Agenda setting :presented by H.GHULAM ALI SAQI from institute of communication studies, University of the Punjab

Presented to : Dr.Prof.Fahad

MahmoodPresented by :

Hafiz Ghulam Ali. roll# 15, 4th semester, M.Sc. morning (2012-2014)

Agenda setting

What Is Agenda Setting ?

Definitions

“Agenda setting is the idea that the news media, by their display of news, come to determine the issues the public thinks about and talks about.” (Donald Kinder and Shanto Lyengar,1984).

“It may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about.” (Bernard Cohen,1963)

*AGENDA SETTING

Examples

Presidential elections of America between Carter and Reagan and the concept of agenda setting theory.

“I make a crime wave”. Evening post, Evening sun & Jake Riis By Lincoln Steffens.

Chappaquiddick incident and Roger Mudd’s interview on TV from Kennedy and reader’s digest story “Chappaquiddick: The Still Unanswered Question”, Kennedy’s decision in 1984,1988.

*AGENDA SETTING*AGENDA SETTING

The Chapel Hill StudyThe first systematic study of the agenda-setting hypothesis was reported in 1972 by McCombs and Shaw (1972).

They studied agenda setting in the presidential campaign of 1968 and hypothesized that the mass media set the agenda for each political campaign, influencing the salience of attitudes toward the political issue.

They did interview side by side by content analysis of mass media.


Precursors Of The HypothesisNorton Long in 1958. ( Long, 1958)

Kurt Lang & Gladys Engel Lang in 1959. (Lang & Lang, 1959)

Bernard Cohen 1963.( Cohen, 1963)


A Change In ThinkingThe agenda setting theory hypothesis came about when researchers became dissatisfied with the limited effects model during the 1950s and 1960s.

“Mass communication ordinarily does not serve as a necessary cause of audience effects, but rather functions among and through a nexus of mediating factors and influencing.” ( Joseph Klapper, 1960)

Behaviorism , cognitive psychology and agenda setting.


Cont.…Behaviorism is the theory, that the study of the human mind should be based on people’s actions and behavior and not on what they say that they think or feel.

Cognitive psychology is the study of how people think.


The Media Agenda And RealityIn 1960, G. Ray Funkhouser was interested to know the relationship between news coverage and public perception of the importance of issues.

He conducted Gallup polls and media (3 big magazines’ articles) content analysis regarding importance of issues.

In the first part of study, he founded a strong correspondence between public ranking of an issue as important and the amount of coverage given to issue by the media.


Cont.…In the 2nd part of the study, he concluded that the media is not giving very true picture of what is going on in reality and the news media are believed by many people to be reliable information sources, but the data presented here indicate that this not necessarily the case.


What Is Public Agenda ?

“The most important public issue as measured by public opinion surveys.”

What Is Media Agenda ?“The pattern of news coverage across major

print and broadcast media as measured by the prominence and length of stories.”


The Charlotte StudyThere was no causal order between public agenda and media agenda in agenda setting hypothesis of McCombs and Shaw in Chapel Hill Study.

In 1972, they conducted a panel design interview to find causal direction of agenda setting in Charlotte.

They conducted periodically content analysis and interviews.

They concluded that the media do have a causal effect in shaping the public’s agenda, rather than vice versa.


Experimental EvidenceIn 1982, Researcher Shanto Lyengar and his colleagues(Lyengar, Peters & Kinder) conducted several experiments to investigate the effects of agenda setting.

The first experiment was about the mediated defense stories.

The second experiment was about the selective exposure about the issues.

In 1988, Wanta conducted a similar experiment testing agenda setting and investigate the effects of the size of photographs accompanying a story on the newspapers.


Priming

“Priming is the process in which the media attend to some issues and not others to evaluate some

phenomenon for people.”(Lyengar)

Example : The example of Carter’s performance and the

media priming on areas of defense, pollution and inflation.

Types of priming :1. In favor

2. Against


Agenda Setting In TelevisionIn 1990, Brosius & Kepplinger suggested that television coverage is likely to shape public awareness of a problem when the coverage is intensive ( more than 30 items per month) and increased suddenly.

They studied weekly surveys of public awareness of 16 issues and conducted a content analysis of main German Television news shows of whole year of 1986 in which they looked for the same issues.

TV coverage and problem awareness influence each other.


Presidential Agendas And Agenda Setting

In 1980, McCombs, Eyal, Gilberg and Nicholas conducted a study of President Carter’s second State if the Union address to investigate the possible influence of the Sate of the Union address on the media.

In 1982, In order to understand this surprising outcome better, McCombs, Gilberg and Eyal attempted to replicate the study with Richard Nixon’s 1970 State of the union address.


Cont.…The different outcome of these two studies of presidential State of the Union addresses suggests that situational factors need to be taken into account when trying to understand agenda settings.


“The Day After”In 1983, ABC television network presented the fictional (drama) program “The Day After”. The drama gave a realistic depiction of a nuclear missile attack in the United States and its aftermath.

M. Mark Miller and Jan P. Quarles conducted a before and after study of the effects of this program on public opinion in 1984.

They categorize the participants into three categories prebroadcast, nonviewers and viewers.


Cont.…They concluded that the effects of the program appear to have been not on attitudes but perceptions of the importance of issues. The study also extends the application of agenda setting from news presentations to dramatic or fictional television programs as well.


The Obtrusiveness Of IssuesObtrusive Issue :

The issues that the public experiences directly, like unemployment, peace conditions etc, are known as obtrusive issues.

Unobtrusive Issue:The issues that public may not experience directly, like pollution, the energy crises etc, known as unobtrusive issue.


