- Email: [email protected]
Agenda setting function of mass media
-Maxwell MeCombs
Agenda Setting Functionof MassMedia Public relations practitioners have long attempted to persuade publics through mass l'I1edia campaigns. Social scientists, likewise, have searched for the most persuasive mix of l'I1essages and media. Most of this research, however, indicates that the media s~~om change attitudes and behavior, and that persuasion is, therefore, an unrealistic o tectiue for a media campaign. Led by Maxwell McCombs, the author of this article, communication researchers have discovered a logical and more realistic effect of media : While the media do not ~1l peo!'le what to think, they tell people what to think about. That is, the media ~ ete~me which issues-and which organizations-will be put on the public agenda r dlS~ussion. In this article, McCombs summarizes research on agenda-setting and en dIScusses its implications for public relations. McCombs holds a Ph.D. in Mass Communication Research from Stanford Unive . r~lty, and is cu"ently John Ben Snow Professor of Newspaper Research at Syracuse lJntversity.
/t.
M
ost early behavioral science research on the effects of communication fOCUsed on attitudes and behavior. We know the general outcome of ~hat line of inquiry, which dominated mass communication research in the ..9405 and 1950s; an outcome succinctly summed up in Hope Klapper's phrase, the law of minimal consequences." While enuciation of that "law" settled the Illat~er for some persons, there remained others who for a wide variety of iotlYes and reasons continued to harbor the suspicion that mass cornmunicalO~ could have significant and profound social effects. Since attitudes and overt behavior can be considered the final Jinks in a ~q~ence beginning with awareness and knowledge, recent research into the s?C1al impact of mass communication has focused its attention there. In hindfIght, it is now clear that the early research strategy of primarily striking t~rther along this sequence in the search for mass media effects was too ambief~us and too radical. Recent research which has restricted its attention to the eets of the mass media on awareness and knowledge has documented a
------------------------------89
P ..bU" Relations Review broad array of significant findings. Considering that the overt goals of mass communication are primarily to inform and to entertain, the fact that the mass media have more impact on awareness and knowledge than on attitudes and overt behavior is not that surprising. In one regard, the fact that the mass media have major influence on awareness of public issues and other major social topics is a truism. For the most part, the objects which are the focus of public attention and public opinion are not experienced firsthand by most members of the public. Recall that the opening chapter of Walter Lippmann's classic book, Public Opinion, is entitled "the World Outside and The Pictures in Our Heads." As Lippmann observed, that part of our behavior pertinent to public opinion is, for the most part, a response to the pictures in our heads shaped by mass media coverage of the world outside. Recent behavioral science research has begun to detail the pervasiveness of this mass media influence on public attention. Through their day-by-daY selection and display of the news, the mass media shape our perspectives of the world and focus our attention, influencing our views about what are the important topics of the day. It is this ability of the press to influence the perceived salience of topics that has come to be called the agenda-setting function of the press. In short, while the press may not tell us what to think, it is stunningly successful in telling us what to think about. Through its patterns of selection and play of the daily news, the press presents the public a continuous stream of cues about the relative importance of various topics and events. Newspapers clearly communicate salience through page placement, headline size, and the amount of space accorded an item· Television news formats also provide cues about the relative salience of neWS events. The idea of an agenda-setting function of mass communication is an assertion that the audience learns these saliences from the mass media, incorporating a similar set of weights into their own personal agendas. Agenda-setting is a relational concept specifying a positive relationship between the emphaseS of the news media and the perceived importance of these topics to the neWs audience. Establishing these saliences among the public, placing an issue or topic on the agenda so that it becomes the focus of public attention, thought, and discussion, is the first