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Similar evidence about the variable impact of news coverage on the trends in public opinion comes from the individual analyses of eleven different issues in the United States during a 41-month period in the 1980s.²⁷ In each of these eleven analyses, the media agenda is based on a mix of television, newspapers and news magazines. The public agenda is based on thirteen Gallup polls that asked Americans to name the most important problem facing the country. Two patterns are evident in these analyses. First, all except one of the correlations summarizing the match between the media agenda and the public agenda are positive. The median correspondence between these agendas is +0.45. The negative match for morality is easy to explain because morality is a topic seldom broached in the news media.

For the other ten public issues during this period in the 1980s, the positive correlations suggest some degree of agenda-setting influence. However, a pattern of considerable variability in the strength of the association between the two agendas is also apparent. This calls our attention to factors other than media coverage that influence the public’s perception of what are the most important issues of the day, and Chapters 4 and 5 will discuss a variety of psychological and sociological factors that are significant in the public’s daily transactions with the communication media and the issues of the day. These factors can enhance or constrain the degree of media influence.