How the Media Constructs Reality

An individual’s conception of reality is socially constructed through a process of communication using shared language.

Reality exists, but the way we come to know it, talk about it, understand it, is mediated through social life.

The media play a large role in constructing or mediating the social world as we understand it. Within this process, what is journalism’s role in constructing public opinion, what agenda do they have with which they inform the public?

“Agenda setting is the process of the mass media presenting certain issues frequently and prominently with the result that large segments of the public come to perceive those issues as more important than others. Simply put, the more coverage an issue receives, the more important it is to people.” (Coleman, McCombs, Shaw, Weaver, 2008)

Whose agenda? The four players.

The Four Players.
This may not be appropriate, but the only other picture I could find had nazis, so don't complain.

I was taught there were three agendas: the public, the media and the policy makers (generally the government). Although this is in my Politics and the Media course, so it would make sense to only discuss agenda setting in terms of the key players I guess?

According to Bruce, the four agendas are

1. Public Agenda – the set of topics that members of the public perceive as important

2. Policy Agenda – issues that decision makers think are salient

3. Corporate Agenda – issues that big business and corporations consider important

4. Media Agenda – issues discussed in the media

Note that these four agendas are all interrelated. And they all affect each other, it’s not a case of the one effects the other, effects the other, etc.

The Two Assumptions of This Theory

1. That the media do not merely reflect and report reality, they filter and shape it

2. Media concentration on a few issues and subjects leads the public to perceive those issues as more important than other issues.

A Short History of Agenda Setting

There were theories developed before the concept of ‘agenda setting’, which Bruce discusses, such as the ‘Hypodermic Needle’ – mass media ‘injects’ direct influence into the audience, which was eventually discredited, because it assumed too much agency upon the media. But I’m going to focus on the development of agenda setting as an established theory. Also I’ve written about this previously so this is a copy/paste kthnksbye

The concept of ‘agenda setting’ was first established in the early 20^th Century, by Walter Lippmann. In his book, Lippmann argued that “mass media are the principal connection between events in the world and the images of these events in the citizens' minds”. Basically, the media sets the public agenda – what it displays as important, the public comes to think of as important.

From this early beginning, the concept of agenda setting – through the media, for the public - grew, until the 70’s, where it was ‘properly’ formalised in papers published by McCombs and Shaw. McCombs himself was not only influenced by Lippmann, but also by Bernard Cohen, who in the 60’s stated that “the press 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”. This encouraged McCombs to collaborate with Shaw in writing The Emergence of American Political Issues: The Agenda-setting Function of the Press. This work achieved much acclaim and helped spark an interest in the agenda setting abilities of the media amongst their peers.

Nearly ten years later, in 1988, Rogers and Dearing theorised that agenda setting is a process with three elements. “News media identify and give prominence to important issues, constructing a 'media agenda'.   News coverage and priorities influence the way the public thinks. In turn the ''public agenda' influences the priorities and thinking of policymakers or the 'policy agenda'”.

Layers and layers of theory

mmmm, layers...

- First Level Agenda Setting Theory: Framing

At this level the media suggests what the public should focus on through coverage, ie: it’s about what they show

- Second Level Agenda Setting Theory: Priming

It’s about how they present the issue or topic, affecting how people think about

Note: Major media players can set the agenda within the industry (affecting what other stations portray as newsworthy)

Why Set the Agenda

Bruce says it’s because they can.

However I think that assumes insidious behavior on the part of the media, and I have a couple thoughts on the issue I’d like to ramble through, if you’ll bear with me…

Firstly, you need to remember that (except in exceptional cases like Fox News) a lot of the selection of news by editors, etc, is subconscious. It may be because of their unacknowledged biases towards certain situations or people, or it may be because their set of news values is stuck in the 1980’s, but not all agenda setting is intentional.

Also, as I’ve already touched on, the media covers the same stories. Even if a station doesn’t like a certain story, if every other station in the district is covering it they won’t want to be left out. Thus, they help set the agenda, even if they don’t want to.

Thirdly, in its current incarnation, the media’s purpose is to present news. To do this, they have to decide from the outset exactly what is news worthy. Again, they are creating a media agenda, but not necessarily for the nefarious purposes that such a phrase conjures up.

McCombs said it much more eloquently in 2004 when he stated

“Agenda setting is not always the diabolical plan by journalists to control the minds of the public, but ‘an inadvertent by-product of the necessity to focus’ the news”.

Keeping it in the family

This family, to be precise.

1. Media Gatekeeping

- How individuals control the flow of messages through a communication channel

- What the media chooses to reveal to the public: an issue’s exposure

2. Media Advocacy

- The purposive promotion of a message through the media

3. Agenda Cutting

- Most events and issues aren’t represented in the media

- The example Bruce uses is that Justin Bieber’s new haircut garnered more media attention and scrutiny than people dying of AIDS do

- Because AIDS isn’t represented, it’s cared about less, meaning the media won’t represent it as much, creating a vicious cycle

4. Agenda Surfing

- The media follows ‘the crowd’ and trends

- The media ‘surfs’ (hence the hilarious name) the wave of topic originally mention in the opinion-leading media

- This is an example of the public influencing the media

5. The Diffusion of News

- The process through which an important event is communicated to the public

6. Portrayal of an Issue

- Framing the issue – how you talk about the issue, what aspect of the issue you cover

- The way an issue is portrayed will influence how it is perceived by the public

7. Media Dependence

- The more dependent a person is on the media for information, the more susceptible that person is to media agenda setting

- Media includes Facebook and Twitter. How often do you need to check Facebook?

Strengths of this theory

Presented without comment.

- It has explanatory power because it explains why most people prioritise the same issues as important

- It has predictive power because it predicts that if people are exposed to the same media, they will feel the same issues are important

- It has organising power because it helps organise existing knowledge of media effects

- It can be proven false. If people aren’t exposed to the same media, they won’t feel the same issues are important

- Its meta-theoretical assumptions are balanced on the scientific side

- It lays groundwork for further research

Weaknesses of this theory

- Media users may not be as ideal as the theory assumes. People may not be well-informed, deeply engaged in public affairs, thoughtful and sceptical. Instead, they pay casual and intermittent attention to public affairs, often ignorant of the details

- For people who have already made up their minds, the effect of media agenda setting is weakened

- News cannot create problems, they can merely altar awareness, priorities and salience. Although in my opinion they can conceal them: how many people know about what pharmaceutical giant Novartis is doing regarding the challenging of patent laws in India that could shorten millions of people’s lives, as it means they won’t be able to buy life-saving medicine? Because the media hasn’t covered it.

I will stop now, as this post is long enough. Thank you and good night!