COMM Theory: Agenda Setting Theory

Agenda Setting Theory

In choosing and displaying news, the media plays an important part in shaping social and political reality. People learn the importance of issues by what the media covers, and during political campaigns, impact the trajectory of the campaign. How much inf

Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw

Major researchers of AST. With the rise of media and noticing its pervasive nature in the homes of Americans, they wanted to develop an understanding of how much the media affects the public and political landscape by emphasizing certain agendas and omitt

Assumptions

1. The media establish an agenda and so are not simply reflecting reality, but are shaping and filtering reality for the public.
2. The media's concentration on the issues that comprise their agenda influences the public's agenda and those together influe

Surveillance

The process of news people scanning the information that is in the environment and deciding which events deserve attention in their news outlets.

Correlation

The way that media direct our attention to certain issues through communicating them to the public and to the policymakers.

Pack Journalism

The phenomenon of journalists having their agendas influenced by other journalists.

Agenda

A list of the most important issues of the day as decided by an entity, such as the media.

Media Framing

How media depictions of events influence and constrain the way consumers can interpret the events.

Priming

A cognitive process whereby what the media present temporarily, at least, influences what people think about afterwards in processing additional information.

Media Agenda

The priority placed on issues discussed in mediated sources.

Public Agenda

The result of the media agenda interacting with what the public thinks.

Policy Agenda

The result of the public agenda interacting with what policymakers think.

Salience

The degree to which an agenda issue is perceived as important relative to the other issues on the agenda.

Relevance

A factor explaining why people seek guidance from the media agenda. It refers to how personally affected they feel by an issue.

Uncertainty

A factor explaining why people seek guidance from the media agenda. It refers to how much information a person believes they already possess about an issue.

Limitations

Lack of scope, utility, and heurism.