AGENDA SETTING THEORY

Agenda setting is the process whereby the mass media determine what we think and worry about. Walter Lipmann- a journalist first observed this function in the1920’s.
He pointed out that the media dominates over the creation of pictures in our heads. He believed that the public reacts not to actual events but to the pictures in their heads.
The agenda setting theory is therefore to remodel all the events occurring in our environment, into a simpler model before the public deal with it. 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.”
—Bernard C. Cohen, 1963

Researchers Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw have followed this concept.
McCombs and Shaw as pointed out by Littlejohn have best described the agenda s^[1etting function in their book “Emergence of America Political Issues”. In this book, the authors pointed out that there is abundantly collected evidence that the editors and broadcasters play a significant role as they go through their day-to-day tasks in deciding and publicizing news.

• The media takes control of the information the public hears or sees. It uses gate keeping and agenda setting to control the public’s access to news, information and entertainment (Wilson 14).
Gate-keeping is a process by which the media by which the media filters news or media contents before it gets to the public. Examples of gate-keepers include reporters, writers, and editors. Agenda setting comes after gate-keeping.
Agenda setting may be the most important effect of mass communication as it has the ability to mentally order and organize our world for us. Bernard Cohen (1963) stated: “The mass media/press may not be successful in telling us what to think, but they stunningly successful in telling us what to think about.
The common assumptions underlining the agenda setting theory are;

• The press do not reflect reality; they filter and shape their media contents

• Media concentration on a few issues and subjects leads the public to perceive those issues as more important than other issue

Agenda setting theory has two main levels. The first level being the common subject that are most important and the second level decides what parts of the subjects are important according to Rogers and Dearing in their book “Agenda Setting Research”.
The first part of the process is the importance of the issues that are going to be discussed in the media.
The second is the issues discussed in the media that have impact over the way the public thinks. This is referred to us public agenda.
Factors that affect agenda setting may be from a combination of gatekeepers, managers and external influences. The external influences may be from non-media sources, government officials and influential individuals. This theory of agenda setting in Littlejohn’s book is explained as idea of issues of salience as a media effect. Agenda setting is used for many purposes:

• To establish the media agenda and to retrieve the opinion of the public.

• It is also useful in the political discourse. This is due to the fact that the public agenda influences the policy agenda which means that the candidate will use focus on the issues the public want to hear about. The agenda setting theory has many beneficial uses in the society and it is part of our life.

In Agenda Setting, it is mainly get-keepers (people who control the flow of information in the media) who set the agenda for the public. These get-keepers can be editors, managers who decide what information the public should consume. The agenda is actually set for the media through which it reaches the public domain, and from there the public the make their comments and give their opinions about the main subject with which they are fed.

For all we know the media agenda which is set for the public may not even be important at all to the public but because agenda setting in itself “determines what think and worry about”. It is mostly influenced by the public corporate influential people in the society.

Agenda Setting is mostly influenced by Cooperate Agenda, Media Agenda, Public Agenda and finally Policy Agenda. According Oxford Dictionary of Politics, agenda setting is the art or science of controlling an agenda so as to maximize the probability of getting a favourable outcome.

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 consider important (legislators)

4.      Corporate Agenda – issues that big business and corporations consider important (corporate)

Two basic assumptions underlie most research on agenda-setting:

       I.            the press and the media do not reflect reality, they filter and shape it

    II.            media concentration on a few issues and subjects leads the public to perceive those issues as more important than other issues

STRENGTHS

It has explanatory power because it explains why most people prioritize the same issues as important.

It has predictive power because it predicts that if people are exposed to the same media, they feel the same issues are important.

It has organizing power because it helps organize the existing knowledge of media effect   

WEAKNESSES

·         It leaves the audience ignorant about certain significant issues.

·         The audience becomes bias in expressing their opinion on a subject of other information they come into contact with

·         The theory also makes available information which may be of good side in their reportage simply by building public images most importantly to the society.

PRIMING

The core idea of theory of priming is that when it comes to expressing an opinion, an individual does not make long disquisitions but rather a shortcut “for or against” the issue in question. One of such shortcuts is to resort to the information he has at hand in memory information he remember spontaneously and effortlessly.

A number of scholars have become interested in the effects of media agenda settingon public opinion and government policy. The focus on the consequences of agendasetting for public opinion (sometimes labelled ‘‘priming’’) can be traced back at leastto Weaver, McCombs, and Spellman (1975, p. 471), who speculated in their study ofthe effects of Watergate news coverage that the media may suggest which issues touse in evaluating political actors, but who did not use the term priming to describethis process.

Their speculation was supported a decade later when Iyengar and Kinder (1987),in controlled field experiments, linked television agenda-setting effects to evaluationsof the U.S. president in a demonstration of what some cognitive psychologistshave called priming—making certain issues or attributes more salient and morelikely to be accessed in forming opinions. Weaver (1991) also found that increasedconcern over the federal budget deficit was linked to increased knowledge of thepossible causes and solutions of this problem, stronger and more polarized opinionsabout it, and more likelihood of engaging in some form of political behaviour regarding the issue, even after controlling for various demographic and media-usemeasures.

Willnat (1997, p. 53) has argued that the theoretical explanations for these correlations, especially between agenda setting and behaviour, have not been well developed,but the alliance of priming and agenda setting has strengthened the theoreticalbase of agenda-setting effects by providing ‘‘a better understanding of how the massmedia not only tell us ‘what to think about’ but also ‘what to think’ ’’ (Cohen, 1963).

FRAMING

Framing is the “contagion effect” that takes place among news organisation where certain news stories are shared across all news media outlet.Framing is a process of selective control over media content or public communication.
Framing defines how a certain piece of media content is packaged so it will influence particular interpretations. This is accomplished through the use of selection, emphasis, exclusion, and elaboration. This is central to second-level agenda setting.

Framing does not seek to pinpoint which person or characteristics of the text has more influence than the other, instead it seeks to understand which are the psychological processes which this influence takes place.
Framing does not content itself with understanding which steps an individual’s mind follows in order to process, assimilate and retain some information. It also in that way that news contributes to the conformation of society as group ruled by shared values.

USES OF AGENDA SETTING

·         Political advertising

·         Political campaigns and debates

·         Business news and corporate reputation

·         Business influence on federal policy

·         Legal systems, trials

·         Role of groups, audience control, public opinion

·         Public relations

REFERENCES
1.         EMERGENCE OF AMERICAN POLITICAL ISSUES BY MAXWELL MCCOMBS AND DONALD SHAW
2.         AGENDA SETTING RESEARCH BY ROGERS AND DEARING
3.         GRIFFIN, E. (1997) A FIRST LOOK AT COMMUNICATION THEORY (3RD EDI.)
4.         LITTLEJOHN, S. W. (1999) THEORIES OF HUMAN COMMUNICATION (6TH EDI.)
5.         KROSNICK AND KINDER (1990) THE THEORY OF PRIMING.
6.         MCQUAIL(1987), MASS COMMUNICATION THEORY

7.         www.slideshare/ajacob/agendasetting