Introduction
The media has a major responsibility as far as citizens of a nation are concerned. Nowadays, there are many forms of communication from which people can acquire information about what is going on in the world. Most people use the information that they get from the media to make decisions that affect their lifestyles and major decisions that affect their health, education or jobs that they venture into.
Cultural beliefs have also changed and more and more people have become antisocial and spend most of their time watching what is broadcasted in the media. The media therefore holds a lot of responsibility in providing the accurate information that would influence people’s decisions and perceptions since information provided by the media affect’s people’s attitudes, behavior and thoughts.
In agenda setting, the media must therefore be ethical and adhere to rules set by media regulation bodies. The media has power to influence the decisions that are made by people or how people perceive an issue because the media can choose to make a lot of focus on an issue or air an issue frequently than normal (Weaver, Maxwell & Donald, 2004).
Role of the Media
Some critics of the media claim that some elements of media can be bought by the ‘highest bidder’; this is one of the reasons why most media houses ensure that they hire individuals of high moral integrity and character. People in the media should not be easily swayed by people who have their own selfish interests at heart instead of focusing on the greater good of the people.
Thus, the agenda setting model has highly been advocated for by many scholars especially Maxwell McCombs, who has had a long career in Journalism and has taught extensively on this field (2005). In some cases, what is aired in the news is influenced by what is happening around the world, if no major events are happening in the world for example wars, natural catastrophes, diseases outbreaks or political elections, other minor stories make the top news in the media.
It is also hypothesized that sometimes the news that are made available to the public depend on public agenda setting capabilities depending on the political climate, history of the region and policies that control the media in an area. In regards to the agenda setting theory role of the media, the media responsibly uses their role as public informers to determine what is important and is newsworthy and presents this to the public (Wanta 1999).
News editors, journalists and directors decide on the important issues that should be highlighted and then these issues are focused on. Agenda building is closely related to agenda setting and focuses on the important issues that determine the formation of policies by government and stakeholders in the private industry.
The media is seen as influencing and affecting the things that people think about and focus on. Thus, the media and their agenda setting role seem to have a cause-effect relationship whereby the media highlights an issue and that issue’s importance reflects back on the public audience who focus on the issue completely.
Agenda setting is important because it affects other different agendas like; public agenda, policy and corporate agenda which determine the direction of economies, politics and social life in the world. Critics argue that the agenda setting might not be applicable in future due to the technological advances that are being made in the world (Warl & Hanitzsch, 2008).
Many more people are choosing how they get the news that they want by subscribing to the news that they are interested in for example by subscribing to a particular news service in the media through their phones.
Subsequent agenda setting
Subsequent agenda setting is composed of a few aspects whereby most individuals subscribe to certain types of news that they prefer such as print, internet or through the television stations available to individuals. People seem to watch a few selected stations leaving out some other nations.
This shows that even though a lot of choices are made to individuals, they seem to choose a given number of media sources in comparison to others. In the second phase of agenda setting, there is framing of news that is delivered from the public. The media can highlight the areas of the news that they think are important and this stimulates individuals to think about those particular aspects of the news compared to other parts of the news.
The major concept of this phase of agenda setting is that the news presents what they feel should be the top news and individuals focus on that part of the news. The public could have an idea of what they think is important to them so by highlighting on such particular features they frame it to make the audience or listener think about it in a more broad perspective in the context of political and social aspects of life in a nation or in the world (O’Heferman, 1991).
For example the view of whether the United States was right on waging the war in Iraq was the question in many people’s minds. Some media outlets analyzed the strain of the war on the budget, the effects on the prices of fuel and this directed people in the direction towards which they began to critically question themselves and discuss with other people what the relevance of the war was.
In this situation, the media has a great role to play in helping citizens evaluate the decisions that were made by legislators and even decide whether they can vote in the same representatives to office that were associated with particular political and economic decisions. Another good example is a situation whereby a local media outlet ran a story about insecurity in Texas, the station framed insecurity as an issue that made people think and start questioning.
The public voice their concerns about the insecurity in their state yet real research showed that since the time that the insecurity story had been filmed, crime levels had actually reduced.
Psychology of agenda setting effects
When the media frames and highlights a particular issue in the news, it stimulates people to think about the issue more and seek for answers or more information that might enlighten them more on the particular issue. This is because in most cases, the media runs stories that affect people and their lives; politically, socially, economically and geographically.
People especially look out for more information from the media when they are undecided concerning various aspects that affect them. Voters who for instance might be undecided about the political candidates that they want to vote for are more likely to be watching the news to get more information that might influence their decision as compared to people who might have already made their decisions (Weaver et al, 2004).
Due to education of many more people in the world and access to many technological advancements and the availability of many outlets and mediums where people can get news, people are more informed and want to participate in any way that they can so as to positively change their lives. This leads to people putting more effort to access information in the media so as to obtain information that may influence them to make the decisions that they feel would put them in an empowering situation.
History of agenda setting
News that have been aired in the media have a history of airing people who have different views on issues like politics, parenting, environment, schooling and so many other areas.