stage in the formation of public opinion. Consideration of public opinion usually focuses on the distribution of opinions pro and con once an issue is before the public. Agenda-setting directs our attention to an earlier stage in the public opinion process, the stage at which an issue emerge5ci At this point of initial emergence and opinion formation, policymakers an planners still have numerous options at hand. Once an issue is highly salient and opinions are largely shaped, public relations may be limited to a defensive posture or a redundant "me too-ism." Effective public relations requires lead time, and opportunities to communicate before an issue is approaching its zenith. Knowledge of the agenda-setting process and its role in the forrn~ tion of public opinion can provide these opportunities for effective publiC relations at the time issues are first emerging on the public agenda. 90
Agenda Setting Funetlon Of Mass Media Detailing the Concept To fully understand the role of the agenda-setting function of the press in the formation of public opinion, it is necessary to examine four major facets of this idea in detail. Here we will examine: • the nature of the public agenda; • the nature of the mass media agendas; • the time-lag between the appearance of items on the press agenda and their later appearance on the public agenda; • the exact nature of the relationship between the mass media and public agendas. Public Agendas In considering the public agenda-those issues or topics in the forefront of Public attention and concern-it is important to make several distinctions. First, for each individual we must distinguish between the intrapersonal agenda-those things which are personally most important to the individualand the interpersonal agenda-those things which the individual discusses most often with others. While there is considerable overlap between the contents of these two agendas, it is far from perfect. 1 Many topics of major concern to an individual ~ay never show up as prominent topics of discussion with friends or family. t ~~versely, a great deal of the content of daily conversation focuses on the thnVt~1 and topics of passing moment, not the abiding issues and concerns of ehme. Beyond these personal agendas, each individual also perceives a community agenda-those things which he or she believes to be the major concerns of the ]>rnrnunity in which he resides." Our experience during the 1976 elections I Ustrates the divergence between personal agendas and perceived community agendas. Among our random sample of respondents in New Hampshire, for ~:rnpl~, f~w persons listed taxes as a major personal concern, altho~gh ~e c t maJonty told us that taxes were the major concern of most voters In their ortununity a So Weneed to distinguish three different public agendas-those issues which ire personally most important; those issues discussed most often; and those ;~~f perceived as important in the community. Each involves a different ic relations goal. Media Agendas p While most researchers have used quite straight-forward content analysis tvrh~~dures to define the agenda of the mass media, there is the question of fa rc . mass media to include. Most studies have used a mix of media, the co~ntes.bei~g television and newspapers because they are the dominant mass A rn~nlcahon channels for news. m . t fIrst, television and newspapers were used in tandem as simply two ajar news outlets. But recent work has begun to outline distinct agenda-set-
---~---------------=:91
P ..bUc Relations Review ting roles for television and newspapers. In other words, television and newspaper impact are not simple replicates of each other. For example, Shaw and McCombs found a major agenda-setting role on political issues for newspapers and only a minor role for TV.' The gist of that evidence shows that newspapers are the prime movers in organizing the public agenda. They largely set the stage of public concern. But television news is not wholly without influence. It has some short-term impact on the composition of the public agenda. Perhaps the best way to describe and contrast these influences is to label the role of the newspaper as agenda-setting and the role of television as spotlighting. The basic nature of the agenda seems often to be set by the newspapers, while television primarily reorders or rearranges the top items on the agenda. Time-lag This description of the roles played by newspapers and television brings US to the third question: what is the time-lag between the appearance of an item on the press agenda and the appearance of that item on the public agenda7 Our best evidence to date suggests that a three to five month process, on