Agenda Setting Theory
Maxwell McCombs & Donald Shaw
Mass Communication—Media Effects
Spiral of Silence
Theory Overview (7th Edition)
Abstracts appear in Appendix A of the text
The media tell us (1) what to think about, and (2) how to think about it. The first process (agenda setting) transfers the salience of items on their news agenda to our agenda. The second process (framing) transfers the salience of selected attributes to prominence among the pictures in our heads. (Socio-psychological tradition)