Agenda-Setting Function of Maxwell McCombs & Donald Shaw

Created By: Tony Cooke

The media is constantly influencing our lives in a variety of different ways. They set the standards for the voters or the citizens. The two authors of the Agenda-Setting Function, McCombs and Shaw say, "We judge as important what the media judges as important. This is something that I definitely agree with I feel that what ever the media exploits or makes a huge deal out of, the general public will also see as a big and important issue. For example back when O.J. Simpson was on trial for the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, the media blew that up so much that you couldn't turn on the television, or pick up a newspaper, or turn on the radio without hearing the latest updates on the trial. The media made a big fuss over this so naturally the public made a huge deal of this.

There are some easy criteria to use while critiquing a theory. Although first you must decide wether or not to chose the humanistic approach or the scientific approach. Through my personal opinion, from the reading and studying of this theory I have chosen to use the scientific method, due to the fact that McCombs and Shaw used a scientific style of testing their theory. The criteria for the scientific approach are as follows, the explanation of the data, the prediction of the future events, the relative simplicity, a hypothesis that can be tested, and finally practical utility.

In this theory there was a good explanation of data. The two theorists gave statistics such as in the1950's and 1960's people downplayed the influence of the media, and the effect that it had on their lives. McCombs and Shaw developed this idea that the people had more freedom of choice, but the media did have the power. This is a pretty vague and obvious statement. In my opinion, this is true most of the time but it cannot be proven to be true in all instances.

I am aware that the media influences people in many ways, especially the youth. Our children see people doing drugs on television and killing people, and they think it is cool. This leads them to have violent tendencies and could push them towards drugs, but there are also forms of media which we do not believe, such as the publishers clearing house YOU HAVE WON A MILLION DOLLARS! If you are like me you just throw that junk in the trash because it is merely advertisement to buy something. So in reality every aspect of the media does not always influence us although they do have a large impact on our lives.

The second criterion to use in the critiquing process is the prediction of future events, because in a good scientific theory there is a prediction of what will happen. McCombs and Shaw knew that people were going to always watch television and people were always going to listen to the radio. However different people have different motives for doing so. Based on this and their testing and studying of the people who they have surveyed and watched, McCombs and Shaw are able to predict the future behavior of those individuals based on their habits.

The third step in the scientific evaluation of this theory is weather or not the theory is relatively simple and easy to test. In my personal opinion I feel that these two theorists made it very simple and clear what was being tested. The public was being tested to see if the Media basically controlled the way the public viewed the events in our lives. They also include a table to help us put it all together. This is a very simple theory. I also feel that the media is a huge part in our lives today. This theory would interest people trying to censor music and violence on television, such as the parents of young children who are concerned with the media "poisoning" their youths.

The next aspect of the critiquing process is weather or not there is a hypothesis that can be tested. I feel that McCombs and Shaw do have a hypothesis that can be tested but I do not think that it can be tested accurately. The media is so large in scope, and there are about a million ways that you can receive the news and information on the various topics around the world. I just don't think that a survey of this sort is a good enough way to test this theory. However I also cannot think of a good way that you can test this theory. I feel that the two theorists have a good idea and concept but proving this theory should have been done more in depth. I definitely agree with the fact that the media influences our lives greatly but I do not agree that everything the media deems important, the public deems important. That is impossible to prove in my opinion.

The last criterion is practical utility. Every good scientific theory is useful. Is the theory of Agenda-Setting useful? I think it gives us some "food for thought" but I do not think it made me feel differently about the media. This theory seemed sort of common knowledge to me. I didn't really learn anything that I didn't already know, but I will give them this, they have a good idea but they need to go about proving this theory a more efficient way.

This theory is not exactly what I would call perfect however it has some good ideas. If you would like to check out a related theory click on Semiotics.

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