heavy emphasis on the substan* i:
tive daily events of the campaign trail, reporting more of the materid r'J
directly provided by the politicians in their momipg press conferences, I
afternoon walkabouts, and evening rallies. The result is a substantial 4
correlation between the party agendas and the agendas of the news ~7t'
media. In contrast, American journalists covering the 1984 U.S.presi~ 3 4
dential election foLlowed the lead of the parties far less in determining !i
the issue emphasis in their coverage. The correlationsbetween the two :t;i
agendas are very weak. In comparison to British journalists, U.S. '2.
journalists exercised considerably more professional discretion in the
framing of the campaign agenda in the news. This discretionary power
of the professional journalist seems to lie largely in the freedom to go
beyond the issues and to report other aspects of the campaign, esped
cinlly its strategic and tactical machinations.
Whereas this freedom is exercised more frequently by American
journalists than by British journalists, one might ask just how well
i
4senred the public is by this discretionary power. Numerous critics have fi
decried the excessive reporting of campaign trail hoopla in iecent US. $
,?Ielections (Buchanan, 1991). Be that as it may, both of these European
examples underscore the strength of news values and ideology- $.I'
lvhatever they may be-on the shaping of the daily news.
Detailed examinationof how these values, traditions, and practices of
journalists shape the news agenda has produced a vast library of books
and articles over the past 25 years (e.g., Epstein, 1973; Gans, 1979; 1,6
Golding & Elliot, 1979). This literature, collectivelycalled the sociology
of news, recently has been integrated by Shoemaker and Reese (1991)in )?
hiedinting the Messngc: Tl~eoriesof Irlfluences on Mass Medin Content. .$
The strength of these internal professional inflllenres on the shape of ,
3
the news agenda is further revealed by the gatekeeping tradition in .c!,h
journalism research. Usually, such studiesfocused on the wire editors of
dally newspapers and their decisions about which stories to select and
3
'.#
I. iucws wrLUtNCIE ON OUR PICTURES OFTHE WORLD. 13-
which to reject for the daily news report. A reanalysis of the classic Evlr.
Gates studies by Don Shaw revealed substantial correlations between
the agendas of the wire services and Mr. Gates (McCombs & Shaw,
1976).An early study of news selectionpatterns among Iowa dailies also
revealed that the pattern of topics reported by those newspapers closely
resembled the pattern of topics offered by the Associated Press even
though each newspaper used only a tiny proportian of the available wire
report (Gold & Simmons, 1965).
In another facet of gatekeeping, the substantial agenda-settingrole of
The Neut York Times is also well known. Going beyond the usual
anecdotal evidence of this influence, Reese and Danielian (1969) docu-
mented the agenda-setting role of The Tilnes for the drug issue during
1986. Once The Times had assigned a reporter full time to drugs and led
off with a front page story on crack, other major media quickly followed
suit. Extensive coverage of the drug issue began to appear in the
Washingfon Post and Los Angeles Times. One Sunday in May of 1936, all
three New York City newspapers had extensivearticles on drugs. It also
is particularly obvious, according to Reese and Danielian, that The Nez~l
York Times set the agenda on this issue for the television networks in
1986.
In summary, the question of who sets the news agenda is best
pursued through that venerable metaphor of peeling the onion. The
core of the onion, the daily news report, is surrounded and shaped by
several layers df influence. At the outer layer are the news makers and
events, including the pseudo-events arranged for news coverage, that
pfovide much of the @st for the dajly news. But all of this is shaped in
turn by the Values, practices, and traditions of journalism as a profes-
sion. And these professional decisions are reaaffirmedby the behavior
of the news leaders, especially TlteNra York Times, who on occasion can
set the agenda as firmly as any president or dictator.
SUMMING UP
Fifty million or more persons read a newspaper each day of the week,
About the same number watch the news on television each day. Many
Americans do both. One significant result of the audience's experience
with these news stories is that over time the public comes to perceive
that the important issues of the day are those emphasized in the news.
