Lecture 34 - Setting The Global News Agenda

Setting the Global News
Agenda
Lecture # 34
AGENDA SETTING THEORY
BY:
Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw in the late 1960s
Theory……
• Agenda setting theory is basically a theory of strong media effects
which suggests that with the passage of time the media agenda
becomes the public agenda.
• The news media tell us which issues are important and which ones
are not.
• We have never seen the war situations of Afghanistan , Iraq , Palestine

and Kashmir with our own eyes.
……………..
• Media organizations do not just passively broadcast information or
convey exactly the incidents of an event.
• Our pictures of the world are shaped and refined in the way
journalists frame their news stories.
• This function of media is called the agenda-setting function of media

(McCombs 2002)
Cont.…….
• McCombs and Shaw argued that the

“Mass media have the ability to transfer the salience of items
on their news agendas to the public agenda.”
• As they put it :“We judge as important what the media judge as

important.”
• This idea was not entirely new and can be traced back to the work of
the Walter Lipman who claimed that the media act as mediators
between “the world outside and the pictures in our head”
Bernard Cohen ……..
• Political scientist Bernard Cohen observed
“The press may not be successful much of the time in telling

people what to think,
But
It is stunningly successful in telling them what to think about.”
SELECTIVITY IN MEDIA
• The media merely reinforced or amplified existing beliefs
• The material presented by the media organizations is selective.
• That selectivity is a result of its limited capacity to provide total

surveillance.
…………continue
• paying attention to some issues and neglecting and ignoring some

others, the mass media will have an effect on public opinion
• People will be inclined to know about those issues and things, which
are highlighted by the mass media
Qualities and powers of agenda setting theory
According to Chaffee & Berger's (1997) agenda-setting is a good
theory for a number of reasons:
• Theory has an explanatory power; it explains why people prioritize

certain issues.
• Predictive power; it predicts the priorities of the media audience

according to the news media content.
• Theory is economical because it is easy to understand.
• Theoretical assumptions are balanced and unbiased.
• Theory provides new areas for further research
• The theory of agenda setting has an organizing power because it helps

to organize existing knowledge of media effects on society.
LEVELS OF MEASURING AGENDA-SETTING
EFFECTS
• Intrapersonal or self public agenda; asking people what they talk

about with family and friends
• Interpersonal public agenda; when people talk about certain issues

with their family members and friends.
• Community public agenda; what others in the society regard as the

most important issues.
• First-level agenda setting: media coverage influences what we think
about
• Second-level agenda setting: media coverage influences how we

think.
WHO SETS THE MEDIA AGENDA?
A number of factors inside and outside media organizations play an
important role in setting the media agenda by influencing the media
content:
• The personal attitudes and orientations of media workers,

• professional routines,
• commercial policies,
• ownership patterns,
• economic policies,
• advertisers,
• Governments
• Public relations professionals
• Interest aggregations
PASSIVE AND ACTIVE ROLES OF
MEDIA
• The neutral journalist theory and the null effects model support the
passive role of media.
• The null effects model presented by Young (1981) states that mass
media provide a good representation of reality with little or no
changing
Active role
• The research of modern age (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996) doesn't
accept the approach of the passive role of mass media.
• Modern researchers believe that media content is necessarily

manipulated when events are relocated and reproduced into news.
• So the modern research believes in the active role of media and takes
media as the active part of the society.
THEORETICAL APPROACHES
Mass media content is influenced by:
• media workers' socialization and attitudes.

• media routines; the ways in which media workers and their
organizations perform their work.
• ideology of those who are in power in the society.
• other social institutions and forces; economic and cultural factors and
audience members determine content.
• Who is most likely to be affected by the agenda-setting function of
the media ?
• McCombs and Shaw have argued that the people who have
willingness to let the media shape their thinking have :
A high need for orientation or index of curiosity stemming
from high relevance and uncertainty
Framing
• By the mid-1990s, agenda-setting theory evolved and scholars began

to argue that the media do influence the way we think as a result of a
specific process known as framing.
What is framing ?
• According to James Tankard, a media frame is
“ The central organizing idea for news content that supplies a

context and suggests what the issue is through a use of selection,
emphasis, exclusion and elaboration.”
Agenda setting and international news
• The more negative coverage a nation received, the more likely

respondents were to think negatively about the nation,
• Positive coverage of a nation had no influence on public perceptions.

