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We swim in a vast sea of news and information, a gestalt of communication channels where the whole is indeed much greater than the sum of its parts. In this process of learning about the world around us through a continuous process of civic osmosis, the Internet and a growing host of electronic devices add dynamic and major channels to this gestalt. However, in the scholarly examination of communication effects, there is a tendency to emphasize individual media more than the communication media collectively as a system. To mix metaphors – to analyze the trees, but not to admire the forest. Individual media, especially the growing array of new channels in the communication landscape, are intriguing and important. But that is not all the story. The impact of individual media on individuals and society often are highly situational. For example, this particularly can be the case in elections where the mix of candidates and concerns of the day create a vastly different political communication culture from election to election. To cite two American examples from the early days of agenda setting research, in the Charlotte study of the 1972 U.S. presidential election, newspapers demonstrated stronger agenda setting effects than television news . However, in the 1976 U.S. presidential election study of three cities, television was the dominant agenda setter . Sometimes a particular medium holds center stage. More often, the media collectively share center stage. If we were to construct a web site for agenda-setting theory and research, a prominent FAQ – to use the contemporary jargon of the Internet – would be whether newspapers or television are the stronger agenda-setter. And the answer to this question is telling. About half the time, there is no discernible difference in the agenda-setting influence of newspapers and television news. The other half of the time newspapers have the edge by a ratio of roughly two to one. Sometimes a particular medium holds center stage. More frequently, the communication media collectively hold center stage. The perspective and approach to agenda-setting research outlined here, civic osmosis, emphasizes the collective role of the communication media. And the proliferation of new media adds a rich variety of dynamic channels to this communication gestalt. Increasingly, we swim in a vast sea of diversity, and we need to understand the currents in this sea, both those that enhance communication across our communities and nations and those currents that pollute the sea. But above all, we need to understand the sea as whole and how it changes and shifts over time.

This essay addresses the relationship between communication, public opinion, and democracy, which is evident in Athenian democracy. It briefly considers the complexity of the concept of public opinion, and how it was understood as a political phenomenon accepted in general thinking and political action, as a consequence of the democratic dynamism originated by the printing press. After briefly considering some of the most relevant ideas about this relationship throughout the 19th century, this essay discusses the main attitudes that emerged in the face of public opinion after the First World War, from which the most relevant theories about the effects of media on opinion, behaviours, and action begun to be developed. The study takes into account the development of an empirical science of public opinion, linked to scientific opinion surveys. It summarises how the investigation of the effects of the media goes through a stage in which they are considered irrelevant, until some studies – especially the theories of agenda setting and the spiral of silence– recovered the idea of the powerful effects of the media. Finally, the essay addresses the new challenges posed by the disenchantment with democracy, the loss of credibility of the media, and the way of understanding communication, at a time in which digital technology has facilitated the creation of social media, causing a situation described as the post-truth era, in which the global need for information becomes more evident. The new challenges affect the political science, research on public opinion, and the science of communication, which requires a foundation of greater consistency than the current one.