Agenda Setting Theory
The Agenda Setting Theory was the research work of Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw. The Agenda Setting Theory in simple words means that Media sets the agenda as to what people should think about by focussing on certain issues, while ignoring others. These issues that media focusses upon easily become the topic of conversations, discussions and issues of Public opinion. Even in today’s world, Media often becomes a pawn in the hands of the authorities and often cedes to the demands of what topics are to be focused upon and what is to be ignored.
“This ability to in-fluence which issues, persons and topics are perceived as the most important of the day is called the agenda-setting role of the mass media.” (McCombs, 2004).
Maxwell McCombs and Sebastián Valenzuela (2007) mention the historical background to the Agenda-Setting Theory and state that initial idea of the agenda setting role played by the press was discussed by Water Lippmann’s book on ‘Public Opinion’ in 1922, which began with the with a chapter titled “The world outside and the pictures in our heads.”[1]
However, it was only in 1968 that this idea was put to an empirical test by two professors at the University of North Carolina named Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw (1972), The entire research was aimed at finding “out if there was a relationship between the priority issues of the mass media and the priority issues of the public”.[2]
Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw investigated the ‘agenda-setting’ capacity of the mass media in the 1968 presidential campaign. The study was an attempt to observe if what the people thought are the main issues of the campaign are the same as that being shown in media. Therefore the research was done on the voters from a place named Chapel Hill and whether what they said were key issues of the campaign are the same as the content of the mass media. ‘The study found an almost perfect correspondence between the two agendas. The degree of importance accorded the issues by voters closely paralleled their degree of prominence in the news during the previous month.’ (McCombs and Valenzuela, 2007) [3]
The literature review of the this study by McCombs and Shaw also pointed out to statements by Lang and Lang and Cohen. Lang and Lang stated that ‘The mass - media force the attention of their viewers to certain issues by building up public images of political figures and constantly presenting objects suggesting what individuals should think about, know about, have feelings about’. Cohen said that the press "may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about."[4]
In the words of McCombs and Valenzuela (2007) that while connecting with the world outside, be it our workplace or neighbourhood we are dealing with ‘a second-hand reality created by journalists and media organizations’.
Media has time and space constraints as a result of which Mass media organisations choose to focus on and limit their contents to topic that they deem are ‘newsworthy’. The agenda setting research leads us to the idea that these topics focussed upon by the media gradually become matters focussed upon by the public and find their way into public opinion.
McCombs and Shaw were of the opinion that Newsrooms and Broadcasters at large play a vital role in shaping Political reality by determining what people should focus on. For instance, focus on a particular political person and the issues raised by that political would give rise to public discussion about the same, just media sets the ‘agenda of the campaign’. While, in matters of the press and the topics chosen, “Readers gradually learn, ‘not just’ about a given issue, but also ‘how much’ importance to attach to that issue from the amount of information in a news story and its position.”[5]
The agenda is gradually set through the repetition of this news day in and day out. Media’s pervasive tendencies thus influence the audience and bring the media opinion into the forum of the public opinion. Furthermore, the study points out that not only does Media highlight an issue, it also influences, informs and channelises the public thinking on that issue. The topics could vary from issues to focussing on public personalities, leaders, countries or anything requires attention.
McCombs and Valenezuela also discuss two aspects of agenda setting. These are Object Salience and Attribute Salience. They say that the first level is the transmission of object salience followed by the transmission of attribute salience.
Object is basically attributed to the topic of focus; i.e. “the items that define an agenda are objects.” In most agenda-setting research, these objects are public issues, but they also could be public figures, organizations, countries or anything else that is the focus of attention.
Attributes are the various perspectives or elements of the main topic or object. They are the carious traits that define the object in focus. In agenda Setting, some attributes of the object are brought to the limelight, the others are totally supressed or ignored.
[1] McCombs, M. E., & Shaw, D. L. (1972). The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media. Public Opinion Quarterly, 36(2), 176. doi:10.1086/267990
[2] Maxwell McCombs and Sebastián Valenzuela, July, 2007, The Agenda-Setting Theory, Cuadernos de Información, núm. 20, pp. 44-50, Pontificia Universidad Católica de ChileSantiago, Chile, https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/971/97120369004.pdf
[3] Maxwell McCombs and Sebastián Valenzuela, July, 2007, The Agenda-Setting Theory, Cuadernos de Información, núm. 20, pp. 44-50, Pontificia Universidad Católica de ChileSantiago, Chile, https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/971/97120369004.pdf
[4] McCombs, M. E., & Shaw, D. L. (1972). The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media. Public Opinion Quarterly, 36(2), 176. doi:10.1086/267990
[5] McCombs, M. E., & Shaw, D. L. (1972). The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media. Public Opinion Quarterly, 36(2), 176. doi:10.1086/267990
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