Grounded in ideas first put fonvard by Lippman in the 1370~~this
phenomenon has come to be called the agenda-setting role of the news
media. Contrasting this view with earlier ex~ectationsof massive media
effects on attitudes and opinions, Cohen (1963)noted that the press may
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nob be very successful in telling us what to think, but it is stunningly
successful in telling us what to think about!
Initial empirical investigations of this agenda-setting influence of the
news media were field studies employing survey research and contmt
analysis to ascertain the degree of correspondence between the news
agenda and the public agenda, This approach to observing the agenda-
setting phenomenon rqay well have reached its apex in Brosius and
Kepplinger's (1990) extensive investigation of agenda setting in West
Germany, a study based on a year-long content analysis of televisiort
news and weekly public opinion polls indentifying the most important
problem facing the country. Other tests of the basic hypothesis have
taken agenda setting into the laboratory and verified this phenomenon
experimentally (Iyengar & Kinder, 1987).
Almost simultaneously With the initial empirical tes_tsof the agenda-
setting hypothesis, scholars began to explore the contingent conditions
for this phenomenon. No one contends that the news media influence
the salience of all issues for all people. Whereas many different
characteristicsof people and many characteristicsof the news have been
identified as contingent conditions affecting the strength of the agenda-
setting relationship, two conceptualizations of the interaction between
issues and individual situations have proved especiallyvaluable. These
are the concepts of need for orientation and obtrusiverlesslunob~-
siveness.
Need fot orientation is based on the psycholagical assumptiorl that
individuals who are in an unfamiliar situation will be uncomfortable
until they orient themselves. Elections, with their previously unknown *
or only vaguely known candidates or with their complex issues and the
uncertainties ofhpw to resolve them, frequently create situations where
mqny voters feel a need for orientation. Under these circumstances they
may turn to the news media for orientation and adopt its agenda. The
agenda-settinginfluence of the news media increaseswith the degree of
need for orientation among the audience. But this influefice is largely
limited to unobtrusive issues, those issues remote from personal ken,
Some issues, such as inflation in general or the price of gasoline,
obtrude into our daily lives. We experience them directly and do not
depend on the news media for o w knowledge of their signihcance.Both
personal experience and a need for orientation are coqtingent conditions
that provide important explanations for how the agenda-setting process
works.
Consonant with the effects tradition in mass communication rc-
search, the early agenda-setting studies explored the impact of the news
agenda on the public agenda. More recently, the news agenda has
shifted frombeing an independentvariable to a dependent variable. The
centrzl research question has changed f ~ o mwho sets the public agenda
to who sets the news agenda. Answers to this new question are best
presented in terms of that venerable metaphor, peeling the layers of an
onion.
At the outer layer, of course, are those events and activities that make
up the stuff of the daily news. But only a small proportion of the day's
events and activities ever make the news, and even fewer we directly
observed by journalists. The observations of news sources, especially
those organized in the form of press conferences and press releases, are
key elements in the construction of the news agendq each day. But even
the most puwerful of these news sources, the president of the United
States, plays a very limited part in setting the news agenda. Journalists'
professional values, traditions, and practices shape their judgments
about the use of this material. The strength of these internal professional
influences is underscored by the concept of gatekeeping. Wire services
influence the play of stories in local news media, and national newspa-
pers, especidy TIte New York Times, influence all the news media,
Who sets the public agenda? For many issues, it is the news media
who exert considerable, albeit far from complete, influence on the public
agenda. Who sets the news agenda? Of necessity, this is a shared
responsibility, but the news media themselves are the dominant influ-
ence on the shape of the news agenda for most public issues.
REFERENCES
Asp, K. (1983). The struggle for the agenda: Party agenda, media agenda, and voter
agenda in the 1979 Swedish election campaign, Communication Research, 10, 333-355.
