The Public and the National Agenda: How People Learn About Important Issues

by Wayne Wanta

Focusing on the agenda-setting function of the news media from an information processing standpoint, this volume examines how individuals expose themselves to news media content and how this content translates into issue salience. It utilizes the individual as the unit of measurement. Many agenda-setting studies have used the issue, rather than the individual, as the unit of measurement. By employing an "agenda-setting susceptibility" index, the book details how individuals who actively process information in the news media are most susceptible to agenda-setting effects. Merging agenda-setting with research in information processing and uses and gratifications, it proposes and tests a causal model of media agenda-setting influences by examining demographics, psychological factors, and behavioral variables of individuals.

132 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1997