Unobtrusive or high threshold issues are those issues that are generally remote from just about everyone (e.g., high-level wrongdoing, such as the Watergate scandal; plight of Syrian refugees). Research performed by Zucker suggests that an issue is obtrusive if most members of the public have had direct contact with it, and less obtrusive if audience members have not had direct experience. This means that the less direct experience people have with an issue, the greater is the news media's influence on public opinion on that issue.