Maxwell McCombs 
Contemporary Public Opinion [PDF ebook] 
Issues and the News

This book discusses the public opinion process with a focus on the role that the news media play in shaping public opinion. Although heavily influenced by the agenda-setting perspective — the view that the news media define the important issues of the day and determine how these issues are presented — the authors neither support nor refute this claim. They present instead a variety of contemporary scholarship integrated into a coherent picture of public opinion for a general audience.