Lecture Nine

Agenda Setting.

How the media constructs reality.

A few videos on Agenda Setting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bTqsbDaleU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbCYr-U7MAQ

The four types on agenda settings:

1) PUBLIC AGENDA -the set of topis that members of the public perceive as important.

2) POLICY AGENDA -issues that decision makers think are salient. (i.e. legislators)

3) CORPORATE AGENDA -issues that big business & corporations consider important.

4) MEDIA AGENDA -issues discussed in the media.

THESE FOUR AGENDAS ARE INTERRELATED

Miller K. 2007 Communication Theories:

Perspectives, Processes, and Contexts

Two basic assumptions about media agenda setting:

The Mass media do not merely reflect and report reality, they filter and shape it.

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

Where did it come from?

“Propaganda is used as a tool to help shape images in the minds of human beings in support of an enterprise, idea or group. Propaganda can be used to substitute one social pattern for another.”

Adolf Hitler was a man who knew a lot about the power of images and used propaganda heavily in order to capture public attention and gain power successfully. 

His Swastika and Salute were the two most prominent symbols about Hitler. 

Youtube videos on Nazi propaganda:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRcBt904OJ0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVurfhMw1UU

Strengths of the theory: 

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 will feel the same issues are important.

It can be proven false. If people aren’t exposed to the same media, they won’t feel the same issues are important.

Its meta-theoretical assumptions are balanced on the scientific side.

It lays groundwork for further research.

It has organisingpower because it helps organiseexisting knowledge of media effects.

Weaknesses of the theory:

Media users may not be as ideal as the theory assumes. People may not be well-informed, deeply engaged in public affairs, thoughtful and skeptical. Instead, they pay casual and intermittent attention to public affairs, often ignorant of the details.

For people who have made up their minds, the effect is weakened.

News cannot create and conceal problems. The effect can merely alter the awareness, priorities and salience people attach to a set of problems.

NEW MEDIA is a whole new ballgame in terms of Agenda setting

I can safely say that agenda setting does work. I mean, what made us care more about the events of 9/11 when the world has millions more people starving. What makes climate change such a big deal right now? 

After studying Hitler and propaganda in school, there was no doubt in the world that propaganda is a great tool in brain washing. Hitler wasn't a very nice man, but he certainly was a very smart man. He tricked a whole nation into following his ways and believing his ideals, even though most of them, in their right mind, would never consider his way of life 'right' or 'just'. 

As journalists, what we report on and how we go about reporting it is of utmost importance. We have to know what the public wants/needs to hear, but we also have the ethical obligation of telling the truth. What we choose to report on and how we choose to approach what we report, ultimately shapes the wider communities opinions.