The agenda-setting function of the media in an international context is investigated here by examining the relationship between exposure to Newsweek by educated urban Nigerians and the importance they place on various world problems (controlled by demographic factors, cosmopolitanism and national media use variables). A combination of two research methods was employed: a secondary analysis of a sample of 1,213 "better educated" adults in three urban areas of Nigeria in November, 1981 commissioned by the United States Information Agency (USIA), and a content analysis of the international edition of Newsweek for October and November, 1981, seven weeks before and during the survey. The investigation yielded inconclusive results in its comparison of the Newsweek agenda to the magnitude of the relationships between reading Newsweek and selecting each of the same problems as important. Specifically, when comparing the Newsweek's coverage of 12 international problems to Newsweek readers' agenda (as compared to non-readers, controlling for background factors), measured from the estimated effects of Newsweek readership and reliance on the selection of each of these problems, a modest positive but non significant rank-order correlation (r = 0.475) was found.
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