The Mass Media Machine: Who Sets the Agendas?

    Fifty-two years ago, an article titled “The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media” by Maxwell E. McCombs and Donald L. Shaw hypothesized that mass media has the power to affect voter attitudes and what voters think about through agenda-setting political reporting. In a study conducted during the 1968 presidential election campaign, McCombs and Shaw interviewed 100 undecided Chapel Hill voters in order to find out if their opinions of major and minor issues aligned with political reporting from the media. For media outlets, the authors took a look at which sources provided Chapel Hill voters with the most information in the Spring of 1968. McCombs and Shaw concluded that while the evidence of their study supported their theory, more research is needed to confirm that the theory is true.

Despite the great changes that mass media has undergone in the last five decades, I would say that McCombs and Shaw’s 1972 article still holds some weight today. The media’s political presence in everyday lives has only increased with the expansion of digital media such as social media networks. A 2024 article from the Salem Press Encyclopedia discusses how the rise of online political campaigns from the late 2000s to the 2020 election has become a staple for running candidates. 

With that increase in political content online comes politicians attempting to reach a wider audience using the media platforms they have now. One current example of this that I’ve witnessed in the media is Vice President Kamala Harris adopting the “Brat” trend on Twitter and TikTok over the Summer. According to an August 30th article from Newsweek titled “Kamala Harris' 'Brat' Campaign Appears To Be Paying Off,” this embracing of the Charli XCX album, as well as the reporting around it, might have had a positive effect on Gen Z voters' attitudes towards Harris. Author Martha McHardy reported that Gen Z voters have switched sides from following Trump by 11 points to now supporting Harris by 13 points and that experts believe it’s tied to the “Brat” trend. 

However, I also think an important aspect of this theory about media consumption affecting voters' attitudes is the divisiveness of it in modern-day media. In their 2023 academic journal, Jason Gainous and Kevin M. Wagner note “Ultimately, we find that in addition to biased partisan cable news making people more partisan, citizen issue positions are more extreme if they consume more digital information, even when that variable is specified to avoid explicitly partisan sources.” Gainous and Wagner explain that the combination of partisan traditional mass media and newer digital media can increase polarization and extreme political attitudes. The mass media’s impact on voter attitudes is still there, it has just taken new forms. Ultimately, McCombs and Shaw’s article was very insightful and interesting to read.