[3] Classic democratic theory focused on the assumption that calls on “public policymakers to advance the interests of civically engaged constituents, by an autonomous press[4]” (i.e. classic theory focuses on the policy makers and media), however, it failed to account for points at which larger society of stakeholders could define the range of alternatives available for policy making.
[2] Agenda building rests on two primary assumptions (Cobb & Elder): "Firstly, the attention capabilities of government are necessarily limited.
[5]" Other assumptions include, but are not limited to: Scholars applying the agenda-building approach to research questions frequently identify the sources of the agenda building and the compare the resulting discourse to the sender's message, whether it is media coverage or policy.
[12] Cook calls this “the negotiation of newsworthiness;” together journalists and sources (and occasionally others) interact to determine what is covered in the press, and how that content is presented.
[25] The impact of algorithmic editorial decision-making, particularly at Facebook, is immense: “...the results of [the] automated linking process shape the social lives and reading habits of more than 1 billion daily active users - one-fifth of the world’s adult population...it can be tweaked to make us happy or sad; it can expose us to new and challenging ideas or insulate us in ideological bubbles.
For example, Facebook recently came under fire for censoring the “Napalm girl” photo of Phan Thị Kim Phuc (they blamed the algorithm),[28] it conducted an emotional contagion experiment on users without their knowledge,[25] and it has been accused of liberal bias[29]