W11 Lecture: Agenda Setting

"How the Media 'constructs reality'."

The way individuals perceive reality may be affected by communication through shared language, society and the media.  Journalism has a large role in constructing the public's opinion of the world and issues around them. The four interrelated agendas in the media are what's important to the public, what the decision makers think is significant (policy), what's important to large companies (corporate) and of course, the media agenda.

The agenda is set by the privileging of certain news items (so, Agenda setting is closely related to news values*see W9 Lecture). When mass media presents certain issues frequently and prominently, the audience perceives it as important. More coverage=issue perceived as more important. The media report, reflect, filter and shape the consumers' concepts of reality. The mass media influence the images events make in the audience's minds. Here are some models that explain it better:

Agenda setting as propaganda: in a way it is, as it may have a big influence on what people think is news and even their cognitive and emotional responses to events. These are the two levels of agenda setting: what is salient in the news and how the issues are portrayed (how the viewers feel). *The negative aspects of this are that the reality of events may be warped into untruths and that the audience stops thinking critically about issues-instead relying on what the media tells them. To critically assess propaganda/agendas, Lippmann suggests the viewer should "liquidate judgements, regain an innocent eye, disentangle feelings, be curious and open-hearted.

The example in the lecture of the same stories being portrayed differently, thus setting a different agenda, was rather striking in this photo: 

 Facets of agenda setting:

Media Gate keeping: what the media exposes (or doesn't expose) to the public.

Media Advocacy: promoting a particular message.

Agenda Cutting: the majority of what's happening in the world isn't making the news because of news value, i.e, One Direction concerts are dwelt on, but not AIDS, and so people care less about it.

Agenda Surfing: The media jumps on the bandwagon of topics receiving a lot of coverage, and tends to mirror existing portrayals of the issue.

Diffusion of News: decisions when, how and where to release news.

Media Dependence: the more dependent a person is on media, the more likely they are to be affected by its agenda.

All of this theory relies on the public paying close attention to the information they are consuming, whereas, with intermittent attention or interest in public affairs, the public is less likely to be subject to the influence of the media's agenda. Not to mentions all the people who have already formed their opinions independent of the news, who are disinclined to be swayed by the agenda.

*If you pay attention, you can see the way the media agenda sets the political reality. For example, the 'controversies' revealed about politicians in the media, and even to a less extreme degree, the spin the media puts on policies etc., influences what the politicians talk about.

-Bon