[1] Since then, the concept has gained popularity and is used by political scientists and researchers alike to discuss the impact of media on both voting behavior and cultural trends.
The theory of agenda-setting was formally developed by Dr. Max McCombs and Dr. Donald Shaw in their study on the 1968 presidential election conducted at Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
[4] Priming, in a political context is a theory stating that the media draws attention to some issues as opposed to others, thereby altering the standards by which we judge candidates in elections.
This theory on media originated from researchers Iyengar, Peters, and Kinder in their work Experimental Demonstrations of the "Not-So-Minimal" Consequences of Television News Programs published in the 1982 edition of The American Political Science Review.
[5] Iyengar, Peters, and Kinder argue that due to media making certain issues more salient than others, they set the parameters of the political decisions made by the voting public.
[5] The researchers looked at how the salience of certain topics affected voters' evaluations of President Jimmy Carter, and found evidence to support the presence of both agenda setting and priming.
However, it is important to remember that the theory of mediacracy as it is popularly discussed is accompanied by very negative assumptions about the true nature of media in the United States, which affects the predilections that researchers make about the future.