The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media.

Why this matters here

McCombs and Shaw’s 1972 agenda-setting study argues that mass media influence the salience of issues in public attention—what people think about—more than simply telling them what to think. Coupling uses that salience limit for corrections that arrive after the original frame has already captured memory and economic value. The source establishes agenda-setting as attention transfer; the book asks when ritual correction fails because distribution still pays the first error.