Setting the Agenda : The Mass Media and Public Opinion

by McCombs, Maxwell

• ISBN13: 9780745623139
• ISBN10: 0745623131
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-11-12
• Publisher: Polity Pr

Summary

Setting the Agenda describes the mass media's significant and sometimes controversial role in determining which topics are at the centre of public attention and action. Although Walter Lippman captured the essence of the media's powerful influence early in the last century with his phrase, "the world outside and the pictures in our heads," a detailed, empirical elaboration of this agenda-setting role of the mass media did not begin until the final quarter of the 20th century. In this comprehensive book, Maxwell McCombs, one of the founding fathers of agenda-setting tradition of research, synthesizes the hundreds of scientific studies carried out on this central role of the mass media in the shaping of public opinion. Across the world, the mass media strongly influences what the pictures of public affairs "in our heads" are about. The mass media also influences the very details of those pictures. In addition to describing this media influence on what we think about and how we think about it, Setting the Agenda also discusses the sources of these media agendas, the psychological explanation for their impact on the public agenda, and the subsequent consequences for attitudes, opinions and behaviour.

Author Biography

Maxwell McCombs holds the J. H. Jones Centennial Chair at the University of Texas at Austin.

Table of Contents

List of Boxes	vi
Preface	viii
1 Influencing Public Opinion	1	(20)
2 Reality and the News	21	(15)
3 How Agenda-Setting Works	36	(17)
4 Why Agenda-Setting Occurs	53	(15)
5 The Pictures in our Heads	68	(18)
6 Attribute Agenda-Setting and Framing	86	(12)
7 Shaping the Media Agenda	98	(21)
8 Consequences of Agenda-Setting	119	(15)
9 Mass Communication and Society	134	(12)
Epilogue	146	(4)
Notes	150	(29)
Index	179