Attribute agenda setting is the idea that mass communication often cannot determine what people think about a particular event or opinion, but it can be effective in shaping which facts and opinions people pay attention to and the order in which they talk about them by providing them with information and organizing related topics. Mass communication may not be able to influence how people think, but it can influence what they think about.
The characteristics of attributional agenda-setting are:
1. Communication effects are divided into cognitive, attitudinal, and action levels, which are also the different stages of the formation process of an effect in the full sense of the term.
2. The theory of "attribute agenda-setting" examines the medium- and long-term, comprehensive and macro social effects produced by a series of reporting activities of mass communication as a whole with a long time span. The focus here is on the impact of the communication of daily news reporting and information dissemination activities.
3. The theory of "attributional agenda-setting" suggests a view of the media as institutions that engage in "environmental reconstitution".
Expanded:
The theory of "attributional agenda-setting" begins with an examination of the role of mass communication in people's environmental cognitive processes. The idea that the media are "institutions engaged in the reconfiguration of the environment" is included in this theory, which reintroduces the issue of control behind the process of mass communication.
The theory of "attributional agenda-setting" is instructive for us to scrutinize the process of media opinion-forming. It provides a new perspective for people to understand communication and society.