Cont.…“Agenda setting may take place for unobtrusive issues but not for obtrusive issues and suggest that the obtrusiveness of issues is an important concept that should be added to the agenda setting hypothesis.” (Harold Gene Zucker, 1978)


Bias By AgendaThe issues which are done played up by the media being ones that reflect favorably or unfavorably on a particular ideology.

For example, Western media do not say much bad things against Islam rather it covers such as stories, documentaries and interviews by which Islam looks like bad and anti-Islam powers look decent, nice and good.


The Question Of Time Lag“A period ranging from two months to six months seemed to be necessary for an item to move from the media agenda to the public agenda.” ( Gerald Stone & Maxwell McCombs)

Winter and Eyal found that the strongest correlations between the media agenda and the public agenda on the civil rights issue in America were for a four to six week span. They call this period “optimal effect span”.

Shoemaker, Wanta and Leggett revealed two time of period as time lag for agenda setting: 1st,one to two months while 2nd time of period is four to five months.


Cont.…The findings concerning time span also tell us something about how agenda setting works and also tell that agenda setting does not take place overnight, but it does not take years , either.


Steps Of Agenda BuildingThe steps of agenda building were stated by Lang & Lang in 1983.

1.Highlight & Standout =The press

highlights some issues, events or activities and make them stand out.

2.Amount of news coverage =Different kinds

of issues require different kinds and amounts of news coverage to gain attention.


Cont…3. Framing = The events and activities in the focus of attention must be “framed”, or given a field of meanings within which they can be understood easily.

4. Language = The language used by the media can affect perception of the importance of an issue.

5. Background of Issues =The media link the activities or events that have

become the focus of attention to people whose location on the political landscape is easily recognized. People need to have a basis for taking sides on an issue.


Cont.…6. Credible opinions =

Agenda building is accelerated when well-known and credible individuals begin to speak out on an issue. And people like to listen or read to those credible persons.


The Need For Orientation“When agenda setting might not take place to the same extent and in the same way for all individuals.”( McCombs & Weaver)

Need for orientation is based on two factors, the relevance of the information ( to the individual ) and the degree of uncertainty concerning the subject of the message.

The greater the relevance of the information and the greater the uncertainty concerning the subject, the greater need for orientation.


Who Sets The Media AgendaIn 1973, Funkhouser suggested that following five factors set the media agenda.

i. Adaptation of the media to a stream of events. As the same pattern of events persists, it may be perceived as “just more of the same”.

ii. Over reporting of significant but unusual events.

iii.Selective reporting of the newsworthy aspects of otherwise non news worthy situation.


Cont.…iv.Pseudo events, or the manufacturing of

newsworthy events. Protest marches, demonstrations, sit-ins and publicity stunts are examples of pseudo events that might help to move issues onto the press agenda.

v. Event summaries, or situations that portray non newsworthy events in a news way.


Intermedia Agenda SettingThis idea was presented by Danielian & Reese in 1989.

The idea that “ elite media” has an influence in agenda setting for other media groups or small media groups.

The example of this in Pakistan is the Geo & Jang group of newspapers.


Influences on media contentThere are five major categories of influences on media content.

Influences from individual media workers. Among these influences are communication workers’ characteristics, personal and professional backgrounds, personal attitudes, and professional roles.

Influences of media routines. What gets into the mass media is influenced by the day-to-day practice of communicators, including deadlines and other time constraints, space requirements in a publication, the inverted pyramid structure for writing a news story, news values, the standard of objectivity and the reliance of reporters in official sources.


Cont.…Organizational influences on content. Media organizations have goals, with making money one of he most widely shared. These goals of the media organization can have an impact on content in numerous ways.

Influences on content from outside of media organizations. These influences include interest groups lobbying for or against certain kinds of content, people creating pseudo-events in order to get media coverage and government attention, which regulates content directly through libel and obscenity laws.


Cont.…The influence of ideology. Ideology represents a society-level phenomenon. Fundamental to ideology in the United States is “ a belief in the value of the capitalist economic system, private ownership, pursuit of profit by self-interested entrepreneurs, and free markets”(Shoemaker & Reese, 1991).This all encompassing ideology probably influences the content of the mass media in many ways.


How Does Agenda Setting Work?In 1987, Manheim proposed that agenda

setting involves the interaction of three agendas :

I. The media agenda

II.The public agenda

III.The policy agenda


Cont.…Each of these is conceptualized as involving three important dimensions.

The Media AgendaThe media agenda has also three dimensions:

1. Visibility e.g. the amount and prominence of coverage given an issue

2. Audience Salience e.g. the relevance of news content to audience needs

3. Valence e.g. the favorable or unfavorable coverage given to an issue


Cont.…The Public Agenda

The public agenda has three dimensions too :

I. Familiarity e.g. The degree of public awareness to a given issue

II. Personal Salience e.g. Interest or perceived relevance to one’s self

III.Favorability e.g. The favorable or unfavorable judgment on the topic


Cont.…The Policy Agenda

The policy agenda has also three dimensions :

1)Support e.g. Action more or less favorable to a given issue position

2)Likelihood of action e.g. Probability that a government body will act on that specific attention given issue

3)Freedom of action e.g. Range of possible government actions


ConclusionMuch of the researcher on agenda setting suggests that the press is not a mirror, reflecting the realities of society as they are, As Lippmann suggested many years ago, it is more like a searchlight and where the searchlight is shining can be affected by groups with special interest in an issue, by pseudo-events created to get attention, and by certain habits and rituals of journalists.


Documents

Agenda setting :presented by H.GHULAM ALI SAQI from institute of communication studies, University of the Punjab