What is the major social problem in the news today? Who made it so important? Social issues that are widely recognized on the media agenda often demand attention on the public agenda, and in turn move quickly up the policy agenda, creating policy changes.

Based on research of contemporary social issues that have hit the headlines - including the war on drugs, drink-driving, the Exxon Valdez oil spillage, AIDS and the Ethiopian famine - this book provides important theoretical and practical insights into the agenda-setting process and its role in effecting social change.

What is the major social problem in the news today? Who made it so important? Based on research of contemporary social issues that have hit the headlines, this book provides important theoretical and practical insights into the agenda-setting process and its role in effecting social change.

Universally considered to be the founder of the field of communication studies, Wilbur Schramm left unfinished this final work on his personal perspective of the field. In it, he acknowledged the seminal contributions to communication of four inspirational social scientists whose theories and methods laid the foundation for the discipline: Harold D Lasswell, Paul F Lazarsfeld, Kurt Lewin and Carl I Hovland. This collection has now been posthumously supplemented by the editors, Steven H Chaffee and Everett M Rogers, whose contribution documents the history of the spread of the subject among...

Universally considered to be the founder of the field of communication studies, Wilbur Schramm left unfinished this final work on his personal perspective of the field. In it, he acknowledged the seminal contributions to communication of four inspirational social scientists whose theories and methods laid the foundation for the discipline: Harold D Lasswell, Paul F Lazarsfeld, Kurt Lewin and Carl I Hovland. This collection has now been posthumously supplemented by the editors, Steven H Chaffee and Everett M Rogers, whose contribution documents the history of the spread of the subject among...

This volume thoroughly covers the sub-field of information, and is one of the first in a series which synthesizes the research literature on major concepts in the field of communication. Each concise volume includes a research definition (concept explication) and presents a state-of-the-art analysis of theory and empirical findings related to the concept.

After defining the word information', the author contrasts non-linear and reflexive ideas about human communication with linear perspectives. Information is equated with uncertainty. The result presents a pattern for the process of...

Public opinion - is it a simple aggregation of individual views, or is it some kind of collective-level, emergent product of debate? What is the role of public opinion in popular government? How do the mass media shape public opinion or link it with governmental decision-making? This book explores such questions by tracing the historical development and application of the concept of public opinion.