Researchers have long-studied whether the media have an agenda or are strictly objective in their coverage. Using several agenda setting studies, this study built upon them and used the third-effect theory, which assumes people will the influence that mass communications has on the attitudes and behavior of others, to examine perceptions.This study examined whether Indiana mayors allowed the local newspaper to impact policy decisions. The effort determined that mayors perceived newspaper headlines impacted others more than the mayors.Indiana’s 115 mayors were divided by population classes and used to compare and contrast the results to questions examining agenda setting. One hypothesis assume mayors of larger cities would be impacted greater by the local newspaper than mayors of smaller cities. Statistically there was no correlation between the city size and how stories influence the operations in city hall. In fact, all mayors tended to agree that newspapers have little effect on policy decisions.The second hypothesis was based on the assumption that mayors perceived information in the newspaper had a greater effect on general readers of the newspaper than it did on the mayors. The results supported the notion and other third-person effect theories, which assume people will say information has a greater impact on someone else, the "third person," than it does on themselves. / Department of Journalism