Blood, R. W. (1981). Unobtrksitle issues in the agenda-setting role of the press. Unpublished
doctoral dissertation, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY,
Brosius, H. B., & Kepplinger, H. M. (1990). The agenda-settingfunction of television
news: Static and dynamic views. Communicatioq Rwrch, 17, 183-211.
Buchanan, B.(1991). Election a president. Austin: U~versityof Texas Press.
Cohen, 8.C. (1963),The pressandforeignpblicy. Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press.
Eaton, H., Jr. (1989). Agenda-setting with bi-weekly data on content of three national
media. JournalismQuarterly, 66, 942-948, 959.
I Epstein, E.J, (1973).Nev~fnmrnowhere:Televisionand Uleneys. New York: Random House.
Punkhouser, G,R. (1973).The issues of the sixties:An exploratory study in the d).namics
of public opinion. Public Opinion Quarferly, 57,62-75.
I
Cans, H. 1, (1979). Deciding what's news: A study of CBS nming nws, NBC Nightly Na~s,
I Newsutek and Time, New York: Pantheon Books.
I
Cilberg, S., Eyal, C. H., McCombs, M.E., & Nicholas, D. (1980).The state of Lhe Union
address and the press agenda. Jounrnlism Quarterly, 57,561-568.
i Gold, D., & Simmons, J. L. (1%5). News selection patterns among Iowa dailies. Pribl~c
Opinion Qunrterly, 29, 425-430.
I
I Colding, P., & Elliot, P. (1979). Making the n w . London and New York: Longman.
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to\vartl lorig-ral~gec~ffccts011 cog~riliol~s,~
;\ttit~~(lcscollcctrl our fcclit~gsof 11ci11gfor or ngairlsl :I ~)olillcfil
pokitic111(11. [ig~rrr.(:uji~~ilin~lc'ol~cr~rl~s011r k~~~\\~l(~rlgc::\1111 I)~Iicl'sI I ~ ) ( J I I ~
l~olitici~lo\~j~cts,' V ~ I C ~:~g(-~~cl:~-s(!tti~~gf1111ctiot101. III:ISS ~ O I I I I I I ~ I I I ~ ~ ~ I I ~ U I I
c.Ic;~r.l),I';illsi l l t11i.sI I ~ \ \ ~I~.;itlitior~01' cogl~iti\.c!outcu~l~csof Illass ~ ~ I I I I I I \ I ~ I ~ -
c : ~ t i c r ~ ~ . f i ) ~ l ~ ~ ~ : ~ ~ ) sIllore ~II:III :I,iy ot11er :~sl)c*ctof our ~ I I V ~ ~ ~ I I ~ ~ I C I I ~ ,1110
,)olitic;~l:irv11:1-:11! tl~:~scissi~(*s:111(1 ~ I C ~ S O I I Sabo~11\\~IIOIII nfcl~olclol)ir~io~~s
; I I I ~\,I~O\\~I~I~I~C--~S:I SC~OII(III;IIICI r(::~lil)'.Es[)eci;illy i l l rlatioll:ll 1)oIiljcs,
wc II:L\v~ litll(: 1)(~rso11:11or ilirecl COII~;IC[. C>urk~~o\vlctlgccolrics ~)rin~arily
fro111~IIL!11):iss~lrcrlia.1;or lllc 11lost art, \vc kl~o\\fcrlllp tl~osr*nsl)ccls of
11i1lio11i11i)i~!iticsco~~sicl~rc~d11e\\~s\\~ort11y~ I I O I I ~ ~ Ifor L ~ ; L I I ~ ~ I I ~ S ~ ~ U I I1~1ro11gI~
tll(. 1ll:lSs l l l c ~ l g
I < \ ~ ~ I Ilcla\lisioll's tccllr~ologicolability lo 111dkc 11s spcctalors ful*
sig11ific:111\~)olitic:~lC \ ~ C I I ~ Sdocs cli~i~il~:I[c~IICs e c o ~ ~ d l ~ i ~ ~ ~ t l11aluroof
OIIS I)c~liticnlcogl~itiolls.'I'clct~isiol~nc\ilsis cclited rcslity just as llril~tde\vs