the average, is involved in the agenda-setting influence of the press. & That, of course, is an average. A few issues and topics move almost instantaneously from the press to the public agenda. Others, like Watergate, take a long period of incubation before they appear on the public agenda in any strength. In Our detailed analysis of the 1972 Presidential election, voter concerns of the early fall largely reflected press coverage of the late spring and early summer. One of our continuing concerns in this research is to identify the variations in this learning process among news audiences. This question about the time-lag in the movement of topics from the press agenda to the public agenda helps answer an additional question about the extent of agenda-setting. The concept of agenda-setting is not pertinent to every issue or concern which a society confronts. There clearly are boundaries to agenda-setting, defined in part by journalism's view of the nature of neWs and in part by the tenure of that news. First of all, mass communication agendas and, hence, the agenda-set tin8 influence, are limited to that range of topics considered newsworthy. For many topics the press will play no role at all in bringing them to public consciousness. Second, if the newsworthy aspects of a topic or concern do not persist over time, the press is unlikely to play any significant agenda-set tin8 role. The three to five month average lag in time reflects a continuing, long~ term influence process, one of slow accretion, not rapid "Ah Hal" effects. So. a topic does not stay in the news over a considerable period of time, there IS likely to be little impact on the public agenda . Relationship of Mass Media Agenda and Public Agenda So far I have spoken of agenda-setting without completely specifying the precise nature of the relationship between the mass media agenda and the
92
Agenda Setting Funetlon or Mass Media
-
public agenda. But there are at least three different ways to describe this agenda-settinginfluence. I The simplest version is awareness. Here the description is simply one of aWareness versus ignorance. As stated previously, this basic notion of agendaSetting is a truism. If the media tell us nothing about a topic or event, then in Illost cases it simply will not exist on our personal agendas. However, the concept of agenda-setting, as it has been empirically developed, urges a more detailed version, namely that among the many topics lhansmitted by the media, the same order of priorities will be transferred from lhe media agenda to the public agenda. In short, we judge as important what t e media judge important. Intermediate between the awareness and the priorities versions is an agendasett~ng effect we might label salience: heavy media emphasis on an issue or tO~lC can move it into the top ranks of the personal agendas of the audience. T~IS .version of agenda-setting extends beyond sheer simple awareness. A dis~hlmmation is made by the audience as to high and low importance items, but e exact priorities of the media are not reproduced within personal agendas. So there are at least three ways to describe the relationships between media ~gendas and public agendas. To date most of the research has used the priorilesmodel, the most radical of these three statements of press influence. T~ this point I have talked primarily about the influence of the press on the P~bl~c agenda of issues . But the concept of agenda-setting is not limited to the ahonship between the salience of issues in the mass media and the salience Of ~hose issues to the audience. In addition to providing cues about the salience ~ . ISSues, the mass media also provide cues about the salience of various at~bhtes or facets of those issues. Not every attribute of an issue, idea, or event III t ~ news is considered newsworthy. Among those attributes selected for thentIon in the news, all are not accorded equal treatment. Just as the issues in f e news have different saliences, the attributes of those issues also have diferent saliences. ce A study of a local environmental issue-development of a lake area in th~tral .Indiana-found public views highly correlated with press coverage of Co Jan?~s facets of the controversy.' The salience of these facets-sewage, stan ~rnmlums, new roads, tourism, etc.-among citizens correlated subnhally with the coverage of these topics in the local press. M~othel' study of a national issue-the economy-among residents of Cotnneapolis, Minnesota also found substantial correlations between press Wi;h r 8e and the salience among the public of specific proposals for dealing seeu ! e economic situation-tax rebates, gasoline rationing, changes in SOCIal nty, etc.'
