stunningly successful in telling us what to think about."" (McCombs and Shaw, 5). This becomes important in my research because of the fact that with agenda setting, the issue being presented is far more important than what is said about the issue within the article. .
When looking at the paper, I first looked to see if the USA Today was using the four step process that Iyengar and Kinder said was necessary when using agenda setting. This four step process starts first with the actual setting of the agenda. This would be done merely by running stories of the war in Iraq. The second step in the process would be the vividness of the presentation. This would be shown by the USA Today by displaying pictures with the story to help to create a better mental image of the issue at hand. The third step that would be necessary is the positioning of the story. In this step it is suggested that the story would be run as either the first or the second story so that it is the center of the reader's attention. The final step in the four step process is priming. This is where the newspaper would continue to run the story for a long amount of time despite not keeping the story as the first or second story. .
Methodology .
When choosing the issue to view, I first thought of the war in Iraq because of the fact that it was a very important issue in the world today. I did realize that one problem I would run across with my research is that I was not viewing the issue at the beginning of when it became a significant issue. This would cause a problem, because I could not see if it was run as the first story when it was first being run. I began my research on Monday, November 4, 2002, and concluded my viewing of the newspaper on Friday, .
November 15, 2002. (Excluding Saturday and Sunday editions of the newspaper.) This .
allowed me to view ten issues of the USA Today, while I looked in each issue for an article regarding the war in Iraq.
