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The relationship between perceived public issue salience of the federal budget deficit & public knowledge, opinion, & behavior was examined via analysis of 1988 telephone survey data collected from 746 Ind residents. Statistically significant correlations were found between issue salience & knowledge about the issue, strength & direction of opinion on particular issue solutions, & political behavior related to the issue. Increased salience of the issue was accompanied by increased knowledge of its possible causes & solutions, stronger opinions, less likelihood of taking a neutral position, & more likelihood of participating in politics through such behavior as signing petitions, voting, attending meetings, & writing letters. Control of demographics, media exposure, & attention measures through regression analysis did not alter thee correlations. 5 Tables, 40 References. Adapted from the source document.

Role of mass media in agenda setting; correlations between the US budget deficit issue and public knowledge, opinion, and behavior, using fall 1988 survey data.

"The author argues that after a decade of empirical studies on media agenda-setting, debate is centered not so much on whether there is media influence on public agendas (there seems to be considerable support for such an influence, at least at the group level), but rather on the contingent conditions that make for more or less of this influence. The evidence from several recent studies is reviewed in light of three emerging positions on agenda-setting: (1) The media are both necessary and sufficient in setting public agendas. (2) The media are necesaary, but not sufficient, in setting public agendas. (3) The media are neither necessary nor sufficient in setting public agendas. It is argued that there is much support from the recent research for the position that the media are often both necessary and sufficient for increasing the salience of just-emerging, largely unobtrusive issues for certain groups of the general public; some support for the position that the media are necessary, if not sufficient, in generating new issues; and least support for the position that the media are neither necessary nor sufficient in setting public agendas." (author's abstract)