AGENDA SETTING THEORY
Overview
• Describes the “ability of the news media to influence the
salience of topics on the public agenda”
• The media can’t tell you what to think, but can tell you what
to think about
• Developed by Dr. Maxwell McCombs and Dr. Donald Shaw –
they found that the issues thought of as important correlated
to the issues that the media most reports on
• The theory is well-founded and remains relevant
Key underlying principles
- We live in an age of Mass Communication; this
theory is aimed at Forms of Media with wide
reach (news, radio, television)
- The press and the media do not reflect 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
Traditional Explanation
REALITY
Selection, Omission and
how stories are framed
AGENDA
ACCESSIBILITY TO MEDIA
PERCEPTION OF REALITY
What is trending on the web
What people want to
hear and will make
What the Media
them buy the media
Magnates want
product
REALITY
Selection, Omission and
how stories are framed
AGENDA
Case Study 1 – Murdoch Press
-
-
-
-
News Limited had successive covers on
the Daily Telegraph and other
newspapers lampooning the Rudd
government and calling for their electoral
defeat
Gillard addressing the sexist treatment
against her was “playing the gender card”
Studies have shown there is a
considerable time lag between strong
editorial positions appearing consistently
in the media, and this filtering through
into the public consciousness.
It can be over a month before people
start to spontaneously recall media
messages as being important
Though this is highly situational and tends
to be based on the capacity of the
audience to assess the issue
independently of the media's messaging.
• The shaping of public dispositions through the theory
develops over longer time-frames
• In order for a “hate campaign” to work, the agenda must in
some way be based on people’s already-existing dislike of a
certain group. The media must develop an agenda based on
the fears and hatred already existing
• We see people burn down the houses of paedophiles, but
seldom rise up against the “dodgy builders” featured on
Today Tonight.
Case Study 2 – Asylum Seekers
• News reports about Asylum Seekers
• Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun frame issues with headlines like
‘Costing Us a Packet’ and ‘Boat People in Our Suburbs’
• The Media created the term ‘Boat People’ and by overtlycovering the issue, they frame it as an economic and social
burden upon society. They could instead discuss it in regards
to humanitarian and international obligations, but no.
• Based upon society’s current fears and xenophobia
• Tony Abbott won the 2013 Election; what was his main
slogan?