The agenda setting function of the media was first mentioned by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw in 1972. This was after the idea that people desire media assistance in determining political reality was already mentioned by a number of event analysts. Maxwell McCombs, pictured below, received a PhD and a M.A. from Stanford University and a B.A. from Tulane University. He is the president of the World Association for Public Opinion Research and a fellow of the International Communication Association. His research has expanded our minds on the agenda-setting theory. His original thoughts of the agenda-setting theory was the impact the media has on the focus of the public. His latest revolution he has come up with, while in Texas and Spain, is how the media influences both "what we think about and how we think about it."

The agenda-setting theory has very scientific characteristics. This theory does a good job of explaining the behavior of the public. It helps to reinforce class, race, gender, and age in the public. Agenda setting predicts what is going to happen in the future. It is a simple theory that is easy to understand. Agenda setting can be tested and it is a useful theory to everyone that knows about it. According to McCombs and Shaw, the agenda-setting theory found an appreciative audience among mass communication researchers. They found that the selective exposure hypothesis claimed that people would attend only to the news and views that didn't threaten their established beliefs. McCombs and Shaw's agenda-setting hypothesis represented a back-to-the-basics approach to mass communication research.

Agenda-setting explains the behavior of the public in relation to the media. According to McCombs and Shaw the hypothesized agenda-setting function of the media is responsible for the almost perfect correlation they found between the media and public ordering of priorities. What this means to me is that this theory basically explains how the media influences the public opinion on topics in the news. Its like McCombs said, "not what we think, but what we think about." That is what the media has drilled into the brains of the public. The only topics worth thinking about, are the ones on the news or on the radio. The flip side to this theory is that the media covers simply what public concerns already exist. If the public showed no concern with a topic in the past, then the media would not cover that topic again. Both the media affects the public's concerns and the public affects the media's concerns. This theory explains why the public reacts to the media's coverage the way that they do. McCombs and Shaw believe "mass media have the ability to transfer the salience of items on their news agendas to the public agendas." They say that "we judge as important what the media judge as important." Many people argue that the media affects the salience of some issues for some people, but not all people.

McCombs and Shaw's agenda-setting theory does a good job of predicting future events. Their back-to-the-basics approach to mass communication hypothesis predicts a cause-and-effect relationship between media content and voter perception. Basically they can predict how the public is going to react to the media's news by how they have reacted in the past. Although later work explores the conditions under which the media priorities are most influential, the theory rises or falls on its ability to show a match between the media's agenda and the public's agenda later on. The media depends on the public to react to their stories and think about the news that they reveal to the public. If the media predicts that a story is not going to concern the public, then they are not going to cover that story.

A good scientific theory is as simple as possible. McCombs and Shaw's agenda-setting theory is a pretty simple theory. It basically says that what the media says, is going to affect how the public thinks. A study done by Funkhouser simply states that "the correspondence between news articles and public's regurgitating back to the pollster what is currently in the news, with little or no relation to what the respondent himself feels is important." The fact of the matter is that whatever the public is concerned about, the media has an effect on what they think about and what they are going to talk about at the coffee machine at work.

The agenda-setting function is testable. The hypothesis that McCombs and Shaw have come up with is that people would attend only to news and views that didn't threaten their established beliefs. The media were seen as merely stroking preexistent attitudes. After two decades of downplaying the influence of newspapers, magazines, radio, and television, the field was disenchanted with this limited-effects approach. Their theory boasted two attractive features: It reaffirmed the power of the press while still maintaining that individuals were free to choose. This theory is tested everyday when people watch the news, listen to the radio or pick up a newspaper. Every time the public reacts to a story that the media gives them, the media knows what types of stories the public likes to hear.

I believe that the agenda-setting theory is a useful theory. The people that are most affected by this theory are the people that have the willingness to let the media shape their thinking and have a high need for orientation. It is basically the people that are curious about the news. This theory explains why people believe what they believe. They are influenced by the media and think about what the media tells them. The stories that the media tells the public are exactly that, stories. That is why I believe that this theory is not useful to everyone, but it does a good job of explaining why people believe the things that they believe. According to Griffin, "McCombs and Shaw have established a plausible case that some people look to print and broadcast news for guidance on which issues are really important. McCombs and Shaw have accomplished the function they ascribe to the media. Agenda-setting theory has a priority place on the mass communication agenda."

Griffin, EM. A First Look At Communication Theory. The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1997

To learn more about Agenda Setting click here.

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In social judgment terms, McCombs and Shaw didn't claim that the media alter recipient's latitudes of acceptance or change their anchored opinions. The press and television cause audience ego-involvement in the issue to rise and fall in response to media emphasis. To see more about the social judgment theory click here.

This page was last updated on 3-14-00.