Agenda Setting Theory

• Bernard Cohen is credited with identifying agenda setting (1963).
• The press is successful at telling readers what to think about, rather than what to think.
• Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw empirically confirmed Cohen's perspective (1972).
• Editors, newsroom staff, and broadcasters shape political reality by choosing and displaying news.
• Readers learn not only about an issue, but how much importance to attach to that issue from a news story and its position.
• Mass media may determine the important issues and may set the 'agenda' of the campaign.
• Media coverage determines which issues become the focus of public attention.
• North Carolina voters were surveyed during the 1968 U.S. presidential election.
• The issues people thought were most important were what the media reported as the most critical.
• Mass media sets the agenda for what people should care about.
• Media does not tell people what to think, but rather what to think about.

Two Basic Assumptions of Agenda Setting

• Media filters and shapes what the audience sees, rather than just reflecting stories.
• The more attention the media gives to an issue, the more likely the public is to consider that issue important.
• The more a story is publicized in the mass media, the more prominently it becomes stored in individuals' memories.
• This happens even when the story doesn’t specifically affect them or register as a prominent issue in their minds.

Types of Agenda Setting

• Public agenda setting refers to when the public determines the agenda for which stories are considered important
• Media agenda setting: the media determines the agenda
• Policy agenda setting: public and media agendas influence decisions of public policy makers

Agenda Setting and Accessibility

• Agenda setting occurs through a cognitive process known as "accessibility".
• Media provides relevant information for thought, portrays major societal issues, and reflects people's minds.

Levels of Agenda Setting Theory

• First level: researchers study media uses and influences on people
• Second level: The media focuses on how people should think about the nature of the issues and sensationalizes news reports.

Priming Theory

• Draws on political science research of Shanto Iyengar, Mark Peters & Donald Kinder (1982).
• Media provides a context for public discussion of an issue, setting the stage for audience understanding.
• The media proposes values and standards through which objects gain attention.
• The media's content will provide sufficient time and space to certain issues, making them more vivid.
• Americans' views are shaped by stories in the evening news and greater importance is assigned to issues drawn attention.
• Dramatic news accounts undermined television's agenda-setting power.
• Personal accounts can focus too much attention on the specific situation rather than the issue at hand.
• Lead stories had a greater agenda-setting effect because people paid more attention, or accepted the news program's implicit designation of a lead story as most newsworthy.
• Priming is the idea that even the most motivated citizens cannot consider all they know when evaluating complex political issues.
• People consider the things that come easily to mind.
• Agenda-setting reflects the impact of news coverage on the perceived importance of national issues.
• Priming refers to the impact of news coverage on the weight assigned to specific issues in making political judgments.

Framing

• Attributed to Erving Goffman (1974) and draws on work in economics.
• Media provides a focus and environment for reporting a story, influencing how audiences understand or evaluate it.
• Framing theory deals with social construction on two levels: perception of a social phenomenon by journalists presenting news and interpretation by audiences.
• Framing is a process of selective control with two meanings.
• News content is shaped and contextualized within the same frame of reference.
• Audiences adopt the frames of reference to see the world in a similar way.
• This also lets people attach importance to the news and perceive its context.

Factors Affecting Agenda Setting

• Gatekeepers, editors, and managers, along with other external influences.
• Non-media sources such as government officials and influential personnel.

Related Concepts

• Agenda-building is a collective process in which media, government, and the citizenry reciprocally influence public policy.
• Framing theory is that people use sets of expectations to make sense of their social world and media contribute to those expectations.
• Second-order agenda-setting focuses on the attribute level ("how to think about it"), shifting from the object level ("what to think about").
• In the learning hierarchy of CAB, people give more thought to objects that they regard as important.
• The more the amount of thought the stronger the attitudes.
• Strong attitudes function as predictors of behaviors.
• Framing contrasts with agenda setting and is based on prospect theory, framing influences how audiences think about issues by invoking interpretive schemas that influence the interpretation of incoming information.
• Agenda building is the means by which issues become important in policy making.
• It is “a collective process in which media, government and the citizenry reciprocally influence one another.” (Kurt Lang and Gladys Lang, 1983)

Strengths of Agenda-Setting

• Focuses attention on audience interaction with media.
• Empirically demonstrates links between media exposure, audience motivation to seek orientation, and audience perception of public issues.
• Integrates priming, story positioning, and story vividness.

Weaknesses of Agenda-Setting

• Roots in mass society theory.
• Is most applicable to studies of news and political campaigns.
• Direction of agenda-setting effect is questioned by some.

Criticisms of Agenda Setting Theory

• Media users are not ideal and may not pay attention to details.
• The effect is weakened for people who have made up their mind.
• Media only alter the level of awareness, priorities, and importance, and cannot create problems.
• Agenda setting is difficult to measure.
• Research on the theory has been largely inconclusive in establishing a causal relationship between public prominence and media coverage.
• In 2018, people can find news instead of being constrained to fewer sources, so it is harder to convince others that the mass media is setting the agenda.
• It doesn’t work for people who have already made up their minds.
• McQuail (1983) argues there is insufficient evidence to show a causal connection between the various issue 'agendas' of the media and the public.
• This requires the combination of analysis of party programmes, evidence of opinion change over time in a given section of the public, content analysis showing media attention to issues and relevant media use by the public.
• Without such evidence, the hypothesis remains unproven.
• If people are exposed to the same media, they may feel the same issues are important.
• When an audience pays only casual attention to the details the effect is weakened, especially, for people who have already made up their minds.