COURSE TITLE: ISSUES IN MASS COMMUNICATION THEORIES

COURSE CODE: CADA 6101

STUDENT NAME: TAH KENNETTE KONSUM (UBA22AP066)

EVALUATION OF THE AGENDA-SETTING AND GATE-KEEPING THEORIES OF

MASS COMMUNICATION

The 'original' four theories of the press/media are: authoritarian theory, libertarian theory, social
responsibility theory, and soviet media theory. Over the years, several theories have evolved
including the agenda-setting and gate-keeping theories. This assignment is set to evaluate the
agenda-setting and gate-keeping theories of mass communication based on six attributes of
theory.

1. EVALUATION OF THE AGENDA-SETTING THEORY OF MASS

COMMUNICATION

A theory is a systematic and logical statement of a general nature.

The logical and general statement is that the media filters and shapes what we see rather than just
reflecting stories to the audience. This logic is with reference to how media’s news coverage
determines which issues becomes the focus of public attention.

Such a systematic and logical statement implies substantial intellectual rigor.

This theory was properly investigated. Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw found in surveying
North Carolina voters during the 1968 U.S. presidential election that what people thought were
the most important issues were what the mass media reported as the most critical.

A theory is at once dynamic and “dated” in the sense that it is usually a step behind reality
in the light of other events taking place while the theory is being formulated.

Research on the theory has been largely inconclusive in establishing a causal relationship
between public prominence and media coverage. In recent years, the mass media’s relationship
with the public has evolved, with social media being used as a way to both inform and spread
news. In addition, the theory doesn’t work for people who have already made up their minds. For
example, someone might believe that his or her elected official was the right choice for office,
despite numerous compelling reports to the contrary presented by the mass media.

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A theory has an ascertainable origin- where and by whom formulated/proposed.

A theory should be backed by quality of the persons or institutions proposing it. Maxwell E.
McCombs and Donald L. Shaw who are both proponents of the agenda-setting theory are
credible professors of the University of Texas at Austin and University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill. They have both contributed a lot to mass media research.

A theory is based on scientific observation coupled with logical reasoning.

There is psychological and scientific merit to the agenda-setting theory. The more a story is
publicized in the mass media, the more it becomes prominently stored in individuals’ memories
when they’re asked to recall it, even if it doesn’t specifically affect them or register as a
prominent issue in their minds.

A theory usually leads to further empirical observation or research.

Since the Chapel Hill study, a great deal of research has been carried out to discover the agenda-
setting influence of the news media. The theory has not been limited to elections, and many
scholars constantly explored the agenda-setting effect in a variety of communication situations.
This explains that agenda-setting has a theoretical value which is able to synthesize social
phenomena and to build new research questions. In 2018, with the worldwide influence of the
internet and social media, where almost everyone can find news they’re looking for instead of
being constrained by just relying on one or two sources, it’s harder to convince others that the
mass media is setting the agenda.

2. EVALUATION OF THE GATE-KEEPING THEORY OF MASS

COMMUNICATION

A theory is a systematic and logical statement of a general nature.

The idea of gatekeeping in fact did not initially concern mass communication. Instead, it
emerged from the study about food. Kurt Lewin was asked by the American National Research
Council to investigate Americans’ food selection process. Lewin therefore investigated families’
food selection process especially how decisions were made in the food selection process from
two main sources: home gardens and purchases. Lewin found that there were specific criteria
used to select or reject food items, and the persons who apply these criteria were identified
as gatekeepers. The gatekeeping theory according to Shoemaker, Vos and Reese (2009) refer to
gatekeeping as “the process of selecting, writing, editing, positioning, scheduling, repeating, and
otherwise massaging information to become news”.

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Such a systematic and logical statement implies substantial intellectual rigor.

Following Lewin’s conception of gatekeeper, in 1949 when newspapers were a dominant mass
media, a journalist Davide White applied the gatekeeping idea to explore the selection process
from the news perspective. White interviewed an editor of a newspaper whom he saw as
responsible for the gatekeeping tasks by selecting and shaping stories before letting them through
to the public. This was also the starting point of other studies of how news stories are screened,
selected, modified, and finally presented to the public (DeFluer, 2017, Heath, R. L., & Bryant, J.,
2000).

A theory is at once dynamic and “dated” in the sense that it is usually a step behind reality
in the light of other events taking place while the theory is being formulated.

There is a claim that, in the digital era, everyone is a gatekeeper. Due to the extensive variety of
accessibilities specifically the high use of social media, it is difficult to distinguish professional
gatekeepers (e.g. journalists, editors) from public opinions (e.g. opinion leaders, social
influencers, internet users).

A theory has an ascertainable origin- where and by whom formulated/proposed.

Gatekeeping as a news process was identified in the literature as early as 1922, though not yet
given a formal theoretical name. Davide White applied the gatekeeping idea to explore the
selection process from the news perspective. White interviewed an editor of a newspaper whom
he saw as responsible for the gatekeeping tasks by selecting and shaping stories before letting
them through to the public. This was also the starting point of other studies of how news stories
are screened, selected, modified, and finally presented to the public (DeFluer, 2017, Heath, R. L.,
& Bryant, J., 2000).

A theory is based on scientific observation coupled with logical reasoning.

In 1950, David Manning White, a journalism professor at Boston University, looked at the
factors an editor takes into consideration when deciding which news will make the paper and
which news will not; intending to examine how a "gate keeper" examines his "gate" within a
channel of mass communication. White contacted an editor, a man in his mid-40s with 25 years
of experience, whom he calls "Mr. Gates." Mr. Gates was the wire editor of a morning
newspaper in a mid-west city of 100,000 that had a circulation of 30,000. During the case study,
Mr. Gates retained all copy that he rejected from the paper for a week. At the end of his shift, he
made notes on why that story was rejected, assuming he could still remember the reason.

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A theory usually leads to further empirical observation or research.

More than fifty years after White's Mr. Gates study, in 2001, Pamela Shoemaker, Martin
Eichholz, Eunyi Kim, and Brenda Wrigley studied the forces in news gatekeeping in relation to
coverage of Congressional bills. More specifically, they were interested in two hypotheses: 1) the
routine gatekeeping force of assessing a bill's newsworthiness will be related to how prominently
a bill is covered, and 2) the individual journalistic forces (education, political ideology, work
experience, ethnicity, gender, voting behavior) will be related to how prominently a bill is
covered. They also predicted that the newsworthiness of a bill would be more important than
journalists' personal characteristics. Surveying both journalists (for their personal characteristics)
and editors (for evaluating newsworthiness), Shoemaker and her colleagues found that only
newsworthiness had a significant effect on the amount of coverage given to a bill, thus their first
hypothesis was supported as well as the idea that newsworthiness would be more important than
personal characteristics.

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