r1
t
no~n ~ort, the.concept of an agenda-setting function of mass communication of isa y descnbes the influence of the press in determining the general array howSUeshconsidered by the public, this concept also details an influence on influences eac of these issues is structured. In abstract terms, the press not only which objects are on the agenda it also influences which attributes of th ' _____oseob'leas are on the agenda. 93
PublJe RelatIons RevIew
-
Summing Up As a behavioral process, agenda-setting is the transfer of saliences from one communicator to another. In its original formulation agenda-setting was concerned with the transfer of issue saliences from a mass medium to individuals in the audience. The saliences of the press are its professional evaluations of what are the most important topics of the day. The saliences of the public are its psychological perceptions of the most important topics and issues of the times. But as we have seen, agenda-setting is not limited to the transfer of issue saliences from the news media to its audience. This transfer of salience, or achieved consensus on salience, can involve any dyad involved in a coatmunication situation, and it can involve the salience of objects and their attributes other than public issues. In large part, the concept of agenda-setting is transferable to so many coatmunication situations because it comes to grips with the very essence of the news and journalistic function played by mass communication. Agenda-setting illuminates the signal function of news, what Lasswell in 1948 called the surveillance function of communication. As part of that signal or surveillanc~ function, journalism is our social radar constantly scanning the environm etl for the objects or events intruding into the community's life space.' To fully understand how surveillance and signalling, narrowly defined, are the essence of journalism, it is useful to recall sociologist (and former jOurn~l ist) Robert E. Park's' classification of news as a form of knowledge, dist~: guishing between two fundamental types: "acquaintance with" and "knowf edge about". As Park, and more recently, Roshco.v observed: the essence 0 news and journalism is "acquaintance with". This also is what agenda-setting is about. Unlike other communication col'\" cepts which are concerned with "knowledge and opinion about", agend~; setting focuses on "recognition of" and "acquaintance with". Implicit in thi "cognizance of" is the perception of the salience of the item. Dealing with a more simple form of information, acquaintance with, thf agenda-setting process extends public opinion theory into an earlier phase 0 behavior. To visualize the full public opinion process, imagine a curve repee; senting the rise and fall of an issue across time. Undoubtedly, many diffe~tla curves represent the topics of public opinion . Some rise and fall rapidly ~n e short period of time. Others rise slowly over long periods of time to aC~l~ great heights and then diminish. There may be many such curves descrJ~J1le the strength (represented by the height of the curve) and endurance across ~ se (represented by the breadth of the curve) of public issues. But most of t t~YI curves attain significant height before opinions exist, or more impo:ta n ittscientific observations and measures are made of these opinions. Pubhc oJ y. ion polls, for example, measure opinions on the most salient topics of theC:ial In other words, the polls measure topics after they are established on the s ceo n agenda, after the topic has passed some threshold of salience and importa the While our research now often examines agendas of established issues, the essence of the agenda-setting process is the initial movement of items o~
94
Agenda Setting Funetlon or Mass Jledla
-
genda. That is the point in the public opinion process where there is both the PPortunity and the need for effective public relations efforts. Footnotes 'Maxwell McCombs, "A Comparison of Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Agendas of Public lUes," paper presented to the International Communication Assoc., New Orleans, 1974. · lJack Mcleod, L. B. Becker, and J. E. Byrnes, "Another Look at the Agenda-Setting Function · the Press:' Communication Research 1 (1974): pp, 131-166; Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, urbulences in the Climate of Opinion: Methodological Application of the Spiral of Silence leory, " Public Opinion Quarterly 41 (1977): pp . 143-158. 'Donald Shaw and Maxwell McCombs, The Emergence of American Political lssues: The r~da-Setting Function of the Press (St. Paul : West Publishing Co. , 1977). 'Maxwell McCombs and Henry Schulte, "The Expanding Domain of the Agenda-Setting Func-
:n of Mass Communication," paper presented to the World Association for Public Opinion search, Montreaux, Switzerland, 1975; Shaw and McCombs, op, cit. 'Shaw and McCombs, op. cit. · I£)~vid Cohen, "A Report on a Non-Election Agenda-Setting Study," paper presented to the 'SOciation for Education in Journalism, Ottawa, Canada, 1975.
~arc Benton and P. J. Frazier, ''The Agenda-Setting Function of the Mass Media at Three ve of Information-Holding," Communication Research 3 (1976): pp. 261-274. U~arold
Lasswell, "The Structure and Function of Communication in Society," reprinted in rbur Schr~l1\m and Donald Roberts (eds.) , The Process and Effects of Mass Communication ana : University of llIinois Press, 1971}, pp . 84-99.
t~)Ohert E. Park,
: Pp. 273-289.
"The National History of the Newspaper:' American Journal of Sociology 29
"Bernard Roshco, NltDsmaking (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1975).
