Week #9- Agenda Setting

This week's lecture topic was of particular interest to me. I love anything that has to do with the influence over the minds of others, any kind of propaganda, corruption and general sneakiness from people in power. Although this isn't the idea of agenda setting as such, it is arguable that it comes in to play from time to time.

What is agenda setting?

"Agenda setting is the process of the mass media presenting certain issues frequently and prominently with the result that large segments of the public come to perceive those issues as more important than others. Simply put, the more coverage an issue receives, the more important it is to people."(Coleman, McCombs, Shaw, Weaver, 2008)

There are four agendas in agenda setting. These include:

1. Public agenda
2. Policy agenda
3. Corporate agenda
4. Media agenda

All of these different types of agendas are interrelated as indicated by the image below.

There are two basic assumptions of media agenda setting:

1. mass media do not only reflect and report reality, they shape and filter it.
2. if the media concentrates on a few issues and subjects, this leads the public to perceive these few issues as the most important.

I am interested to see though the next few lectures how the media decides what is of paramount importance and what issues are to be focused on because I often ponder as to why soft news stories are deemed more important than war and famine. Is this because the Australian public are disinterested in offshore issues? I like to think not.

There are two main types of agenda setting theory.

• First level agenda setting theory: media suggests what the public should focus on through coverage
• Second level agenda setting theory: how the media focuses on the attributes of the issues- the media suggests how people should think about an issue.

The 'agenda setting family' is a model which involves a set of components which comprises the agenda setting realm. The family includes:

• media gate keeping- control of messages through a communication channel, exposure of an issue
• media advocacy- purposive promotion of a message
• agenda cutting- most of the truth or reality that is going on in the world isn't represented
• agenda surfing- or 'bandwagon effect'- media follows the crowd and trends
• diffusion of news- process where an important event is communicated to the public
• portrayal of an issue- how an issue is portrayed will often influence how it is perceived by the public
• media dependence- the more dependent people are the more susceptible people are to agenda setting

While it is clear that agendas are set intentionally in the media, it is also important to keep in mind that agenda setting can come about by chance as there are so many issues to be covered and competing news mediums often cover similar stories to show that they are the most comprehensive news source available.