Abstract

Agenda setting theory has been a very influential theory in the field of political communication and political science, providing solid evidence of the role of the mass media in influencing the salience of issues and issue perspectives (Weaver, 2007). Alongside framing and gatekeeping theory, agenda setting has been a foundational theory to the field of mass communication, orienting our assessment of the mass media’s effects away from short term measurement of attitudes and behaviors and towards its impact on our cognitions and knowledge (McCombs, 2014).