95
Agenda Setting Functionof MassMedia Public relations practitioners have long attempted to persuade publics through mass l'I1edia campaigns. Social scientists, likewise, have searched for the most persuasive mix of l'I1essages and media. Most of this research, however, indicates that the media s~~om change attitudes and behavior, and that persuasion is, therefore, an unrealistic o tectiue for a media campaign. Led by Maxwell McCombs, the author of this article, communication researchers have discovered a logical and more realistic effect of media : While the media do not ~1l peo!'le what to think, they tell people what to think about. That is, the media ~ ete~me which issues-and which organizations-will be put on the public agenda r dlS~ussion. In this article, McCombs summarizes research on agenda-setting and en dIScusses its implications for public relations. McCombs holds a Ph.D. in Mass Communication Research from Stanford Unive . r~lty, and is cu"ently John Ben Snow Professor of Newspaper Research at Syracuse lJntversity.
/t.
M
ost early behavioral science research on the effects of communication fOCUsed on attitudes and behavior. We know the general outcome of ~hat line of inquiry, which dominated mass communication research in the ..9405 and 1950s; an outcome succinctly summed up in Hope Klapper's phrase, the law of minimal consequences." While enuciation of that "law" settled the Illat~er for some persons, there remained others who for a wide variety of iotlYes and reasons continued to harbor the suspicion that mass cornmunicalO~ could have significant and profound social effects. Since attitudes and overt behavior can be considered the final Jinks in a ~q~ence beginning with awareness and knowledge, recent research into the s?C1al impact of mass communication has focused its attention there. In hindfIght, it is now clear that the early research strategy of primarily striking t~rther along this sequence in the search for mass media effects was too ambief~us and too radical. Recent research which has restricted its attention to the eets of the mass media on awareness and knowledge has documented a
------------------------------89
P ..bU" Relations Review broad array of significant findings. Considering that the overt goals of mass communication are primarily to inform and to entertain, the fact that the mass media have more impact on awareness and knowledge than on attitudes and overt behavior is not that surprising. In one regard, the fact that the mass media have major influence on awareness of public issues and other major social topics is a truism. For the most part, the objects which are the focus of public attention and public opinion are not experienced firsthand by most members of the public. Recall that the opening chapter of Walter Lippmann's classic book, Public Opinion, is entitled "the World Outside and The Pictures in Our Heads." As Lippmann observed, that part of our behavior pertinent to public opinion is, for the most part, a response to the pictures in our heads shaped by mass media coverage of the world outside. Recent behavioral science research has begun to detail the pervasiveness of this mass media influence on public attention. Through their day-by-daY selection and display of the news, the mass media shape our perspectives of the world and focus our attention, influencing our views about what are the important topics of the day. It is this ability of the press to influence the perceived salience of topics that has come to be called the agenda-setting function of the press. In short, while the press may not tell us what to think, it is stunningly successful in telling us what to think about. Through its patterns of selection and play of the daily news, the press presents the public a continuous stream of cues about the relative importance of various topics and events. Newspapers clearly communicate salience through page placement, headline size, and the amount of space accorded an item· Television news formats also provide cues about the relative salience of neWS events. The idea of an agenda-setting function of mass communication is an assertion that the audience learns these saliences from the mass media, incorporating a similar set of weights into their own personal agendas. Agenda-setting is a relational concept specifying a positive relationship between the emphaseS of the news media and the perceived importance of these topics to the neWs audience. Establishing these saliences among the public, placing an issue or topic on the agenda so that it becomes the focus of public attention, thought, and discussion, is the first stage in the formation of public opinion. Consideration