During the presentations this past Thursday, one of the most interesting topics I learned was the topic on agenda setting. Agenda setting is essentially what the news and media do not want you to see. There is a lot more going on under the surface than what the media actually wants you to know about. One example could be focusing on the violent part of protests, rather than why the people are actually protesting.
In 1972, two college professors named Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw did a survey on North Carolina voters during the 1978 presidential election. The survey asked what voters thought the most influential issue was regarding the election. Thus, results showed that the media really influences what people should care about. This was the start of the Agenda Setting Theory.
When it comes to Agenda Setting, there are three different types; Public, Media and Policy. The first type of Agenda Setting is Public, where the public decides the agenda for what stories are and are not important. The second type is called media agenda setting, and occurs when media decides what and what not to discuss. Lastly, the policy agenda setting is when both the public and media influence the decisions that are made by public policy makers.
The reason why the agenda setting theory is so important is because it shows that the media is constantly hiding information from us. It shows that we need to dig deeper into intriguing new stories we hear about, and need to constantly be aware that the news we hear is being controlled by the media.
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