List of Boxes Preface 1 Influencing Public Opinion 2 Reality and the News 3 How Agenda-Setting Works 4 Why Agenda-Setting Occurs 5 The Pictures in our Heads 6 Attribute Agenda-Setting and Framing 7 Shaping the Media Agenda 8 Consequences of Agenda-Setting 9 Mass Communication and Society Epilogue Notes Index
摘要
An intensive look at an entire presidential election year followed in 1976 and again highlighted variations in the agenda-setting influence of the news media during different seasons of the year. 13 To capture these variations, panels of voters were interviewed nine times from February through December in three very different settings: Lebanon, New Hampshire, a small town in the state where the first presidential primary to select the Democrat and Republican candidates for president is held each election year; Indianapolis, Indiana, a typical mid-sized American city; and Evanston, Illinois, a largely upscale suburb of Chicago. Simultaneously, the election coverage of the three national television networks and the local newspapers in these three sites was content analysed.
In all three communities the agenda-setting influence of both television and newspapers was greatest during the spring primaries, when voters were just beginning to tune in to the presidential campaign. A declining trend of media influence on the public agenda during the remainder of the year was particularly clear for the salience of seven relatively remote issues - foreign affairs, government credibility, crime, social problems, environment and energy, government spending and size, and race relations. The salience of more personal matters, such as economic issues, remained high for voters through- out the campaign regardless of their treatment by newspapers and television. Personal experience can be a more powerful teacher than the mass media when issues have a direct impact on people's lives.
