AGENDA SETTING

Agenda Setting

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Agenda Setting

The media cannot tell us what to think but it can tell us what to think about. This theory is defined as the process whereby the mass media determine what we think and talk about. In other words, the media can 'set agendas' or terms of reference of any discussion be it social, political or economical. How can the media set agendaso The process which the media uses to control our access to news, information and entertainment is known as 'gate keeping.' The media can set the agenda about what is discussed through the process of selection and omission. A producer of a TV news program, for example, can decide what stories to cover by 'selecting' certain stories over others; they also decide what is omitted by leaving out other stories. The media can also give one side of the story far more prominence (selection) while downplaying or omitting the opposing point of view.

The Agenda-setting theory is the theory that the mass-news media have a large influence on audiences by their choice of what stories to consider newsworthy and how much prominence and space to give them. Agenda-setting theory's central axiom is salience transfer, or the ability of the mass media to transfer importance of items on their mass agendas to the public agendas.

Foundation

The Media agenda is the set of issues addressed by media sources and the public agenda which are issues the public consider important (Shaw and McCombs, 1977). Agenda-setting theory was introduced in 1972 by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw in their ground breaking study of the role of the media in 1968 presidential campaign in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

The theory explains the correlation between the rate at which media cover a story and the extent that people think that this story is important. This correlation has repeatedly been shown to occur.

In the dissatisfaction of the magic bullet theory, many researchers began to study not how the media directly shaped individuals, but how the media shaped issues, particularly concerning political issues. Agenda-setting theory gave way that the press has some power, but individuals still are free to make their own decisions. Mass media create images of events in our minds, calling them "the pictures in our heads." Theodore White, a political analyst, studied how the media shaped political campaigns and concluded that the media shaped the way the public talk and think about political campaigns. Years later, Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw introduced agenda-setting theory in the Public opinion Quarterly. The theory was derived from their study that took place in Chapel Hill, NC, where the researchers surveyed 100 undecided voters during the 1968 presidential campaign on what they thought were key issues and measured that against the actual media content.

Functions of Theory

The agenda-setting function has multiple components:

1. Media Agenda - issues discussed in the media (newspapers, television, radio)

2. Public Agenda - issues discussed and personally relevant to members of the public

3. Policy Agenda - issues that policy makers ...