Lecturer to Examine Effects of Mass Media on Public Opinion

Monday, January 25, 2010

By Joseph Dunn

(Jan. 25, 2010, STILLWATER, Okla.) – Researcher Maxwell McCombs will deliver a lecture about the media’s role in agenda-setting at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 1 at Oklahoma State University.

The talk, titled “Shaping the Foundations of Public Opinion: The Agenda-Setting Role of the Media,” is free and open to the public in the auditorium of Murray Hall.

McCombs is internationally recognized for his research on public opinion. In the 1960s, he introduced the concept of agenda-setting, a theory suggesting that the press tells people what to think vs. how to think. More than 400 studies have examined the theory.

McCombs is currently the Jesse H. Jones Centennial Chair in Communications at the University of Texas. He is a former president of the World Association for Public Opinion Research, as well as the former director of the School of Journalism at the University of Texas. McCombs is the winner of many awards including the Paul J. Deutschmann Award, the highest honor given by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.  

McCombs earned a master’s degree and doctorate from Stanford University. He holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Antwerp in Belgium and has been a visiting professor at the University of Navarra in Spain and Diego Portales University in Chile.

To learn more, phone (405) 744-6354. The School of Journalism and Broadcasting is one of 24 departments in the College of Arts & Sciences at OSU. The lecture is funded by the College’s Social Science Seminar Series.