Introduction If anyone follows the news during a presidential election it would appear that this season is the busiest time for the news media. Although, in today’s world, there are many outlets that the public can go to in order to find out information about the candidates, their platforms, and what is going on (i.e. candidate websites, blogs, etc.), news media outlets such as cable and local news channels remain one of the most popular and integral parts of getting information (Gottfried, Barthel, Shearer, & Mitchell, 2016, paragraph 6). Along with being utilized the most, major news outlets remain the most trusted sources of news for “internet using” adults – those who are aware that there are other options (sources such as Huffington Post Two primary communication theories that can be used to analyze and attempt to explain the reason certain candidates are seemingly favored by the news media, even if they are not the most popular candidates, are the theories of agenda-setting and gatekeeping. Understanding these theories and how they are applied to the news media’s choice of topics is important to understand how the public opinion on pertinent matters, such as a presidential election, is Developed in1968 by theorists Donald Shaw and Max McCombs (McCombs & Guo, 1994), the theory of agenda-setting is the news media’s ability to influence the importance of certain topics within the public opinion or basically having the ability to tell us what to think about (Littlejohn & Foss, 2011, Shaw and McCombs, 1977). This particular theory works on two levels; the first level determines overall issues that are important and the second establishing the importance of individual parts of those issues (Littlejohn & Foss, 2011). Authors Foss and Littlejohn give an example of these two levels working together by using oil prices. They state that “the media may tell us that worldwide oil prices are an important issue but they also tell us how to understand this development as it impacts US economies” (Littlejohn & Foss, 2011, p 342, Pryor, 1981). The first level can be seen in the media telling us that oil prices across the globe are important and the second level is informing us on how we should understand
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