Source
McCombs and Shaw (1972), LIT-1335, read in NOTE-1046. The hypothesis is older: Cohen (1963), “it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about”, and Lang and Lang, “The mass media force attention to certain issues.” The paper states it: “While the mass media may have little influence on the direction or intensity of attitudes, it is hypothesized that the mass media set the agenda for each political campaign, influencing the salience of attitudes toward the political issues.”
What was actually shown
The aggregate correlations of THEORY-842 and its comparison against selective perception. Those are what agenda-setting predicts. The direction from media to public is defended by argument only: few voters observe a campaign directly, journalists’ news values usually diverge from their audiences’, and “It is easier to argue that Chapel Hill voters fit their judgments of issue salience to the mass media than the reverse” (fn. 13).
What this does not say
- Not that the media decide what people conclude. The hypothesis is about the ranking of issues, and is stated against an effect on attitudes.
- Not that the media originate the agenda. In 1968 the media’s emphasis reflected the candidates’ to a large degree; the hypothesis concerns the transfer from news to audience, whoever set the news.
- Not established by this source. The study read here could not tell the hypothesis from a common response to events or from media catering to their audience, except by argument.