Blog Post #10

 Agenda Setting 

    Agenda setting is the “ability to influence the importance placed on the topics of the public. It is the manipulation of public awareness and concern of salient issues by the news media.” First introduced in 1972 by college professors, Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw, they found in surveying North Carolina voters during the 1968 U.S. presidential election that what people thought were the most important issues were what the mass media reported as the most critical. Thus, agenda-setting theory was born, built on the notion that the mass media sets the agenda for what people should care about.

News reports make it in a way that when a particular news report is given importance and attention than others, the audience will automatically perceive it as the most important news and information given to them. Agenda setting can be used in many different things including political ads, campaigns, business news, PR ( public relations), etc. There are three different kinds of agenda setting, the first one being public agenda setting which is when the public determines the agenda for which stories are considered important. The second kind is media agenda setting which is when the media determines the agenda for which stories are considered important. The third type is policy agenda setting which is when both the public and the media agendas influence the decisions of public policy makers. These different types make up all of the different types of news that we get as the audience.

    The conflicts that can come with agenda setting are that media users are not ideal- the people may not pay enough attention to the details, the effect is weakened for people who have already made up their minds about a topic, media cannot create problems, they can only alter the level of awareness, priorities, importance, etc, and it can be difficult to measure. Agenda setting can also effect society in many different ways that we wouldn't really think of. It has a powerful impact on what individuals think that other people are thinking, and hence tend to allocate more importance to issues that have been covered by mass media. Also, having your own opinion could be swayed without having much control over it from the societal values opposed to your own.

    The biggest concept that is related to agenda setting is gatekeeping. Gatekeeping is in charge of and has control of the selection of content discussed in the media. This is the process of when they choose the media that is shared with the public then the media that is shared is made to sway the opinions of the audience in the process of agenda setting. Editors are the main gatekeepers of the media itself and they decide what to share based off of its trustworthiness. It is is a powerful authority who ensure the right material is disseminated to mass. Because some issues are important to media but not to masses. Also they are much concern on not to distort peace and public stability. Agenda setting is the basis of how we get our information and news so it has become a big part in our society and most people don't know what it is.