Media, Public Opinion, and Foreign Policy

This article examines relationships between media content, public opinion, and foreign policy in the United States and the United Kingdom. The investigation proceeds in two stages. First, an agenda-setting analysis demonstrates a strong connection between the salience of foreign affairs in the media and the salience of foreign affairs for the public. Second, two potential effects of varying issue salience on foreign policymaking are examined: (1) issue priming and (2) policymakers’ reactions to issue salience. Analyses rely on a combination of U.S. and U.K. commercial polling data and the American National Election Study. Results point to the importance of mass media and issue salience in the relationship between public opinion and foreign policy.