is rill cclitccl vc!rsior~or rc:~lilp.A I I ~cvc~r011 ll~osrrarc occnsiollt; \v!Ic~~
~ \ ~ c ~ i ~ l sarc! l)rc~sc~~tc.(lit1 Il~circl~tircly,Ill(? tclcvisiol~cppericl~ccis llot lllrt
S:IIII~,IStllc eyc*\vitt~osscsl~rriolcc.~
<)w k~,o\vlcrlpof political affairs is based or1 :I tir~ysar~lplcof tltc
rcnl I>olilic;ll\\.or'lcl, 'l'll:~~r.c:tl worltl slrril~ks:IS tj1c r~c\vg111cdindccitl~
\vl1:11to cover nllct \\ll~icl~aspects lo Iri111~11iilill tl~cirri~porls,arid rls
; ~ \ l t l i c *~ccstlccidc to ~vl~icli'~~c\vsnlcssugcs tl~cywill attc11IF'
\ Yvt, ;IS I,i[)l)~l~i~llliI~oil~tc~IOLIL. our political rcsptrnscs 3111 1118dclo
III:I~ (illy rclrlic:~of tllc rcal \vorltl, t l l r ~,~scr~rbcr~uirot~t)~c~rl,\\slricll\ve Jin~c
I;~L)ric;tt~~cl:111elassc~~~l)lcc/allnost wl~ullyfro111Illass lncdin 1tlntcri&jl'11~
c.c~~iccl)Iof ascllrl:~-sctlillgcll~l)l~usizcs~ I I O\,cry in~[)orlalltaspect of Illis
I ~ ~ ~ I I ~ ~ ~ I I I I I I I ,I 1 i 1 I :11ioi111of C I I I ~ ) ~ ~ ~ I S ~ SIIFCOI'LICII 113
vnrioc~sI~olilicnlclorrrcrrls ilrltl issucs vy111glola pul,lic a:lel~lion,
hlu11). col~~lr~cl~lulorsl~avcobscr\lccl \I131~ I I c I ' ~is i111 3gr11c!;l-s~ltil\g
f u ~ ~ c t i o ~ ~of tllc. p1.rbssnlld Lipl~n~annlul~g;\go c!locluel~tlyclescril?cil 1110
1lrcr.ssni.y co~~~~rc*tiollI)ct\vccrl rrlnss ctrn~rr~~ir~icntio~~qr~dir~clivjrlunlpulili.
c:~lcogrliIivlls. 1111tIikc I~ILICII of our folk \vistlo~rin l ~ u ~ ~ t~~oliticsnl~tl
I I ~ I I I ~ I I\)cl~:~vlo~~,it \\,us 11o1p11l lo rll~~)iric:~llest by r ~ s ~ a r e I ~ c r sfor vvcr
I1;1lf :I cc~lllury,
6111:lirsl rll~~)iric:~lntlc~r~pt;it \*crificatiul~ul tl~ungc~lcln-scllitlg
fIlllctioll of tl~crllass lliedi:l was c~trrirrlout Ily h1cCornl)s ailcl Sl\n\v
(1111illg(11~119GS U.S. prcsiclct~\ialelectiol~.~h111o11gul~rlccidctlvoters 111
Cl~npclI lill, Nor111 Caroli11:i tllerc ~vcrcs~~lalal~tinlcorrclaliolls I)bt\vt?d~)
\\I(! l)olilic:~Iissues c~llpl~asizcrlin the IICWS rricdia orld tvllnt lltc voIari,s
--...1...1 .., ~ l * r rLmnrr iccttrrc i ~ tt l l : ~ ~PII~~IIOII.\ S I I ~volcrs' beliefs iri)ou\wllut
The AgendaSetttng Funoiion of.the.Press 77
prcsn coverage, even tl~ougllthe three presidential contenders in 1968
Cf
plncccl \\jidely divcrgcrlt emphasis on the issues. This suggests that
voters-at lcnst undecided voters-pay some attention to all the political
rlr\cls in tllc press rragurdless of whctl~crit is about or originated wit11 a
favored c:llldidatc. This corltradicts t l ~ econcepts of scltctive exposure nncl
sclcclivc perception, ideas wllicl~are central to tile law of rr~ir~irl~al
collsccluenccs. Scluctivc uxposurc and selective perception si~ggcstlhnt
pcrsolts attend most closcly LO infornmtion wl~ichthcy find co~lge~~ialnlltl
supportive.
