Media Agenda Setting

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how media agenda setting can have wide implications for public discourse and public policy. It looks at how television news programs and cable television news networks can powerfully influence the way the public views the debate (even determining for the viewing public the players in that debate) just by controllling who and what gets on the air.

From the Paper:

"For a commentator on the Right, like Bill O'Reilly, or for a commentator on the Left like Keith Olbermann, telling a story might mean cutting out, or shrinking down into insignificance those "facts" that due not intend to enhance a particular mindset. Similarly, there can be an added focus on minor details hat tend to skew the reportage toward a specific worldview. Facts perceived of as "dangerous" to the success of some government policy may be excluded from public view altogether, as in the case of war coverage. Ever since the notion became established that the Vietnam War was lost because the public saw too much of the brutal side of battle, the media has been extremely careful not to show much blood and gore. "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Hallahan, K. (1999). Seven Models of Framing: Implications for Public Relations. Journal of Public Relations Research, 11(3), 205-242.
• Harris, R. J. (2004). A Cognitive Psychology of Mass Communication. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Johnson, T. J., Braima, M. A., & Sothirajah, J. (2000). Measure for Measure: The Relationship between Different Broadcast Types, Formats, Measures and Political Behaviors and Cognitions. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 44(1), 43.
• Maher, T. M. (2001). Chapter 3 Framing: an Emerging Paradigm or a Phase of Agenda Setting? In Framing Public Life: Perspectives on Media and Our Understanding of the Social World, Reese, S. D., Gandy, O. H., & Grant, A. E. (Eds.) (pp. 83-94). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Mccombs, M., & Reynolds, A. (2002). Chapter 1 News Influence on Our Pictures of the World. In Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research, Bryant, J. & Zillmann, D. (Eds.) (2nd ed., pp. 1-16). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

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