Globalization…..
• Following the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, the world
entered an era of global economics that would make international
events more salient than ever before.
• In this new era of globalization, knowledge about events from around

the world became a necessity
……………….
• Globalization has also created new threats.
• The emergence of the Al-Qaida terror organization in countries as

Sudan, Afghanistan, the Philippines, and Yemen demonstrated to
policy makers, the mass media, and the public the need for a more
global perspective in coverage of international news.
Foreign News on the Network Agenda.
• Most powerful core nations consistently receive coverage from U.S.

news media, small peripheral nations remain largely uncovered
• Research on international news coverage by U.S. network television

news programs reveals lack of balance in the coverage of the world's
different geographic regions
……..CONT…..
• A ten-year analysis of foreign news coverage on network television
news indicated that the ABC, CBS, and NBC networks covered the
world in an unbalanced manner.
• International news coverage has a direct influence on U.S. public

opinion.
• Study by Salwen and Matera found that international news coverage

does have an agenda-setting effect
• Bennett notes that the nature of international news coverage by news
media is often consistent with the foreign policy of the nation
Agenda Setting
• Media coverage of international news play an important agenda-
setting function
• Public learns the relative importance of issues from the amount of

coverage given to the issues in the news media
• There is a clear relationship between media coverage of nations and

how individuals viewed those nations.
• The news media can show the public both how vitally important
countries are to the United States and how negatively the countries
should he viewed.
GLOBAL NEWS AGENDA
AND
THE AGENDA-SETTERS
Dan Berkowitz (1992, p. 81) argues that:
• “news sources exert a stronger influence over the news agenda than
do journalists.”
• He further identifies policymakers as a particular group that is able to

influence the agenda,”
• However, policymakers and news sources are not the only ones who
influence the mainstream media’s news agenda.
• It has been suggested that the news agenda can also be affected by
“inter-media agenda setting”

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Setting the Global News

• We have never seen the war situations of Afghanistan , Iraq , Palestine

• This function of media is called the agenda-setting function of media

• McCombs and Shaw argued that the

• As they put it :“We judge as important what the media judge as

“The press may not be successful much of the time in telling

• The media merely reinforced or amplified existing beliefs

• The material presented by the media organizations is selective.

• That selectivity is a result of its limited capacity to provide total

• paying attention to some issues and neglecting and ignoring some

• Theory has an explanatory power; it explains why people prioritize

• Predictive power; it predicts the priorities of the media audience

• Theoretical assumptions are balanced and unbiased.

• Theory provides new areas for further research

• The theory of agenda setting has an organizing power because it helps

• Intrapersonal or self public agenda; asking people what they talk

• Interpersonal public agenda; when people talk about certain issues

• Community public agenda; what others in the society regard as the

• Second-level agenda setting: media coverage influences how we

• The personal attitudes and orientations of media workers,

• Modern researchers believe that media content is necessarily

• media workers' socialization and attitudes.

• By the mid-1990s, agenda-setting theory evolved and scholars began

• According to James Tankard, a media frame is

“ The central organizing idea for news content that supplies a

• The more negative coverage a nation received, the more likely

• Positive coverage of a nation had no influence on public perceptions.

• In this new era of globalization, knowledge about events from around

• Globalization has also created new threats.

• The emergence of the Al-Qaida terror organization in countries as

• Most powerful core nations consistently receive coverage from U.S.

• Research on international news coverage by U.S. network television

• International news coverage has a direct influence on U.S. public

• Study by Salwen and Matera found that international news coverage

• Public learns the relative importance of issues from the amount of

• There is a clear relationship between media coverage of nations and

• He further identifies policymakers as a particular group that is able to

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