Agenda-setting
Etymology
The theory was formulated by American researchers Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw after their 1968 Chapel Hill study, published in 1972. "Agenda" is Latin for "things to be done," the gerundive plural of "agere" ("to do"). Flagged as an academic coinage.
noun · /uh-JEN-duh SET-ing/
The power of the media to shape what the public thinks about — not what to think, but which issues seem to matter.
What it names
A handle for the quiet editorial power of coverage itself — useful for seeing how attention, not persuasion, is the media’s deepest influence.
Example
By running the shark attack for a week straight, the network did classic agenda-setting, making a freak event feel like a national threat.
Related idea
Compare the framing effect, which is about how an issue is presented; agenda-setting is the prior step — deciding which issues get airtime at all.