Week 10, Post 1: Agenda-Setting Theory

I found the agenda-setting theory in Chapter 28 to be really interesting. According to the agenda-setting hypothesis, "the mass media have the ability to transfer the salience of issues on their news agenda to the public agenda" (359). I watch the news and read the paper a lot. I notice that when they generally all talk about the same issues at the same time. Obviously, right now the focus is on the election. The past few weeks, the economy and stock market have been the top story every day. Thinking back to the OJ Simpson trial, that was the top story of every news channel and the front page of all the papers. McCombs and Shaw were not saying that reporters are purposely influence the public but that they do focus our attention to certain issues. Hence, whatever is important to the public at the moment, is important to the media. While I agree with McCombs and Shaw, part of me does believe that the media has some influence over the public. Sometimes an issue is all hyped up and the public gets really anxious and excited... but it wasn't anything to be worried about. And while the media is supposed to be unbiased and fair, they still influence our thoughts and feelings about what issues are important. When the stock market crash was at the top of the news every day, my parents were really worried. All they saw was extensive coverage and front page news about the stock market plummeting. This influenced their feelings and behavior over those weeks. Now the election is upon us and it is important to the public, therefore it will be important to the media. I'll probably start paying more attention to the "media agenda" and decide for myself how strong their influence is.