News coverage devoted to a problem increases public belief in its importance

Evidence

Taken together, the evidence from the two experiments strongly supports the classical agenda-setting hypothesis. With a single and, we think, forgivable exception, viewers exposed to news devoted to a particular problem become more convinced of its importance. Network news programs seem to possess a powerful capacity to shape the public’s agenda. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 1472

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to classic McCombs-Shaw agenda-setting research and to what the reader knows about media priming from earlier in the book and from communication-studies sources. — connects to: News coverage affects attitudes with a peak two-week memory window. — Ilyana Kuziemko and Ebonya Washington, Why Did the Democrats Lose the South?…, 622; A respected publication’s coverage legitimizes scandal into public issue — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 4268; Media coverage of one lawsuit produced an effective national educational document (+2 more)