Media influence not only which issues the public thinks about but which attributes of those issues seem salient.
The first level concerns objects and the second their attributes: coverage that makes an issue prominent also makes some of its features prominent, and audiences adopt both. The extension matters because it collapses part of the distance between agenda setting and framing, and because attribute salience is what turns an issue into a position.
In practice
- An immigration debate covered through labour shortages and one covered through border control produce different opinions on the same facts.
- A firm's results reported through headcount and through margin generate different questions at the same meeting.