Agenda Setting Theory

The media is highly capable of controlling the existence and portrayal of any particular

person, group, trend, crisis, or success story. Unfortunately, the public is naïve to the information

they are receiving from the media, believing everything they are told to be true, rather than

criticizing or demanding proof of the information the media provides. This is an all too familiar

concept described as the Agenda Setting Theory. More specifically, the Agenda Setting Theory

claims that the media tells us what to think about and how to think about it. The agenda setting

theory is a sequence of processes that begins with agenda setting, in which the media transfers

the salience of items on their news agenda to our (the public) agenda. Secondly, a process of

framing occurs. During the process of framing, the media transfers the salience of selected

attributes to prominence amongst the pictures in our head. The Agenda Setting Theory probably

has more of a negative effect on the public than anything. Those who are subject to some form of

influence, affected emotionally, or just simply impressionable beings have a high tendency to

feel the need to relate to the stories being told and nurture further curiosity. The need to relate to

the stories being told usually comes from an original uncertainty that should definitely be there,

but that is not carried out to the end in order to demand proofs from the stories being told, as

stated earlier. The media will then organize a central idea for news content that provides a

foundation and proposes what exactly the issue is through the use of selective information

processing, excluding rather important details that can change the whole context of a story, or

simply elaborating on minor details to the story that do not convey the entire truth. The issues of

sensationalism and the high levels of inaccuracies in news stories are probably affecting the

public more negatively than agenda setting itself. The media is highly irresponsible with granted

freedom of expression rights. Mainly in part to media sources being in constant competition with

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each other to cover the top stories, often times leads to a sensationalized story that describes an

“exciting” story rather than telling an “important” one. Due to such rigorous competition

amongst media outlets, issues that are more prone to affect our lives directly fail to be reported,

although these are the facts that we should and need to know. It would be assumed that the media

would attempt to better report stories with truth rather than sensationalized details, and report

more human interest stories rather than politics. It would also be assumed that the public would

second guess the information they are being provided, and public confidence in the sources of

information that currently exist would decrease.

Examples of agenda setting are usually emphasized in the like of news, but are capable of

being applied to media of all sorts. One possible example of agenda setting could be the Navy

Yard shooting and the high speed chase to catch the proposed psychotic middle aged woman in

Washington, DC. Now to most of the public these stories could have seemed to be mere

tragedies that just happen from time to time and life goes on. Yet, to a person who demands

proofs from the information they are provided, they have every right to assume that these were

only tragedies planned to distract the public from the government shutdown that was happening

during the same time. This is only hypothetical. Furthermore, the public is being framed through

a process of pictures being altered in the minds of people, and allowing the media to construct a

particular agenda along with details and other attributes that are cohesive with the original

picture they altered and imposed onto the public. It is clear that the Agenda Setting Theory tells

us what to think about and what to think about it, but it should not go overlooked that the media

is capable of even imposing suggestions on what to do about it. In regards to relating the Agenda

Setting Theory to something more relevant to society as a whole, athletes are probably affected

the most by the Agenda Setting Theory. Since professional athletes have such a significant

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influence on society, their words, actions, and behavior as a whole tend to be frequently

spotlighted. These athletes are assumed to be role models in the public eye, expected to perform

acts that display a sense of moral and ethical values. Therefore, athletes have a social

responsibility to their communities and the public in general, in which society and the media

hold these athletes to an increasingly higher standard than most. In reaffirming the power of the

press, the media is capable of giving the public any portrayal of athletes they want them to

believe. The media can provide the public with an impression that athletes live a rather lavish

life, or in contrast that athletes are people who lack integrity and who use their money and status

irresponsibly. Simultaneously, the media can make an athlete out to be a dignified hero, or in

contrast a downright scumbag of the earth. No matter the mere reality of the topic at hand, the

media will say what they want to say how they want to say it with no remorse at all.

On one hand, the media plays a substantial role in creating the ideal image when it comes

to professional athletes. There are various stigmas adopted by the media that characterize a

“good athlete”, per say. This entail gives the public an impression that athletes live a both

preferred and exclusive life. In result, many young children in America work diligently to

acquire the skills and resources deemed necessary to in fact become a professional athlete.

