Week 11 - Agenda Setting

When we flick on the TV and watch the news how many people stop and think, why this story? Why this point of view? In today's lecture Bruce talked about Agenda Setting, or how the media constructs reality. There are four main types of agenda:
1. Public Agenda
2. Policy Agenda
3. Corporate Agenda
4. Media Agenda

Who sets the agenda? Is what we see in the media reality or propaganda? It is usually somewhere in between. The mass media gives us a perception of reality, a filter and reshaping of it to set whatever agenda suits them. And why do they do this? Because they can! The mass media has the power to create pictures in our heads. When setting an agenda twp principle rules are followed:
1. What the public should focus on through coverage
2. How people should think about the issue

When hearing about the media's manipulation of reality to suit their own agendas we start to question what, if anything, we can trust to be true. Is anything we read just the plain and simple truth? A man name Lippmann said that people rely on the images in their minds in formulating judgements rather than by critically thinking. I think this is very good advice. We also learned about the Agenda Setting Family, summarized below:

The Agenda Setting Family
Media Gate-keeping - What the media chooses to show the public, the exposure of an issue
Media Advocacy - The purposeful promotion of a message
Agenda cutting - Most of the realities going on the in the world aren't represented,
Agenda surfing - The media follows the crowd and trends, the media surfs on the wave of topics originally mentioned in the leading media
Diffusion of News - The process through which and 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 a person is on the media the more susceptible they are to media agenda setting

Some of the obvious weaknesses of agenda setting are: people are not well informed, are often ignorant of the details, news cannot create and conceal problems it can only alter awareness and priority

Finally, are there any strengths in agenda setting? The answer, yes: agenda setting explains why people prioritize certain issues, it gives some predictive power, organizes existing knowledge of media effects, it lays groundwork for further research and can potentially be proven false.

I think there are both good and bad aspects to agenda setting but whether we like it or not it is there, and probably always will be. People will always influence others where they can, the key is to be aware of it!