of public opinion usually focuses on the distribution of opinions pro and con once an issue is before the public. Agenda-setting directs our attention to an earlier stage in the public opinion process, the stage at which an issue emerge5ci At this point of initial emergence and opinion formation, policymakers an planners still have numerous options at hand. Once an issue is highly salient and opinions are largely shaped, public relations may be limited to a defensive posture or a redundant "me too-ism." Effective public relations requires lead time, and opportunities to communicate before an issue is approaching its zenith. Knowledge of the agenda-setting process and its role in the forrn~ tion of public opinion can provide these opportunities for effective publiC relations at the time issues are first emerging on the public agenda. 90
Agenda Setting Funetlon Of Mass Media Detailing the Concept To fully understand the role of the agenda-setting function of the press in the formation of public opinion, it is necessary to examine four major facets of this idea in detail. Here we will examine: • the nature of the public agenda; • the nature of the mass media agendas; • the time-lag between the appearance of items on the press agenda and their later appearance on the public agenda; • the exact nature of the relationship between the mass media and public agendas. Public Agendas In considering the public agenda-those issues or topics in the forefront of Public attention and concern-it is important to make several distinctions. First, for each individual we must distinguish between the intrapersonal agenda-those things which are personally most important to the individualand the interpersonal agenda-those things which the individual discusses most often with others. While there is considerable overlap between the contents of these two agendas, it is far from perfect. 1 Many topics of major concern to an individual ~ay never show up as prominent topics of discussion with friends or family. t ~~versely, a great deal of the content of daily conversation focuses on the thnVt~1 and topics of passing moment, not the abiding issues and concerns of ehme. Beyond these personal agendas, each individual also perceives a community agenda-those things which he or she believes to be the major concerns of the ]>rnrnunity in which he resides." Our experience during the 1976 elections I Ustrates the divergence between personal agendas and perceived community agendas. Among our random sample of respondents in New Hampshire, for ~:rnpl~, f~w persons listed taxes as a major personal concern, altho~gh ~e c t maJonty told us that taxes were the major concern of most voters In their ortununity a So Weneed to distinguish three different public agendas-those issues which ire personally most important; those issues discussed most often; and those ;~~f perceived as important in the community. Each involves a different ic relations goal. Media Agendas p While most researchers have used quite straight-forward content analysis tvrh~~dures to define the agenda of the mass media, there is the question of fa rc . mass media to include. Most studies have used a mix of media, the co~ntes.bei~g television and newspapers because they are the dominant mass A rn~nlcahon channels for news. m . t fIrst, television and newspapers were used in tandem as simply two ajar news outlets. But recent work has begun to outline distinct agenda-set-
---~---------------=:91
P ..bUc Relations Review ting roles for television and newspapers. In other words, television and newspaper impact are not simple replicates of each other. For example, Shaw and McCombs found a major agenda-setting role on political issues for newspapers and only a minor role for TV.' The gist of that evidence shows that newspapers are the prime movers in organizing the public agenda. They largely set the stage of public concern. But television news is not wholly without influence. It has some short-term impact on the composition of the public agenda. Perhaps the best way to describe and contrast these influences is to label the role of the newspaper as agenda-setting and the role of television as spotlighting. The basic nature of the agenda seems often to be set by the newspapers, while television primarily reorders or rearranges the top items on the agenda. Time-lag This description of the roles played by newspapers and television brings US to the third question: what is the time-lag between the appearance of an item on the press agenda and the appearance of that item on the public agenda7 Our best evidence to date suggests that a three to five month process, on the average, is involved in