Agenda Setting

“Through this process many people have to decide whether or not the news is to be seen or heard. Some gatekeepers might include reporters, writers, and editors. After gatekeeping comes agenda setting."(Wilson, 2005).

The initial process of gatekeeping starts with what has been previously discussed here – it starts with news values. However –without agenda – news cannot exist. It is this agenda that gives news meaning, relevance and importance within society.

It has been said that ‘the press and the media do not reflect reality; they filter and shape it’.  There are four types of agenda that shapes our news:

1. PUBLIC AGENDA – topics that members of the public deem to be important.
2. POLICY AGENDA - topics that decision makers think are significant. (E.g. politicians)
3. CORPORATE AGENDA – topics that influential companies or corporate bodies deem important.
4. MEDIA AGENDA - topics discussed in media.

These agendas are all connected with each other, as topics frequently fit into some or all of the above agenda categories. Agendas dictate how and why the media presents news.

Bernard Cohen said, “The press may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about.” In this, he is referring to the secondary level of agenda setting. Agenda setting is divided into first and secondary levels, the first being when the media advocates particular topics that they believe the general public should be concerned about, and secondary level agenda setting is how the media believes we should perceive an issue.

McCombs and Shaw conducted an integral study in 1968, when they decided to investigate agenda setting in mass media. At the time an American presidential campaign was taking place – so they decided to look at what the voters thought were important issues in the campaign, comparatively to what content the media was producing. After speaking to 100 undecided voters about their opinions, it became evident that the majority of their sample’s opinions were a result of (or could be related back to) how the mass media had portrayed topics in the news. If we apply these findings to the wider population, this study shows how the media really has the power to shape the opinions of its audience.

Welles unknowingly created widespread panic in 1938.

Other factors of agenda setting include ‘cutting’, ‘surfing’, diffusion, portrayal and media reliance. The media decide what is newsworthy – the media essentially chooses what our news is. This is cutting. Media outlets use ‘surfing’ – this is when media concentrates on popular or on-trend issues. Diffusion refers to when and how the media is released, and by whom. Portrayal refers to how an issue is depicted in the media, and media dependence is how much one is affected by media agenda. The more one actively seeks information through specific types of media, the more likely it is that that person will be susceptible to whatever agenda is decided by that media outlet.

There are some problems with agenda setting, such as the hypodermic needle theory, in which the audience is just a blank canvas that accepts all information provided by media. A good example of this is when Orson Welles preformed his radio show of ‘War Of The Worlds in 1938. One million Americans heard the broadcast radio play and believed that aliens were actually invading the earth. People panicked, raided grocery stores, fled and started to ration food.

Media Outlets have a range of tools at their fingertips, which shape how the public views an issue. News values paired with a range of tactics that is agenda setting can result in a variety of responses to a particular topic. For example, one publication can have their audience thinking one thing whereas another publication can have an entirely opposite point of view about the same topic. The audience we must be careful and be aware of how the media portrays certain topics in certain ways and why they do this – otherwise we can find ourselves with opinions that we aren’t really sure how they were formed to begin with.  

References: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda-setting_theory

http://www.utwente.nl/cw/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20Clusters/Mass%20Media/Agenda-Setting_Theory.doc/

http://www.utwente.nl/cw/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20Clusters/Mass%20Media/Hypodermic_Needle_Theory.doc/index.html