scholarly journals How the news media set the agenda

Author(s):  
Maxwell McCombs ◽  
Iris Chyi ◽  
Spiro Kiousis

The agenda-setting role of the news media is a powerful influence on what we pay attention to and how we understand the vast world of public affairs that lies beyond our personal experience. Subsequent to the seminal Chapel Hill study in 1972, agenda setting theory has expanded beyond the influence of the news media on the public to elaborate the broader process of agenda setting. The scope of the theory now extends from the elements that shape the media agenda to the consequences of agenda-setting effects for attitudes and opinions. This article presents the results of two empirical studies recently published in the United States that further elaborate this process. One explicates how the press shifts its spotlight from one aspect to another of a major news event to build the prominence of that event on the media agenda. The second explicates the implications of prominence on the media agenda for the public’s attitudes and opinions about public figures.

Author(s):  
Maxwell McCombs ◽  
Sebastián Valenzuela

This chapter discusses contemporary directions of agenda-setting research. It reviews the basic concept of agenda setting, the transfer of salience from the media agenda to the public agenda as a key step in the formation of public opinion, the concept of need for orientation as a determinant of issue salience, the ways people learn the media agenda, attribute agenda setting, and the consequences of agenda setting that result from priming and attribute priming. Across the theoretical areas found in the agenda-setting tradition, future studies can contribute to the role of news in media effects by showing how agenda setting evolves in the new and expanding media landscape as well as continuing to refine agenda setting’s core concepts.


Author(s):  
David H. Weaver ◽  
Jihyang Choi

This chapter provides an overview of media agenda setting, also known as agenda building. Although much of the agenda-setting research tradition has focused on how media affect the public agenda, agenda building examines how the media’s agenda comes about. The chapter considers five possible influences on the news media agenda: influential news sources, other media, journalistic norms and traditions, unexpected events, and media audiences. Research to date indicates that there is no one decisive factor that determines the media agenda. Instead, media agendas are built as a joint product of these influences. The chapter concludes by offering suggestions for future areas of research that would refine understanding of the media agenda-setting process.


Author(s):  
Alberto Ardévol-Abreu ◽  
Homero Gil de Zúñiga ◽  
Maxwell E. McCombs

The core hypothesis of the theory of agenda setting is that there is a process of transfer of salience from the media agenda to the public agenda. Since its original conception in the early 1970s, the explanatory model of ‘issue-agenda setting’ (first level) has been extended to help explain the transfer of the media’s ‘attribute agenda’ (second level) and ‘network agenda’ (third level) to the public agenda. This article provides a review of the agenda-setting model and its theoretical and empirical development, ending with a section that summarizes and discusses research studies published in this area in the last five years in Spain. Despite the broad influence of the agenda-setting theory in communication research in this country, Despite the broad influence of the agenda-setting theory in communication research in this country, many of the studies use the theory as a general framework for conducting a content analysis, withouh empirically testing any process of salience transfer. Resumen La teoría de la agenda setting establece como hipótesis central que existe un fenómeno de transferencia de relevancia desde la agenda de los medios de comunicación hasta la agenda del público. Desde su formulación en los años 70 del siglo XX, el modelo explicativo de la agenda setting de asuntos (primer nivel) se ha ido ramificando para poder explicar la transmisión de la agenda de los atributos (segundo nivel) y la agenda de redes –o relaciones– (tercer nivel). El presente artículo lleva a cabo una revisión del modelo y su evolución teórica y empírica, para acabar acercándose a su utilización en la investigación publicada en España en el último quinquenio. A pesar de la amplia repercusión de la agenda setting en la investigación publicada en este país, muchos de los trabajos utilizan la teoría como marco general para llevar a cabo análisis de contenido sin llegar a plantear (empíricamente) ningún fenómeno de transferencia de relevancia.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lei Guo ◽  
Hong Tien Vu

Abstract This study advances agenda-setting theory by applying it to understand the media influence on the public’s perception of health issues. The longitudinal analysis compared news indices, public opinion polls, and reality indicators in the United States from 2001 to 2010. The results show that news media, especially print media, did have some agenda-setting effects on the public’s health priorities. However, the coverage had little to do with reality and, ironically, the media representation of certain health issues showed an opposite trend to that of the reality indicators. These findings call into question the responsibility of journalists in providing a complete and proportional representation of health concerns.


