Media Selection Of Issues

The agenda setting phenomenon has been recognized for a long time. Sociologist Robert Park
writing in the 1920s articulated the theory in rejecting the once-popular notion that media tell
people what to think. As Park saw it, the media create awarness of issues more than they
create knowledge or attitudes. Today agenda setting theorists put it this way: The media do
not tell people what to think but what to think about. Agenda setting occurs at several levels.

Creating Awareness

Only if individuals are aware of an issue can they be concered about it. Concern about
parents who kill their children becomes a major issue with media coverage of spectacular
cases. In 1994 Susan Smith a South Carolina woman attracted wide attention with her horrific
report that her sons, ages 3 and 1 had been kidnapped. The story darkened later when the
woman confessed to driving in tense media attention, the nation learned not only the morbid
details of what happened but also became better informed about wide range of parental,
family and legal issues that the coverage brought to the fore.

Perpetuating Issues

Continuing coverage lends importance to an issue. A single story on a bribed senator might
soon be forgotten, but day after day follow ups issue can cool overnight out sight out of mind

Intramedia Agenda Setting

Agenda setting also is phenomenon that affects media people who constantly monitor one
another. Reporters and editors many times are concerned more with how their peers are
handling a story than with what their audience wants. Sometimes the media harp on one
topic, making it seern more important than it really is until it becomes tedious.
Media Agenda Setting for Individuals
Media coverage helps define the things people think about and worry about. This is called
agenda setting. It occurs as the media create awarness of issues through their coverage which
tends importance to those issues. The media don’t set agendas unilaterally but they look to
their audiences in deciding their priorities for coverage.

Media Induced Anxiety

The pervasiveness of the mass media is not necessarily a good thing according to some
theorists who say a plethora of information and access to ideas and entertainment can induce
information anxiety. Another theory is that their reporting is so complete that theres nothing
left to know or do.

Information Anxiety

The New York Times had a landmark day on November 13, 1987. It published its largest
edition ever 12pounds, 1612 pages and million words. How could anyone, even on a quiet
Sunday, manage all that information? One of the problems in contemporary life is the sheer
quantity of information technology allows us as a society to gather and disseminate. Even
relatively slender weekday edition of the New York Times contains more information than
the average person in the 17th century was likely to come across in a lifetime, according to
Richard

Media induced passivity

One effect of the mass media is embodied in the stereotypical couch potato, whose greatest
physical and mental exercise is heading to the refrigerator during commercials. Studies
indicate that the typical American spends four to six hours a day with the mass media, mostly
with television.

Well Informed Futility

The news media take pride in purveying information to help people be active and involved in
pablic matters but ironically the media contribute insidiously to passivity by lulling people
into accepting news reports as the last word on subject. To attract and impres audiences,
reporters use techniques to enchance their credibility coming across as more authoritative
than they really are and making their stories seem comprehensive and complete.