The media tries to bring together conflicting sides to a story and enlighten the public on issues affecting them; it must therefore be extremely ethical to ensure that the public know what they need to make good informed decisions. If ever people discovered that the media did not report what they were supposed to, or they gave the wrong information concerning an issue, they would lose confidence in the media.
Agenda setting can be traced back to the 18th century in the year 1735 when local print used to focus on news in areas like Britain only and did not focus on America which was then a British colony (McCombs & Donald, 1972). Up to the year 1744, news in the media only seemed to focus on Britain only but the news changed their focus to America in the late 1740s (McCombs & Donald, 1972).
This was influenced by people’s inquiries to the state of America at that time. When one print company started the trend of reporting on more than just Britain, Other print companies followed suit and from that time onwards, the public was rarely ignored. Media scholars also agreed that there has to be a consensus on the issues to be addressed in the media for the public.
The media does not keep on emphasizing on an issue unless the story has new details to feed the current issue. Even if the issue has a great effect on the socio-economic and political aspects of people’s lives, the media cannot over focus on one issue. Of late, the media has to focus on issues like health factors in order to influence people’s living habits which lead to diseases like diabetes, heart attacks and heart failures.
The media can also assist the people by highlighting political issues that affect people such as civic education and how the people can vote wisely in the elections based on the manifestos that would help to develop the community. Finally, the media can assist people by educating the public on wise financial decisions that can positively affect their lives.
Process of agenda setting
Sources of media agenda
The issue of setting the agenda has been discussed by scholars at length and they pose the question about who sets the agenda for the media. The media decides what is important to the public and what they should focus on but it is a contentious issue on who regulates what the media airs.
Media scholars argue that the tradition and norms that have been set by many other generations before have led to the knowledge that the media only discuss what they feel are the important aspects that they should focus on when it comes to presenting news to the public.
Different media organizations also interact with each other and discuss the issues that they feel should be highlighted depending on how much they touch on socio-political and economical aspects of life. New makers are also influenced by policy makers based on research findings and forecasts of the important aspects of people’s lives (McCombs & Donald, 1972). It is the collaboration between different media outlets that makes similar news to be aired in different television channels and printed in different periodicals; this is an important aspect of agenda setting.
Consequences of Agenda setting effects
Setting of the agenda by the media has great effects to the public since the media influences the opinions, attitudes and decisions of the public. The media has the powerful effect of making the public form an opinion and have the power to shape the opinion of majority of the people and even influence a huge number of people to make a decision by providing the required information to make people learn about a particular side of an opinion.
Thus, both the media and the public are responsible for agenda setting. In most cases, if there is an issue that the public is not comfortable with, the media does not highlight such issues (Dearing & Rogers, 1996).
Visions of Agenda Setting
Professional Detachment
The agenda setting process is viewed as a profession in the field of journalism separate from the personalities involved in delivering the stories to people. The agenda setting process is viewed as coming naturally to the field of journalism. The media’s delivery of news is however seen as affecting all aspects of the community in terms of their opinions, attitudes and the kinds of decisions that they make.
Targeted involvement
Due to the expectations of the public on the media, the media have to focus on the issues that they know affect the public directly even if key stakeholders are not adhering to what they are supposed to adhere to, the media is supposed to highlight these issues. This would mobilize the public to advocate for the much needed agenda that they should focus on and advocate for needed change in government, public or private sector.
Bolstering
The media is also supposed to boost the positive developments in the community so as to foster its growth and encourage people in the community. When the media talks positively on an issue, that issue is focused on by people and is viewed positively. Talking about increases in jobs would lead to raising the morale of the people in the community which has a surprisingly high productivity effect on people.
A point of transition
There exists a sense of professional in journalism when reporting in the media, journalists and other media professionals are however transitioning with the times and they input their opinions on stories in a way that will not affect the stories that they present, but in such a way that will be appealing to the audience.
Proactive agenda setting
It has been argued that the media has to actively involve the community in the setting up of agenda since the media presents their content to the public and it is only logical that they should involve their audience in the content of the material that is being presented to them (McCullagh, 2002).
References
Dearing, Rogers. 1996. Agenda Setting. California. Sage Publications.
McCombs, Maxwell. 2005. A Look at Agenda-Setting: Past, Present, Future’ in Journalism Studies, 6 (4): 543-557.
McCombs, Maxwell and Donald Shaw. 1972. The Agenda-Setting Function of the Mass Media. Public Opinion Quarterly, 36: 176-185.
McCullagh, Ciaran. 2002. The Production of Media Messages: Who Sets the Media Agenda. California: Sage publications.
O’Hefferman, P. 1991. Massmedia & American Policy. Washingto: Green wood publishing company.
Wanta, W. 1999. The Public and the national agenda. New York. Routeledge.
Warl, K., Hanitzsch, T. 2008. The handbook of Journalism Studies. Taylor & Francis.
Weaver, D., Maxwell M., & Donald, S. 2004. Agenda Setting research: Issues, Attributes and Influences’, Chpt 10 in, Lynda Less Kaid (ed), Handbook of Political Communications Research. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.