What Is The Agenda-Setting Theory?

Agenda-setting describes a very powerful influence of the media- the ability to tell us ( the public) what issues are salient, or important. The core assumption of the theory is that agenda-setting is the creation of public awareness and concern of salient issues by news media.

Two basic assumptions underlie most research on agenda-setting:

1. the press and the media do not always reflect reality; they filter and shape it

2.  the concentration of the media on a few issues and subjects leads the public to perceive those issues as more important than other issues.

It is important to remember that although the influence of the media agenda can be substantial, it alone does not determine the public agenda.

How Does It Work?

Important Concepts:

• Gate-keeping:  the control over the selection of content discussed in the media. What the public know and care about at any given time is mostly a product of media gate-keeping.
• Priming:  Effects of a particular, prior content on retrieval and interpretation of information.  The media’s content will provide a lot of time and space for certain issues, making these issues more accessible and vivid in the public’s mind. 
• Framing:  Process of selective control over media content. Framing defines how a piece of media content is packaged so that it will influence particular interpretations. 

Strengths:

• Focuses attention on audience interaction with media
• Demonstrates links between media exposure, audience motivation to seek orientation, and audience perception of public issues
• Integrates several similar ideas including priming, story positioning, and story vividness

Weaknesses:

• It has roots in the mass society theory
• Too situationally specific to news and political campaigns
• Direction of agenda-setting effect is questioned by some

Early Research:

Walter Lippmann

The principal outlines of this theory were sketched by Walter Lippmann in his 1922 classic, Public Opinion, which began with a chapter titled “The world Outside and the Pictures in Our Heads.”  According to Lippmann, the news media are a primary source of those pictures in our heads about the larger world of public affairs, a world that for most citizens is “out of reach, out of sight, out of mind.”  What we know about the world, or the “pictures in our heads,” is largely based on what the media tell us.

Maxwell McCombs

Maxwell McCombs is widely know in the mass communication field for his dilligent work in agenda-setting research over a span of almost four decades.  He took agenda-setting from a successfull hypothesis to a highly developed theory of mass communication research, while acknowledging and expanding on Walter Lippmann’s insights in Public Opinion; that what we know is largely based on what the media decide to tell us.  His first study, Chapel Hill, was performed with his associate, Donald Shaw, during the 1968 presidential election.  It was designed to show with certainty voters’ perception of the significance of issues and if it was determined by media attention to those issues, rather than the voters’ selective attention.  The study showed a high degree of association among the various media; T.V. news, magazines, and newspapers.  Since that initial study, more than 300 published studies worldwide have documented this influence of the news media. 

McCombs and Shaw then began the Charlotte Study to establish time-order, which is the second condition necessary for determining the fundamental influence of media messages.  It was based on panel research done in Charlotte, NC, during the 1972 presidential election.  The study was designed to prove that the agenda of the media preceded and influenced that of the public.  They reported their findings in 1977 in The Emergence of American Political Issues.  This was a turning point in that their hypothesis had in fact become a developing theory. 

McCombs’ next contribution to mass communication research was the Three-site Study conducted during the 1976 presidential election campaign.  In this study, pannel interviews were conducted to investigate concepts such as how voters were informed about particular issues, the effect of the content of messages, and demographic as well as lifestyle variables.  It found that pannelists were able to rate the two presidential candidates, Carter and Ford, along with a wide range of image characteristics.  The significance of the characteristics in news messages transmit to the public, which then establish an agenda-setting effect for candidate characteristics.

In McCombs’ article, The Agenda-setting Role of the Mass Media in the Shaping of Public Opinion, he says, “Influencing the focus of public attention is a powerful role, but, arguably, influencing the agenda of attributes for an issue or political figure is the epitome of political power.”

McCombs’ most recent book, Setting the Agenda: The Mass Media and Public Opinion, was published in the fall of 2004.  Among his many achievements, he now holds the Jesse H. Jones Centennial Chair in Communication at the University of Texas at Austin and has been a visiting professor annually at the University of Navarra in Spain since 1994. 

Who Is Setting The Agenda?

According to McCombs, newspapers provide a multitude of cues about the salience of the topics in the daily news- lead story on page one, other front page display, large headlines etc.  Television news offer many cues also- the opening story on the newscast, or the lenghth of time devoted to that story, etc.  These cues repeated day after day effectively communicate the salience of each topic, which basically means the media can set the agenda for the public’s attention to that small group of issues around which public opinion is formed. The media only set the agenda when citizens percieve their news stories as relevant. 

However, not only the media has the ability to set the agenda.  Policy makers, corporations, institutions, opinion leaders, and even bloggers can shape public opinion, especially during an election or campaign. 

Usage Of Agenda Setting: 

• Political campaigns and debates
• Political advertising
• Legal systems
• Business influence on federal policy
• Public relations

 How Can It Help?

Chronic social issues rely havily on media coverage to raise the conscious of the public.  For example, journalist C. J. Bosso, found that news organizations were slow to react to famine in Ethiopia in the 1980s, but when the press and the televisoin finally picked up the story, it raised the publics’ awareness.  When the media later ceased coverage on the issue, people assumed that the crisis was over and shifted their attention elsewhere. 

How Can It Hurt?

The media seem particularly effective in creating public interest in political candidates and campaign strategy.  By January 1992, news commentators had decided that Bill Clinton was the leader for the Democratic presidential nomination, before a vote was cast, and even though polls showed more than half of all Democrats did not even know who he was, Clinton was hailed on the covers of Time and New York Magazine.  

war of the worlds

Allmost all of us know the sad example of the 1930s “War of the Worlds” broadcast where some people really thought that beasts from Mars in fact invaded the Earth.  One woman even committed suicide.  From this example you can see how easily some people can be influenced by media. 

 Limits Of Media Influence:

As mentioned earlier, the media can only set the agenda when citizens perceive theirs news as relevant.  A good example of this was the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal.  Despite persistent and frequent coverage, the U.S. public rejected the relevance of the scandal as the basis of their opinion about the president’s success or failure in government. 

Measuring Agenda-Setting Effects

According to McCombs, the presence, or absence, of agenda-setting effects by the news media can be explained by our need for orientation. Humans naturally have a need to understand the environment surrounding them.  The degree of need for orientation varies greatly from one individual to another.  For some, there is a high need for orientation.  For others there is little or no need at all.  It is defined by two components: relevance and uncertainty.  If a topic is perceived as irrelevant, the need for orientation is low and vice versa.