Kelly's Discussion of Agenda-Setting
How does Agenda-Setting affect people?
Agenda-setting is defined by McCombs and Donald Shaw as "how the mass media have the ability to transfer the salience of items on their news agendas to the public agenda."
This theory shows us how people respond to the media. We trust the press to tell us what to think about, but we are still free to choose if we want to listen to it or not. Agenda-setting makes a cause and effect relationship between people (public) and the media. The media supplies us with the cause (content) and we supply the effect (perception). Lets show an example of how this cause and effect relationship works.
I have experienced this cause and effect relationship personally many times. One example that comes to mind is the constant knowledge that the media supplies me about cigarette smoking. I know that smoking is bad, so I chose not to do it and let others do it without saying a word about my opinion. However, when the news supplies me with all the horrible stories, medical aspects, statistics, and other information they are assisting me in deciding how bad cigarettes really are. I have the choice to ignore it, but instead because I may have my doubts about smoking, the media has assisted me in thinking about the cause and effect of smoking. I further the process by thinking smoking is horrible. I now have knowledge on smoking to backup my reasoning, so now I care about the cause and effect of the subject. By caring about the subject of smoking and how bad it is the media has done its job. I will now voice my opinion against smoking by repeating the information that the media has supplied me with to support me in my belief.
When I repeat what I heard from the media, I am doing exactly what they want me to do. I have repeated the information that they supplied me with, along with my own views. The media had an agenda to give me the information, and intern gave me an agenda to pass the information on. The media can alter my latitudes of acceptance, or change my personal opinion so I will speak up.
By understanding this theory we can understand the media, their purpose, and how most people respond. I think that McCombs and Shaw hit it right on target when they developed this theory. As much as we want to have our own opinions, we must realize that media plays a big part in shaping our opinions or turning our ideas into opinions to voice. I know that if it was not for the media I would not be as strong minded about my opinions. Media gives us concrete evidence (at least we think) to back up our opinions so we will repeat them because the media has justified it for us.
Return to the Agenda-Setting title page.
Return to Kelly's ideas about communication theory.
This is a link to our Social Judgement Theory, which will explain latitudes.
This is a link to many other theories by many other Ohio University students.
Kelly A. Conway revised(http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~kc722196/kcsj.htm)
on March 4, 1999.
Please E-mail comments or suggestions to kc722196@ohiou.edu.
