Agendamelding: News, Social Media, Audiences, and Civic Community builds on the premise that people construct civic community from the information that they seek-as well as the information that seeks them-to trace the processes by which we mix, or meld, agendas from various sources into a coherent picture of the civic community in which we live. Using the presidential elections of 2008, 2012, and 2016, this book tests a formula that allows us to predict how potential voters lean towards communities in which they feel comfortable-for example, Republican, Democratic, or Independent. These analyses take into account differences in the use of traditional news media vs. social media among media consumers, as well as varying levels of press freedom across national populations.

Donald L. Shaw, a journalism historian and theorist, earned his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is coauthor, with Maxwell E. McCombs, of the 1968 agenda-setting study in Chapel Hill, published in Public Opinion Quarterly in 1972. Milad Minooie (assistant professor, Kennesaw State University) specializes in media effects and new media research. A former journalist, Dr. Minooie earned his MA in communication from the University of Texas at Arlington and his PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Deb Aikat (associate professor, UNC-Chapel Hill), a former journalist, theorizes digital media. The Scripps Howard Foundation recognized him as the inaugural winner of the National Journalism Teacher of the Year (2003). He earned a PhD in media and journalism from Ohio University's E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. Chris J. Vargo (assistant professor, University of Colorado Boulder) specializes in analytics in mass communication. Dr. Vargo has a PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, an MA from the University of Alabama, and a BA from Pennsylvania State University.

List of Illustrations - List of Tables - Foreword by David H. Weaver and Maxwell E. McCombs - Preface - Acknowledgments - Living in Melded Community - Agenda Setting - Agendamelding - From Media Agenda Setting to Audience Agendamelding in the 2016 Presidential Election - Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney: Agendamelding in the 2012 Presidential Election - Agendamelding in the 2008 and Earlier Presidential Elections - Civic Values, Agendamelding, and Democracy in the World - Testing Agendamelding in Iran: Alternative Communities in a Country Where the State Controls the Media - The Future of Agendamelding - Glossary - Appendix A: List of Twitter Accounts of Conservative, Liberal, and Traditional Media Sources - Index.