TELEVISION-NEWS AND ISSUE SALIENCE - RE-EXAMINATION OF THE AGENDA-SETTING HYPOTHESIS

This article tests the agenda-setting hypothesis with regard to national television news in 1974 and 1976. The results indicate a modest degree of overlap between news coverage and viewer perceptions of issue salience. Diachronic correlations, however, suggest that the causal direction of the relationship is unclear. Contrary to the hypothesis, the agenda- setting relationship is not increased among frequent viewers of television news. Exami nation of the salience rankings of each network's audience also fails to support the hy pothesis. Finally, the agenda-setting relationship is found to be totally unaffected by a battery of control variables including media usage, partisanship, politicization, and atti tudes toward the media. In concluding it is suggested that the overlap between issue sa lience and news coverage reflects the sensitivity of both variables to “real world” cues. It is recommended that longitudinal research be utilized to permit examination of issue sa lience as a function of both media content and individual-level variables. © 1979, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.