Children see the glamour of it all and are motivated to become athletes to achieve such celebrity

status. Even the parents of children tend to foster this desire encouraging their children in many

facets of childhood to do particular things in order to achieve a specific outcome. For example,

parents will sign their children up for little league sports, sometimes several at a time in order for

them to be good at more than one sport and have the option to choose which one they would like

to pursue later on in life. In addition, the parents believe that the earlier the child begins to play

sports the better they will be in the long run. It is then assumed that if the child excels in a sport

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they will be more likely to receive scholarships to attend colleges or universities. Moreover, if

the youth excels even on the college level there is the chance they will move forward to the

ultimate goal of professional sports. The actual odds of becoming a professional athlete overall

are slim to none, but the mere possibility has parents and children trying their luck and putting all

their eggs in one basket. This goes back to the media giving parents and children that hope

through agenda setting. The media rarely acknowledges the difficulty athletes face when it

comes to living up to very high standards and maintaining a particular lifestyle. However, the

media also contributes to the problem by emphasizing this ideal over other factors related to the

athlete. The majority of focus is on the athlete's physique and performance (Moses 48). When in

reality, athletes have a strong influence on the public in many other aspects of life. There are

some very problematic aspects of professional sports and athletes that are relatively important

such as drug abuse. According to Griffin, “McCombs and Shaw believe that the hypothesized

agenda setting function of the media causes the correlation between the media and public

ordering of priorities” (Griffin, 2012).

Apart from the media influencing our thoughts, the media’s agenda also has behavioral

effects on the public. “Nowhere is the behavioral effect of the media agenda more apparent than

in the business of professional sports” (Griffin, 2012). The effects theory, pertaining to the social

effect of the media, examines the impact of media on the audience. This particular theory

presumes that the audience has little if any power to resist the messages delivered by the media –

particularly the larger media outlets. The process of framing in agenda setting is inevitable.

Additionally, the effects theory describes the audience as consumers of the media products, who

are heavily influenced by the material presented. The more defined the viewership, the easier for

the media to classify what is necessary to satisfy the needs and wants of the specified audience.

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“By the late 1950s, Smith revolutionized marketing and advertising theory by suggesting that

promotional efforts should focus on the consumer as a part of a smaller, more homogenous

market segment with distinctive needs and desires” (Smith). “Segmentation-driven, targeted

advertising assumed its place as the more efficient method of reaching audiences, who became

products in their own right as the media brokered them to advertisers” (Hollerbach, 599). The

impact of the media is both intended and unintended. As far as the intentional impact, ethical

reflections could assume that the media’s objective is to transform the community rather than

providing objective information. However, if theories such as the effect theory have any true

basis, it means that the media has an ethical obligation to address this effect by reporting in a

responsible way.

The effect theory has a stable groundwork when looking at psychological theories, such

as behaviorism. Conditioning is a form of learning that occurs through repetition. Two forms of

conditioning exist, operant and classical. The traditional theory of learning through conditioning,

known as classical conditioning, occurs when a response becomes paired with a neutral stimulus.

When the neutral stimulus is combined with a particular response repeatedly it causes the

response to occur naturally upon presentation of the stimulus. This was observed in dogs that

salivated to the sound of a tuning fork or bell in Ivan Pavlov's early studies on digestion.

Classical conditioning was discovered by accident, but it has significant implications on

behavioral training (Trick, Hogarth, and Duka 758).

Studies have found that the media is most influential when it invokes an emotional

response or tells a kind of story in the narrative sense. Professional athletes are heavily profiled

in the media because the stories of these players are easily transferable to a narrative that may

invoke an emotional response and maintain the attention of the media’s audience. The reaction to

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these forms of media is known as transportation. When transportation occurs, the person

experiencing the media in either print or visual form, becomes immersed in the experience.

Though the activity of reading or viewing the media source requires concentration, it can feel

effortless to the person doing it (Green, Kass, Carrey, Herzig, Feeney, and Sabini, 514). “Agenda

setting theory reminds us that news is stories that require interpretation” (Griffin, 2012).

When the media repeatedly covers topics that promote transportation in the audience the

effect is quite similar to conditioning. A person may experience an emotional reaction after

reading about an athlete or viewing media pertaining to the athlete. Feelings such as admiration,

envy, desire, pride, and others are quickly associated with the image of the professional athlete.

