JOUR1111 Lecture 10

In lecture 10 we discussed agenda setting and the overwhelming amount of power and influence held by the media. The media play a large role in constructing and shaping the social world and have the capability to dictate what issues are important to society. The prominence and frequency of an issue in the media leads the public to believe that it is more important. An example given in the lecture was the issue of AIDS. Because AIDS is currently taking a backseat to celebrity gossip, the public care less and so the significance of the issue is downgraded. The sickening fact that Justin Bieber’s haircut is getting more coverage than a life threatening disease is another matter altogether.

The AIDS case was an example of agenda cutting, as in most of the truth or reality of the world isn’t being represented. Perhaps the media realises that the public may not want to know the ugly truth that 1.8 million people died of AIDS in 2010.

Media gatekeeping is a member of the agenda setting family which controls the exposure of an issue to the public and is essentially what the media chooses to reveal. This can have a significant impact on political processes. Political campaigns must address the prominent issues in society. And who decides what issues should be at the forefront of public attention? The media, of course. If it wasn’t for the climate change hype in the media a few years ago then the face of world politics may have turned out very different to what it is now. This also links with media advocacy, which is the purposive promotion of a message like “going green”, through the media.

The portrayal of issues in the media is critical in how it is perceived by the public. Thankfully for society there are many media outlets with many different portrayals that allow us to create our own perception of an issue. Without some diversity in the representation of issues in society, the media would reflect the hypodermic needle model in which they inject direct influence into the audience resulting in a one-way, non-thinking uniform reaction from the public.

Other components of agenda setting theory have been evident in the media over the past few years. Agenda surfing, when the media follows the crowd and trends of society was most evident early this year when the media jumped on the Kony bandwagon that was sweeping through cyberspace. The diffusion of news which is the process by which important news is communicated to the public was seen in the reporting of the death of Osama bin Laden. And the new media dependence on Facebook and Twitter, which has become a way of life, means that people are far more susceptible to media agenda setting.

“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 Cohen,1963)

So, why does the media set the agenda?

Because they can!