agenda

this is a well theory by mcombs{{cite journal|last=McCombs|first=M|author2=Shaw, D|title=The agenda-setting function of mass media|journal=Public Opinion Quarterly|year=1972|volume=36|issue=2}}By comparing the salience of issues in news content with the public's perceptions of the most important election issue, McCombs and Shaw were able to determine the degree to which the media determines public opinion. Since the 1968 study, published in a 1972 edition of ''[[Public Opinion Quarterly]]'', more than 400 studies have been published on the agenda-setting function of the mass media, and the theory continues to be regarded as relevant.{{cite journal|last=McCombs|first=M|title=A look at agenda-setting: Past, present and future.|journal=Journalism Studies|year=2005|volume=6|issue=4}}

== History ==
The theory of agenda-setting can be traced to the first chapter of [[Walter Lippmann]]’s 1922 classic, ''[[Public Opinion (book)|Public Opinion]]''.{{cite book|last=Lippmann|first=W|title=Public opinion|year=1922|publisher=Harcourt|location=New York}} In that chapter, "[http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/lippman/ch01.html The World Outside The Pictures In Our Heads,]" Lippmann argues that the mass media are the principal connection between events in the world and the images in the minds of the public. Without using the term "agenda-setting," Walter Lippmann was writing about what we today would call "agenda-setting." Following Lippmann, in 1963, Bernard Cohen observed that the press "may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about. The world will look different to different people," Cohen continues, "depending on the map that is drawn for them by writers, editors, and publishers of the paper they read." {{cite book|last=Cohen|first=B|title=The press and foreign policy|year=1963|publisher=Harcourt|location=New York}} As early as the 1960s, Cohen had expressed the idea that