1  Dedication

      2  Title page

      3  Copyright page

      4  Boxes

      5  Foreword: ‘Messages and Residues’ Donald L. Shaw and David H. Weaver

      6  Preface Notes

      7  1 Influencing Public Opinion Our pictures of the world Contemporary empirical evidence The accumulated evidence The 1972 US presidential election in Charlotte The 1976 US presidential election in three communities National concern about civil rights British and American concern about foreign affairs Public opinion in Germany Agenda setting in a Swedish election Public opinion in Louisville Local public opinion in Spain, Japan, and Argentina Replication with other issues Cause and effect A new communication landscape 1. Do online media have agenda-setting effects among the public? 2. Has the proliferation of online media diminished the agenda-setting impact of the traditional media? 3. To what extent are there specific channel effects vs. the collective impact of a communication gestalt? Summing up Notes

      8  2 Reality and the News Idiosyncratic pictures A decade of American public opinion Creating a crisis National concern about drugs Fear of crime Discovering the environment Alarmed discovery Perspectives on agenda-setting effects Content versus exposure Agenda setting in past centuries Summing up Notes

      9  3 The Pictures in our Heads Pictures of political candidates Candidate images in national elections Candidate images in local elections Visual images and attributes Attributes of issues Compelling arguments Agenda setting and other communication theories Attribute agenda setting and framing Summing up Notes

      10  4 Networks of Issues and Attributes Associative memory Networks of candidates and attributes Accumulated evidence on network agenda setting A new gestalt perspective Summing Up Notes

      11  5 Why Agenda Setting Occurs Relevance and uncertainty Occurrence of agenda-setting effects Relevance Personal experience with public issues Individual differences Incidental learning