the agenda-setting influence of the press. & That, of course, is an average. A few issues and topics move almost instantaneously from the press to the public agenda. Others, like Watergate, take a long period of incubation before they appear on the public agenda in any strength. In Our detailed analysis of the 1972 Presidential election, voter concerns of the early fall largely reflected press coverage of the late spring and early summer. One of our continuing concerns in this research is to identify the variations in this learning process among news audiences. This question about the time-lag in the movement of topics from the press agenda to the public agenda helps answer an additional question about the extent of agenda-setting. The concept of agenda-setting is not pertinent to every issue or concern which a society confronts. There clearly are boundaries to agenda-setting, defined in part by journalism's view of the nature of neWs and in part by the tenure of that news. First of all, mass communication agendas and, hence, the agenda-set tin8 influence, are limited to that range of topics considered newsworthy. For many topics the press will play no role at all in bringing them to public consciousness. Second, if the newsworthy aspects of a topic or concern do not persist over time, the press is unlikely to play any significant agenda-set tin8 role. The three to five month average lag in time reflects a continuing, long~ term influence process, one of slow accretion, not rapid "Ah Hal" effects. So. a topic does not stay in the news over a considerable period of time, there IS likely to be little impact on the public agenda . Relationship of Mass Media Agenda and Public Agenda So far I have spoken of agenda-setting without completely specifying the precise nature of the relationship between the mass media agenda and the
92
Agenda Setting Funetlon or Mass Media
-
public agenda. But there are at least three different ways to describe this agenda-settinginfluence. I The simplest version is awareness. Here the description is simply one of aWareness versus ignorance. As stated previously, this basic notion of agendaSetting is a truism. If the media tell us nothing about a topic or event, then in Illost cases it simply will not exist on our personal agendas. However, the concept of agenda-setting, as it has been empirically developed, urges a more detailed version, namely that among the many topics lhansmitted by the media, the same order of priorities will be transferred from lhe media agenda to the public agenda. In short, we judge as important what t e media judge important. Intermediate between the awareness and the priorities versions is an agendasett~ng effect we might label salience: heavy media emphasis on an issue or tO~lC can move it into the top ranks of the personal agendas of the audience. T~IS .version of agenda-setting extends beyond sheer simple awareness. A dis~hlmmation is made by the audience as to high and low importance items, but e exact priorities of the media are not reproduced within personal agendas. So there are at least three ways to describe the relationships between media ~gendas and public agendas. To date most of the research has used the priorilesmodel, the most radical of these three statements of press influence. T~ this point I have talked primarily about the influence of the press on the P~bl~c agenda of issues . But the concept of agenda-setting is not limited to the ahonship between the salience of issues in the mass media and the salience Of ~hose issues to the audience. In addition to providing cues about the salience ~ . ISSues, the mass media also provide cues about the salience of various at~bhtes or facets of those issues. Not every attribute of an issue, idea, or event III t ~ news is considered newsworthy. Among those attributes selected for thentIon in the news, all are not accorded equal treatment. Just as the issues in f e news have different saliences, the attributes of those issues also have diferent saliences. ce A study of a local environmental issue-development of a lake area in th~tral .Indiana-found public views highly correlated with press coverage of Co Jan?~s facets of the controversy.' The salience of these facets-sewage, stan ~rnmlums, new roads, tourism, etc.-among citizens correlated subnhally with the coverage of these topics in the local press. M~othel' study of a national issue-the economy-among residents of Cotnneapolis, Minnesota also found substantial correlations between press Wi;h r 8e and the salience among the public of specific proposals for dealing seeu ! e economic situation-tax rebates, gasoline rationing, changes in SOCIal nty, etc.'
