“AGENDA SETTING” THEORY OF MASS COMMUNICATION
Being aware of the power of agenda setting and giving utmost importance to it is a key to the strategic development and success of public relations communications. Hence, Agenda Setting Theory of Communication must be well-explored.
Mass Communication plays a vital role in our society as its purpose is to inform the public about current and past events. Mass communication is the process whereby professional communicators use technological devices to share messages over great distances to influence large audiences. Within this process, the media, which can be the television, radio, newspaper or any other reading material, takes control of the information we see or hear. The media then uses gatekeeping and agenda setting to control our access to news, information, and entertainment. Gatekeeping is a series of checkpoints that the news has to go through before it gets to the public. This is done by reporters, writers and editors. Through this process many people have to decide whether or not the news is to bee seen or heard, this is the point where agenda-setting comes in.
Agenda Setting is the process whereby the mass media determine what we think and worry about. It is distinguishing between what we think about (what we know) and what we think (feelings and opinions). In between the fray of cognition and predisposition, this theory suggests that mass media can have a substantial and important impact on the cognitive level without affecting predisposition. Yet, it is limited to one effect, that it, it is not a trivial consequence.
A journalist named Walter Lippmann first observed this function in the 1920’s. Lippmann pointed out that the media dominates over the creation of pictures in our head, he believed that the public reacts not to actual events but to the pictures in our head. Therefore, the agenda setting process is used to remodel all the events occurring in our environment, into a simpler model before we deal with it.
Researchers Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw have then followed the said concept. McCombs and Shaw stresses that there is abundantly collected evidence that editors and broadcasters play an important part as they go through gatekeeping or their day-to-day tasks in deciding and publicizing news.
This impact of the mass media- the ability to affect cognitive change among individuals, to structure their thinking- has been labeled the agenda-setting function of mass communication. Here may lie the most important effect of mass communication, its ability to mentally order and organize our world for us. In short, the mass media may not be successful in telling us what to think, but they are stunningly successful in telling us what to think about.
The theory has a large influence on audiences by their choice of what stories to consider newsworthy and how much prominence and space to give them. Agenda-setting theory’s main postulate is salience transfer. Salience transfer is the ability of the mass media to transfer issues of importance from their mass media agendas to public agendas.
The agenda-setting function has multiple components:
- Media agenda are issues discussed in the media, such as newspapers, television, and radio.
- Public agenda are issues discussed and personally relevant to members of the public.
- Policy agenda are issues that policy makers consider important, such as legislators.
- Corporate agenda are issues that big business and corporations consider important, including corporations.
These four agendas are interrelated. It just shows that the press and the media do not reflect reality, they filter and shape it, and the media concentration on a few issues and subjects leads the public to take those issues as more important than other issues.
It explains why most people prioritize the same issues as important. It also predicts that if people are exposed to the same media, they will feel the same issues are important. It can be proven false if people aren’t exposed to the same media then they won’t feel the same issues are important. For people who have made up their minds, the effect is weakened. News media cannot create or conceal problems, they may only alter the awareness, priorities and salience people attached to a set of problems.
Potential consequences of media agenda setting are:
1. media coverage can elevate the public standing of issues, people, organizations, institutions and so forth
2. changes in the amount of media attention can lead to changes in public priorities
3. the more concerned people are about something, the more they tend to learn about it, the stronger their opinions are of it and the more they take action on it
4. media coverage can affect the agenda priorities of some specific and important publics such as legislators, regulators and other policy makers
Getting an issue onto the media agenda by public relations practitioners can be a good thing as when you want to raise awareness of an issue or a bad thing as when something embarrassing, dangerous or illegal happens to your organization. The theory is used in political advertising, political campaigns and debates, business news and corporate reputation, business influence on federal policy, legal systems, trials, role of groups, audience control, public opinion and public relations.
An excellent example for this is the actions taken with the Clinton Scandal. During these historic events, the media was ever-present. The placement of full page, color articles and top stories on news programming made it clear that Americans should place these events as important issues. Some believed
In a rundown, this theory of agenda setting emphasizes that mass communication can affect public opinion by raising the salience of issues and positions taken by people and groups in the news and it contribute to the conceptual foundation for public relations mass communication. It gives the media power to establish what news we see or hear and what part of the news is important to see or hear. Therefore, agenda setting is used for many purposes to establish the media agenda and to retrieve the opinion of the public. Also, agenda setting is very important in the political aspect because the public agenda influences the policy agenda which means that candidates will try to focus on issues that the public wants to hear about. Wrapping up, the agenda setting theory has many beneficial uses in our society and it is a part of our communication, thus, it must be well-learned, well-understood and well-practiced. Evidently, the power of mass media in the society is undeniably strong just as how equally important agenda setting is for mass communication and with everybody else as well.
DIFFUSING INFORMATION AND INNOVATION
As much as the importance of agenda setting, diffusion of information and innovation is of significance too. Diffusion refers to the process of communicating an innovation to and among the population of potential users who might choose to adopt or reject it. It facilitates social interaction and change that may otherwise be unspread if not for the wide dissemination of news through mass media.
Innovation is an idea, practice, or object perceived as new by an individual, group, organization or other unit of adoption. There are certain characteristics relative to this theory such as:
1. more advantageous than the current situation
2. a high degree of compatibility with existing values and past experiences
3. a low degree of complexity
4. easily tried
5. a high degree of visibility with readily apparent outcomes
Innovators are the first to adopt new ideas followed by early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. However, an innovation will diffuse faster if it is perceived as having these characteristics. This theory just shows that diffusion and adoption processes illustrate the impact of mass communication has on interpersonal communication and networks. More important, they show how mass and interpersonal communication interacts in social systems and in social change.
For a mass media practitioner to effectively disseminate information, he or she must come up with innovations to cope up with the fast-changing world. This innovations can surely help diffuse news faster and better as good communication circulates around social systems and adapts easily to social changes.
DEFINING SOCIAL SUPPORT
The sociocultural model of persuasion suggests that messages presented via the mass media may provide the appearance of concensus regarding orientation and action with respect to a given object or goal of persuasion. Here, mass media messages can provide individuals pictures of their social environment, of whether there is social approval or disapproval of their views or actions.
The phenomenon linked here is the “Spiral of silence” theory or referred commonly as “the silent majority”. It’s like an individual just seem to be waiting for the other individual to agree with him or her in taking a stand on a certain issue. In our intent not to cause a conflict towards the others, we tend to remain silent and forsake our own opinions. This act is erroneously perceived as negative reaching to a conclusion that the majority don’t support at all when in fact, it can be just a simple act of support in a passive way. But if there’s just someone who took the initiative to take one step ahead of others in expressing their opinions then there’s a good chance that others will follow. Consequently, social support is defined in that case.
Indeed, the saying proves to be true as “No man is an island.” No matter how we try to convince ourselves that we can stand on our own for a certain principle, still, there is that factor in which we are more motivated to carry our stand as we get more courage fighting for it knowing that we are not alone; that a large number of people believes in the same way as we do. Again, mass communication signifies a role in defining social support.
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