111fact, furtller analysis of the 1BG8 Chapel Hill survcy sl~o\vcdt l ~ n t
ilillollg tllose undecitled voters \vitll leanings loward one of thc tl~rcc
carldidatcs, there was less agreement with the news agcndn based oil tl~cir
prcfcrretl canclidnke's skatc~ncntstllar~\vith tlie nc\vs agcncla Lnscd 011 all
tltrce catldidates,
tVhile tl~c1968 Cllapel llill stucly was tile first en~piricalinvcstign-
ti011 I~aseclspecifically on agcndn-setling, there is otlier scllolnrly evic!clrcc
ill tile lrlass con~in~lnication/politicajbehavior literature ivl~ichcar1 Lc
it~tc~.prctcdill agel~cln-svttingtcrrns. Let's bricfly consider scvcrnl csirrn-
ples.
'I'lic first csa~nplccomes fro~n111e 1848 Bllnirn stucly. .. . 170r 311
optilnu~i~view of the agenda-setting influcrlce of t l ~ epress, oric slio~~lrl
c s a t ~ r i ~ ~ etliosc Llnlira voters \vitl~mininial ir~tcrpersonalco~ltnct.. . .[I'Jor
tllosc voters tllc political agc~ld;~s~lggcst~dby the rlleclia is not ~licdinlei!,
i~~tcrpretcd,or collfrol~~etlby inlcrpersonal sources: of inflticl~ce.'l'llctsc
volcrS t ~ o u l dseer11 esljccinlly opcn to thc agenda-setting i ~ ~ f l ~ ~ c ~ i c cof tllc
press.
A I I ~tile inflilellcc \vns tlicrc. 'Those Elnlirn voters nioved wit11 tlir
trcl~tlof tile lillios rilore than did t l ~ eotl~crvoters. Like tl~cuntior~nl
Dclllocralic 1rcr1d that nlounted tli~ringtlie 19118 canlpaigr~,tl~csoEl~r~ira
voters moved rapiclly into the Dcrnocrqtic column. Tllc cucs wcrc tl~crcin
tllc rnedia for all, Uut pcrsons \vithout tlie conservative bri~keof
it~tcrl)crsonal col~lncts n~ovetl most rapidly with thc natiol~al tre11J
rcportcd in tlle ~lieclia.
TJhle s~corltlcxarliple of agenda-setting bor~lesfrorn i1 stucly of c o ~ ~ ~ i t y
votilig pattrros in an Io\rja r c f c r e ~ ~ d u d111this eraoll~loit is cosy lo hce
t h c ngcl~dn-scttir~geffects of boL11 nlass 111edia arltl intcrpcrso~i:~lI I ~ \ \ . s
SollI'cCS,
The queslio~lbefore tllc voters was calling a cor~stitutionalcoll\.en-
t i o ~ ~to rcnppurtioii Icgislativc. districts. Sitlco largc counlics stood to gait1
nr~rlsln:~Ilcour~ticsto lose fro111rcapportionn~cr~t,t l ~ cst~lclyal~licipatccla
stl-origcorrelallor~bct\vc!en county popirla~io~la r ~ dproporlion of votes irr
favor of t l ~ econ\~cntiotl.In sllort, it was ]~ypothesizcclthat counties \\lould
votc their self-interest, hrld, overall, this \\Ins strikirlgly t l ~ ccase. cross all
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