r1
t
no~n ~ort, the.concept of an agenda-setting function of mass communication of isa y descnbes the influence of the press in determining the general array howSUeshconsidered by the public, this concept also details an influence on influences eac of these issues is structured. In abstract terms, the press not only which objects are on the agenda it also influences which attributes of th ' _____oseob'leas are on the agenda. 93
PublJe RelatIons RevIew
-
Summing Up As a behavioral process, agenda-setting is the transfer of saliences from one communicator to another. In its original formulation agenda-setting was concerned with the transfer of issue saliences from a mass medium to individuals in the audience. The saliences of the press are its professional evaluations of what are the most important topics of the day. The saliences of the public are its psychological perceptions of the most important topics and issues of the times. But as we have seen, agenda-setting is not limited to the transfer of issue saliences from the news media to its audience. This transfer of salience, or achieved consensus on salience, can involve any dyad involved in a coatmunication situation, and it can involve the salience of objects and their attributes other than public issues. In large part, the concept of agenda-setting is transferable to so many coatmunication situations because it comes to grips with the very essence of the news and journalistic function played by mass communication. Agenda-setting illuminates the signal function of news, what Lasswell in 1948 called the surveillance function of communication. As part of that signal or surveillanc~ function, journalism is our social radar constantly scanning the environm etl for the objects or events intruding into the community's life space.' To fully understand how surveillance and signalling, narrowly defined, are the essence of journalism, it is useful to recall sociologist (and former jOurn~l ist) Robert E. Park's' classification of news as a form of knowledge, dist~: guishing between two fundamental types: "acquaintance with" and "knowf edge about". As Park, and more recently, Roshco.v observed: the essence 0 news and journalism is "acquaintance with". This also is what agenda-setting is about. Unlike other communication col'\" cepts which are concerned with "knowledge and opinion about", agend~; setting focuses on "recognition of" and "acquaintance with". Implicit in thi "cognizance of" is the perception of the salience of the item. Dealing with a more simple form of information, acquaintance with, thf agenda-setting process extends public opinion theory into an earlier phase 0 behavior. To visualize the full public opinion process, imagine a curve repee; senting the rise and fall of an issue across time. Undoubtedly, many diffe~tla curves represent the topics of public opinion . Some rise and fall rapidly ~n e short period of time. Others rise slowly over long periods of time to aC~l~ great heights and then diminish. There may be many such curves descrJ~J1le the strength (represented by the height of the curve) and endurance across ~ se (represented by the breadth of the curve) of public issues. But most of t t~YI curves attain significant height before opinions exist, or more impo:ta n ittscientific observations and measures are made of these opinions. Pubhc oJ y. ion polls, for example, measure opinions on the most salient topics of theC:ial In other words, the polls measure topics after they are established on the s ceo n agenda, after the topic has passed some threshold of salience and importa the While our research now often examines agendas of established issues, the essence of the agenda-setting process is the initial movement of items o~
94
Agenda Setting Funetlon or Mass Jledla
-
genda. That is the point in the public opinion process where there is both the PPortunity and the need for effective public relations efforts. Footnotes 'Maxwell McCombs, "A Comparison of Intrapersonal and Interpersonal Agendas of Public lUes," paper presented to the International Communication Assoc., New Orleans, 1974. · lJack Mcleod, L. B. Becker, and J. E. Byrnes, "Another Look at the Agenda-Setting Function · the Press:' Communication Research 1 (1974): pp, 131-166; Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, urbulences in the Climate of Opinion: Methodological Application of the Spiral of Silence leory, " Public Opinion Quarterly 41 (1977): pp . 143-158. 'Donald Shaw and Maxwell McCombs, The Emergence of American Political lssues: The r~da-Setting Function of the Press (St. Paul : West Publishing Co. , 1977). 'Maxwell McCombs and Henry Schulte, "The Expanding Domain of the Agenda-Setting Func-
:n of Mass Communication," paper presented to the World Association for Public Opinion search, Montreaux, Switzerland, 1975; Shaw and McCombs, op, cit. 'Shaw and McCombs, op. cit. · I£)~vid Cohen, "A Report on a Non-Election Agenda-Setting Study," paper presented to the 'SOciation for Education in Journalism, Ottawa, Canada, 1975.
~arc Benton and P. J. Frazier, ''The Agenda-Setting Function of the Mass Media at Three ve of Information-Holding," Communication Research 3 (1976): pp. 261-274. U~arold
Lasswell, "The Structure and Function of Communication in Society," reprinted in rbur Schr~l1\m and Donald Roberts (eds.) , The Process and Effects of Mass Communication ana : University of llIinois Press, 1971}, pp . 84-99.
t~)Ohert E. Park,
: Pp. 273-289.
"The National History of the Newspaper:' American Journal of Sociology 29
"Bernard Roshco, NltDsmaking (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1975).
95