Page 27 - Media Effects Advances in Theory and Research

16 McCOMBS AND REYNOLDS

The transmission of culture is also linked to the agenda-setting process.
Media and public agendas of issues, political candidates, and their attrib-
utes all rest on the foundations of democracy, the larger political culture
defined by a basic civic agenda of beliefs about politics and elections.
Exploration of yet other cultural agendas is moving agenda-setting theory
far beyond its traditional realm of public affairs. These new lines of cul-
tural inquiry extend from the historical agenda defining a society’s collec-
tive memory of the past to the contemporary agenda of attributes defin-
ing the ideal physical appearance of young women and men. The imprint
of the mass media that begins with its agenda-setting influence is found
on many aspects of public opinion and behavior.

REFERENCES

Becker, L., & McCombs, M. E. (1978). The role of the press in determining voter reaction
to presidential primaries. Human Communication Research, 4, 301–307.
Becker, L., McCombs, M. E., & McLeod, J. (1975). The development of political congni-
tions. In S. Chaffee (Ed.), Political communication: Issues and strategies for research
(pp. 21–64). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Benton, M., & Frazier, P. J. (1976). The agenda-setting function of the mass media at three
levels of information-holding. Communication Research, 3, 261–274.
Blood, R. W. (1981). Unobtrusive issues in the agenda-setting role of the press. Unpublished
doctoral dissertation, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY.
Brosius, H. B., & Kepplinger, H. M. (1990). The agenda-setting function of television
news: Static and dynamic views. Communication Research, 17, 183–211.
Canel, M. J., Llamas, J. P., & Rey, F. (1996). El primer nivel del efecto agenda setting en la
informacion local: Los “problemas mas importantes” de la ciudad de Pamplona [The
first level agenda setting effect on local information: The “most important problems”
of the city of Pamplona]. Communicacion y Sociedad, 9, 17–38.
Chiang, C. (1995). Bridging and closing the gap of our society: Social function of media agenda
setting. Unpublished master’s thesis, University of Texas, Austin.
Cohen, B. C. (1963). The press and foreign policy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Cohen, D. (1975). A report on a non-election agenda-setting study. Paper presented to the
Association for Education in Journalism, Ottawa, Canada.
Dearing, J., & Rogers, E. (1996). Agenda setting. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Eaton, H., Jr. (1989). Agenda setting with bi-weekly data on content of three national
media. Journalism Quarterly, 66, 942–948.
Funkhouser, G. R. (1973). The issues of the sixties. Public Opinion Quarterly, 37, 62–75.
Gamson, W. (1992). Talking politics. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Ghanem, S. (1996). Media coverage of crime and public opinion: An exploration of the second level
of agenda setting. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Texas, Austin.
Iyengar, S., & Kinder, D. R. (1987). News that matters: Television and American opinion.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
King, P. (1997). The press, candidate images and voter perceptions. In M. E. McCombs,
D. L. Shaw, and D. Weaver (Eds.), Communication and democracy: Exploring the intellec-
tual frontiers in agenda setting (pp. 29–40). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Kiousis, S. (2000). Beyond salience: Exploring the linkages between the agenda setting role of
mass media and mass persuasion. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of
Texas, Austin.