The audience may not realize the impact the media is having on them as they are more likely to

focus on the emotional reaction they have, regardless of the degree; however, these correlations

are made inside of a person's mind (Green, Kass, Carrey, Herzig, Feeney, and Sabini, 519). For

example, the Lebron James Samsung commercial where he presents his family to the world

while his sons display their basketball talent and his wife captures the moment with the Samsung

phone. That particular commercial probably evoked emotions of admiration, sensitivity, and

tenderness. Without even realizing, the audience just adopted a new found respect and fondness

for Lebron James which will carry on to the upcoming basketball season. In contrast, the

Michael Vick situation where he was found guilty of fighting dogs may have evoked emotions of

anger and disgust in dog lovers, which in result could have made him lose a good amount of fan

base. Although it may not seem purposely done, the media knew what emotions the situations

would evoke, and they succeeded. In addition, the media tends to associate professional sports

with success. Inspirational stories are told about how some people work diligently to reach the

point of playing for a professional team. Emotions are linked with stories about professional

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athletes who are injured, and pronounced to never play sports again, but going against all odds,

miracles happen and they return to the field or court again. The difficulty of becoming a

professional athlete, the money associated with the salary of professional athletes, and the

lifestyle people perceive these individuals as living is very captivating.

The effect of the media is not always bad. In fact, the effect can be very positive and the

media, when used responsibility, can act as a catalyst for people to accomplish great things. The

foundation of media is to collect and disseminate information to large audiences. An informed

audience is in a better position to make decisions, provided the audience receives a balanced

assessment of the facts and recognizes fallacies in arguments made by politicians, leaders,

reporters, and other sources of information. Media criticism must be willing to reestablish the

ideal of moral right and wrong. “Journalists have a social responsibility to promote the

sacredness of life” (Griffin, 2012).

It is important to note that the average person trusts the media to do all of the above.

Younger people are especially susceptible to the messages the media sends and to the effect the

information has because they lack experience when it comes to deconstructing problematic

arguments. Some people, including young people, fail to engage in critical thinking on a constant

basis. Instead of digging beneath the surface of what the media presents, these people take it all

at face value.

The question that remains is whether or not the media has an obligation to address this

tendency on the part of people to accept the information at face value. The argument proposed

here is that the media does have a social responsibility to inform the public of all sides of a

situation and to be mindful of the effect the media has on its consumers. Examination of

increased use of substances such as steroids demonstrates that young people have the belief that

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improving their body is a step in the right direction toward becoming competitive as athletes.

The media should use such an influence to promote the right things and bash the wrong ones, so

that young impressionable children will look down on what should be looked down upon.

Analysis of these issues demonstrates the lack of responsibility the media has

shown when it comes to holding professional athletes, trainers, coaches, and others responsible

for not educating the public on these matters properly. Moreover, knowing that the media has

such a dramatic effect on the consumer, the media then has a clear responsibility to think about

matters such as the ideal professional athlete and consider how the media perpetrates the false

images that youth are exposed to every day. The media should focus on teaching lessons of

responsibility so that kids know that the glitz and glamour of celebrity status that is often

associated with professional athletes does not necessarily come with the territory. It is a lifestyle

that has to be maintained, that only a responsible person can handle in order to still hold that

same level of success once they are no longer professional athletes. The media needs to do a

better job of showing the lifestyle of athletes after they are retired. Are they still living lavish or

are they ready to file for bankruptcy? These things are essential to the message the media is

sending. Further research is needed to determine the true impact of professional athletes on

youth, but preliminary examination stresses the importance of raising awareness among children

and teenagers when it comes to sports related issues such as substance abuse, overspecialization,

and the general failure to emphasize academic achievements that would enable the person to go

further in life if a career in sports does not pan out. We don’t have to agree with what the media

wants us to think and how to think about it but regardless, they have ulterior motives of making

us think about it anyway despite mutual perspectives or agreement. Nonetheless, we should

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beware of these influences of the media through the Agenda Setting Theory because whether we

recognize the media’s influences or not, it is affecting our lives one way or another.

Works Cited

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Green, Melanie, Sheryl Kass, Jana Carrey, Benjamin Herzig, Ryan Feeney, & John Sabini.

"Transportation across Media: Repeated Exposure to Print and Film." Media Psychology

11.4 (2008): 512-539.

Griffin, E. (2012). A first look at communication theory. (8th ed.). McGraw Hill. DOI:

afirstlook.com

Hollerbach, Karie L. "The Impact Of Market Segmentation On African American Frequency,

Centrality, And Status In Television Advertising." Journal Of Broadcasting & Electronic

Media 53.4 (2009): 599-614. Academic Search Complete. Web. 2 Apr. 2012.

Smith, W. (1956). Product differentiation and market segmentation as alternative marketing

strategies. In B. Enis and K. Cox (Eds.), Marketing classics (pp. 396-409). Needham,

MA: Allyn and Bacon, Inc.

Trick, Leanne, Lee Hogarth, & Theodora Duka. "Prediction and Uncertainty in Human

Pavlovian to Instrumental Transfer." Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning,

Memory, and Cognition 37.3 (2011), 757-765.

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