Agenda-setting studies in public policy: Origins, development, and new possibilities for coding in the age of AI

Abstract

We assess the impact of the 1972 work of McCombs and Shaw in communications as well as in political science and describe the literature that derived from it, with a focus on methodological innovations. We explain that transformations in the field made possible by increasingly powerful computer technology, the analysis of text as data, automated classification systems, and the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. We describe possible future directions of the field given these developments.