Media Agenda-Setting

Scott P. Robinson, Journalism Honors Project, Northern Illinois University

One of the great concerns of journalism has traditionally been with which stories are the most important to cover at any given time.

One role of a free press in a democratic society is ostensibly to provide the public with information necessary for them to take part in governing themselves. Therefore, the question of how media organizations decide what stories are important and how to cover them becomes a matter of great importance in our society.

E. E. Schattschneider summed up the importance of this "agenda-setting" role of the media when in 1960 he wrote, "The definition of the alternatives is the supreme instrument of power."

The term "agenda-setting" was first used in a study by Maxwell E. McCombs and Donald L. Shaw published in 1972. In the study, the researchers interviewed 100 undecided voters in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and asked them what issues they were most concerned about in the coming (1968) election.

After determining the five issues the voters deemed most important, the researchers evaluated the media serving Chapel Hill (both print and broadcast) for the content of their stories. McCombs and Shaw found an almost perfect correlation between the types of stories that were covered most often and the voters' concern for the same issues.

McCombs and Shaw's research into agenda-setting was not the first foray into the subject (although it was the first to coin the term "agenda setting"), and it would not be the last.

Several studies are done each year within the various disciplines of agenda-setting research. Generally, the studies seem mostly to confirm that agenda-setting does in fact take place, and that media attention toward stories is the most important factor involved in shaping the public's view of the stories' relative importance.

In fact, studies have shown that the mere number of times a story is repeated in the news will affect peoples' perception of the story's importance, regardless of what is said about the topic.

To 2. Is agenda-setting a two-way street?

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