The news media have significant influence on the formation of public opinion. Called the agenda-setting role of the media, this influence occurs at three levels. Focusing public attention on a select few issues or other topics at any moment is level one. Emphasizing specific attributes of those issues or topics is level two. The Power of Information Networks: The Third Level of Agenda Setting introduces the newest perspective on this influence. While levels one and two are concerned with t...

This book discusses the public opinion process with a focus on the role that the news media play in shaping public opinion. Although heavily influenced by the agenda-setting perspective -- the view that the news media define the important issues of the day and determine how these issues are presented -- the authors neither support nor refute this claim. They present instead a variety of contemporary scholarship integrated into a coherent picture of public opinion for a general audience.

News media strongly influence how we picture public affairs across the world, playing a significant and sometimes controversial role in determining which topics are at the centre of public attention and action. Setting the Agenda, first published in 2004, has become the go-to textbook on this crucial topic.In this timely third edition, Maxwell McCombs – a pioneer of agenda-setting research – and Sebastián Valenzuela – a senior scholar of agenda setting in Latin America – h...

In 1996, the National Issues Convention (NIC) assembled a national sample of 459 Americans on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin. This diverse group of Americans was seen and heard nationally. They spent three days in small group discussions of major public issues and participated in two live PBS telecasts moderated by Jim Lehrer where they questioned Vice President Al Gore and four contenders for the Republican presidential nomination. This experiment in democracy was an inno...

The role of the news media in defining the important issues of the day, also known as the agenda-setting influence of mass communication, has received widespread attention over the past 20 years. Since the publication of McCombs and Shaw's seminal empirical study, more than one hundred journal articles and monographs have appeared. This collection exemplifies the major phases of research on agenda-setting: tests of the basic hypothesis, contingent conditions affecting the strength of this ...

Policy Analysis in the United States brings together contributions from some of the world’s leading scholars and practitioners of public policy analysis including Beryl Radin, David Weimer, Rebecca Maynard, Laurence Lynn, and Guy Peters.This volume represents an indispensable companion to other volumes in the International Library of Policy Analysis series, enabling scholars to compare cross-nationally concepts and practices of public policy analysis in the media, sub-national gove...

Almost twenty-five years ago, Shanto Iyengar and Donald R. Kinder first documented a series of sophisticated and innovative experiments that unobtrusively altered the order and emphasis of news stories in selected television broadcasts. Their resulting book News That Matters, now hailed as a classic by scholars of political science and public opinion alike, is here updated for the twenty-first century, with a new preface and epilogue by the authors. Backed by careful analysis of p...

This volume explores agenda-setting theory in light of changes in the media environment in the 21st century. In the decades since the original Chapel Hill study that launched agenda-setting research, the theory has attracted the interest of scholars worldwide.Agenda Setting in a 2.0 World features the work of a new generation of scholars. The research provided by these young scholars reflects two broad contemporary trends in agenda-setting: A centrifugal trend of research ...

This volume presents five studies on the relationship between the media and voters. Each examines some aspects of the flow of information to voters during election campaigns and all reflect the assumption that the right to vote must include the right of access and sufficient information to make an informed decision.In separate studies, Jean Crête and Robert MacDermid examine existing studies and data on the relationship between attention to media and voter information and behaviour...

Between one election and the next, members of Congress introduce thousands of bills. What determines which become law? Is it the public? Do we have government 'of the people, by the people, for the people?' Or is it those who have the resources to organize and pressure government who get what they want? In the first study ever of a random sample of policy proposals, Paul Burstein finds that the public can get what it wants - but mainly on the few issues that attract its attention. Does thi...

With everything readers need to know about how to execute their research project, this book is written specifically for information systems (IS) and computing students. It introduces key quantitative and qualitative research methods, makes sense of underlying philosophies, and helps readers navigate and assess existing academic papers. Special features support students as they bridge the gap between theory and practice. These include:- research examples from the IS and computing di...

How "colorblindness" in policy and personal practice perpetuate racial inequity in the United States today.Following the civil rights movement, race relations in the United States entered a new era.Legal gains were interpreted by some as ensuring equal treatment for all and that "colorblind" policies and programs would be the best way forward. Since then, many voices have called for an end to affirmative action and other color-conscious policies and programs, and e...