Author(s):  
Sebastián Valenzuela

People use the news media to learn about the world beyond their family, neighborhood, and workplace. As news consumers, we depend on what television, social media, websites, radio stations, and newspapers decide to inform us about. This is because all news media, whether through journalists or digital algorithms, select, process, and filter information to their users. Over time, the aspects that are prominent in the news media usually become prominent in public opinion. The ability of journalists to influence which issues, aspects of these issues, and persons related to these issues, are perceived as the most salient has come to be called the agenda-setting effect of journalism. First described by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw in a seminal study conducted during the 1968 elections in the United States, agenda-setting theory has expanded to include several other aspects beyond the transfer of salience of issues from the media agenda to the public agenda. These aspects include: the influence of journalism on the attributes of issues and people that make news; the networks between the different elements in the media and public agendas; the determinants of the news media agenda; the psychological mechanisms that regulate agenda-setting effects; and the consequences of agenda setting on both citizens’ and policymakers’ attitudes and behaviors. As one of the most comprehensive and international theories of journalism studies available, agenda setting continues to evolve in the expanding digital media landscape.


MedienJournal ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Li Xiguang

The commercialization of meclia in China has cultivated a new journalism business model characterized with scandalization, sensationalization, exaggeration, oversimplification, highly opinionated news stories, one-sidedly reporting, fabrication and hate reporting, which have clone more harm than good to the public affairs. Today the Chinese journalists are more prey to the manipu/ation of the emotions of the audiences than being a faithful messenger for the public. Une/er such a media environment, in case of news events, particularly, during crisis, it is not the media being scared by the government. but the media itself is scaring the government into silence. The Chinese news media have grown so negative and so cynica/ that it has produced growing popular clistrust of the government and the government officials. Entering a freer but fearful commercially mediated society, the Chinese government is totally tmprepared in engaging the Chinese press effectively and has lost its ability for setting public agenda and shaping public opinions. 


2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diogenes Lycarião ◽  
Rafael Cardoso Sampaio

The agenda-setting theory is one of the powerful study fields in communication research. Nevertheless, it is not a settled theory. Recent studies based on big data indicate seemingly contradictory results. While some findings reinforce McCombs and Shaw’s original model (i.e. the media set the public agenda), others demonstrate great power of social media to set media’s agenda, what is usually described as reverse agenda-setting. This article – based on an interactional model of agenda setting building – indicates how such results are actually consistent with each other. They reveal a complex multidirectional (and to some extent) unpredictable network of interactions that shape the public debate, which is based on different kinds of agenda (thematic or factual) and time lengths (short, medium or long terms).


Author(s):  
Inge Hutagalung

In general, media coverage can have a strong influence on the reputation of a cultural heritage. Media coverage often has an effect on a cultural heritage’s reputation when ‘good’ or ‘bad’ news is reported.This amplifying effect has often been studied through the lens of agenda setting theory. The hypothesis behind the theory is that the frequency with the media report on an issue determines that issues’ salience in the minds of the general public. In other words, the media may not be successful often time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about. The news media ‘set’ the public agenda.Since people cannot possibly attend no to every little detail about the cultural heritage around them, setting in communication is important because it helps shape the perspectives through which people see all cultural heritage in the world.In generating good news coverage about a cultural heritage, communicating with the media is one of important activities that should be maintained between communication professionals (in cultural heritage) with journalists. Keywords: media coverage, agenda setting, framing news


Author(s):  
Marco Aurelio Moura dos Santos ◽  
Marco Antonio Barbosa

Resumo: Aborda-se a formação do discurso ideológico do Direito e a influência do agendamento promovido pela mídia na formação da opinião pública, bem como a apropriação e/ou a influência da mídia na formação do discurso jurídico. Consta-se que as decisões judiciais cada vez mais são divulgadas e comentadas por especialistas nos meios de comunicação, especialmente as mais polêmicas, o que produz reflexividade “causa-efeito” entre os agendamentos noticiados e a consequente influência no ajuizamento de demandas, provocando a indagação se a legitimação do discurso dos profissionais do Direito sustenta-se apenas em fundamentos jurídicos e sociais ou se também sofre influência ideológica dos meios de comunicação. Conclui-se que o discurso jurídico é resultado de inúmeras ideologias, intensamente influenciadas pela opinião pública, que por sua vez também é determinada pelo agendamento promovido pela mídia.Palavras-chave: Mídia; Opinião pública; Discurso ideológico do direito; Ideologia; Sociedade da informação. Abstract: This paper deals with the formation of the ideological discourse of law and the influence that the agenda setting promoted by the media has in the formation of the public opinion, as well as with the appropriation and/or influence of the media in shaping the legal discourse. It is noted that court decisions are increasingly disclosed and commented by experts through the media, especially the most controversial, which produces a "cause and effect" reflexivity between the reported agenda and the consequent influence on the filing of demands, which causes questioning if the legitimacy of the legal practitioners’ speech supports itself only on legal and social grounds or if it is also influenced by the media. It concludes that the legal discourse is the result of many ideologies, heavily influenced by public opinion, which in turn is also determined by the agenda setting promoted by the media.Keywords: Media; Public opinion; Ideological legal speech; Ideology; Information society.


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