SCCT1083:

MEDIA THEORY
[GROUP A]
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 Agenda Setting Theory

Introduction

Agenda Setting Theory is the theory that states the media selectively chooses what the public
views or focus is on the events of reality can be directly viewed by the public or selectively
chosen by the media.In other word this theory is the influence of media affects the
presentation of report in news that affects the public mind.Beside that,agenda setting theory
asserts that the media can set the agenda for public opinion by simply privilege in certain
stories or issues.

Level of agenda setting theory

First level : Enacts the common subject that are most important.

Second level : Decided what part of subject is imporatnt

The founder and the history about this theory

The Agenda Setting Theory was first introduced by Dr.Maxwell McCombs and Dr.Donald
Shaw in 1972.Dr.McCombs and Dr.Shaw research studied about the 1968 presidential
election spesifically they were looking for two things.The two things is awareness and
information.They also observed message that the mass media put out about certain voting
issues then they study how the community reacted to them.Unsprisingly they found that the
more talked about issues that the one voters thought were more important.Agenda setting
theory has two core assumptions first is (message molding).It means that the mass media has
the ability to mold their message to elicit a certain reaction from their audience and this can
even be the point where their messages does not reflect reality.Second is manipulating
importance which means that mass media simply reporting about something more frequently
can lead us to believe that certain stories or issues are more important than others.They also
found that the media appear to have exerted a considerable impact on voters judgments of
what they considered the major issues of the campaign.
The perspective of Agenda setting theory

Theory is an explanation which is systematic to guide us understand about phenomena.There

are four perspective toward a theory and it is post-positivist,interpretive,critical and
normative.These all perspective has a lot of difference for example post-positivist is about
reality and researcher use observation as a method of obtaining information then they can
predict what will happen in future.Interpretive theory or hermeunitic theory perspective just
observe the phenomena and they cannot predict what will happen in future.Then critical
perspective is they just to correct what is wrong about the existing phenomena.Normative
perspective concerned with what the media ought to be doing in society rather than what they
actually do.

In my opinion,agenda setting theory is in post-positivist perspective because agenda setting

theory is all about reality and researcher can predict what will happen.Researcher also can
use precise method and can support a research with statistical and objective data.For
example,there are media item and object such as specific events,political candidates or public
issues like unemployment or terrorism.For each object there is also an agenda of attributes
because when the media and public think about the phenomena some attributes are
emphasized.About the political figure.Political figure is the epitome of political power this is
because the media can determine the way politicians understood by the public then the
outcomes of election and cultural responses subject to that agenda.In simple term,we see the
world through our media especially in Asia,we rarely of ever see war firsthand or get to meet
a prime ministerial candidates and everything we know about the world is really predicated
on how objects unmediated to us.These shown that agenda setting theory is in the post-
positivist perspective because the theory is all about reality and needed to collect facts. .

The main idea and the principles of the theory

 This model developed by James Dearing in 1988 it is become the most prevalent model to
discuss agenda setting theory as below

Personal experience and interpersonal

communication

Gatekeeper and
influential Media Agenda Public Agenda Policy Agenda

media

Real world indicators of the importance of an

agenda, issues or event

According to the diagram media agenda is the message the media wants to get across
can be affected by policies or even politician.The public agenda here is the ideas that the
public holds are affected by the media and in a phenomenon known as agenda
building.Policies are affected both by the media and and by the public agenda but there is
more to the model .These be important that our personal eperiences affect our opinion of
things but with this it is important to note that our personal experiences are not the only
influences doen bottom we also see that reality is an influencer and that can be scary to know
that when we form opinions were influence by things that we have not experienced and
things that are not even based in reality and all this start with gatekeeper and influential
media who without tem we might not even know an issues exists.

Interpersonal communication and personal experience influence the public as

well,particularly when it comes to issues that are already familiar to people.
Media Agenda forces events and issues to the forefront of media coverage and influence the
public agenda by giving unfamiliar issues salience and personal consideration through
repetition and provinence (McCombs,2004)

Policy agenda are known to be more influential on attitudes and behavior when uncertainty
exists.