On Agenda Setting: Who Decides on the Top Research List

Agenda-setting Theory, according to my understanding, is trying to describe a path where the mass media shape the public’s agenda—what we see is just what the media want us to see, that is to say, we care about social problems because the media led us there. It surprised me that some scholars were insisting […]

Catch-11 on Twitter for successful politicians

Social media is a special form of mass communication with some features of interpersonal communication. According to Agenda Setting Theory, Twitter, as a social media, exerts significant influence on what users consider to be the major issues. If you want to be a successful politician, you need to learn some new strategies to connect public awareness positively with your policies, views, and image.

1.Twitter frequently, even though there is nothing important to twitter. You are the one that readers should always think about. Use all methods to increase your followers.

2.Use clear and concise tags to post new issues so that your readers can think about and talk about them conveniently.

3.Set new agendas to make readers forget previous detrimental agendas and to remind them of previous beneficial agendas for you.

4.Twitter issues which are more related to your successful experience and to your opponent’s unsuccessful experience.

5.In politics, lies might not become truth, but repeating lies can make readers think about your angle of thinking and doubt about truth.

6.Express your explicit attitude toward public events as existing agendas immediately after it happens. If you don’t express immediately, your opponent’s voice will be heard by your readers.

7.Utilize social hot events as opportunities of setting agendas that connect readers’ personal life with your political assertion.

So disgraceful that a person illegally in our country killed @Colts linebacker Edwin Jackson. This is just one of many such preventable tragedies. We must get the Dems to get tough on the Border, and with illegal immigration, FAST!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 6, 2018

8.Give readers the most available information, the easiest cases, and the clearest causal explanation for agendas.

9.Show a personalized, not a distant image which can persuade readers to talk with you about agendas.

10.Stress “key words” which can help readers remember your agendas. The key words should echo your policy assertion and your personal image.

#AMERICA FIRST!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018

11. Use personalized and clear words for expressing your attitude about agendas because readers need a clear target to discuss.

Politicians, You Know You’d Better Watch Out

We know that Agenda-Setting Theory (McCombs and Shaw) says mass media decides what topics are salient, which ultimately sets the public’s agenda. McCombs and Shaw introduced this theory because of politics. Their original argument was “mass media set the agenda of issues for a political campaign by influencing the salience of issues among voters.” Some […]

Setting the Twitter Agenda for India

The media landscape that we inhabit is not the same in which McCombs & Shaw first developed Agenda Setting Theory. In the original article, McCombs & Shaw point out that voters do not have an alternative means of attaining up to date information from the political arena apart from the mass media. With the growth of […]

Social Networking Can Eliminate the Gap Between Leaders and Supporters

Information spreads faster than wildfire these days. Thanks to the rising popularity of social media. However, politicians in Bangladesh are not utilizing the social media for organizing their supporters and promoting their agendas. As per Maxwell E. McCombs and Donald L. Shaw, news treatment in mass media can determine the main agendas of a political […]

What Politicians Can Learn From #Covfefe

Thanks to social media, we are now more connected to our politicians than ever before. Using social platforms like Twitter, politicians have been able to talk directly to the public about important issues and their stances on them, without waiting for mainstream media to carry their message for them. Politicians, like President Donald Trump are […]

“…the mass media set the agenda for each political campaign, influencing the salience of attitudes toward the political issues.”

McCombs & Shaw, 1972

According to a research conducted by McCombs and Shaw (1972), media emphasis on different campaign issues tended to affect voters’ judgment of the salience of various campaign issues, which manifested agenda-setting function of news media.

Agenda setting refers to media practice that distinguishes between major issues and minor issues by distributes its resources (e.g. the amount of imformation, staff, headlines) differently to various events and topics. The selection and arrangement is based on certain news value criteria, which derive from daily practice and the knowledge of audiences’ appetite.

Daily briefing is a common form of agenda setting practice in news media. Here is an example from CNN’s official Twitter account:

5 things for Wednesday:

– Politics
– Winter Olympics
– Taiwan earthquake
– Poland
– Space X launchhttps://t.co/w8cfEP8tr6 pic.twitter.com/6LXGuJLKAb

— CNN (@CNN) February 7, 2018

CNN listed 5 events that their editors believed were of the greatest importance. Political activities (and other events related to elite persons), international (sport) events and natural disasters (and other negative news) are commonly acknowledged as newsworthy. Although in some cases news media is severely biased, they have basic consensus on news value. (McCombs & Shaw, 1972)

Another example is from @Reuters:

Morning Briefing:
– @SpeciaReports explores Taser use on 'high risk' targets
– Rescuers comb rubble after quake rocks Taiwan city
– @ReutersGraphics on Amazon, the Prime economyhttps://t.co/05zwvaaWjU pic.twitter.com/5eMaU2kvxL

— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) February 7, 2018

Despite the news events, this news agency also attached importance to information and story about their sponsor brand, Amazon, which indicates that agenda setting process does not merely depend on news value.

However, McCombs and Shaw’s study (1972) also proved that audiences had composite understanding about media contents. That is to say, agenda-setting practice has limited influence on audiences. It reminds politicians who utilize the agenda-setting function of the significance of monitoring and analyzing audiences’ media use, as knowledge about their real preference helps seize potential supporters.

Reference

McCombs, M., & Shaw, D. (1972). The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media. Public Opinion Quarterly, 36(2), 176. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/267990

Set Your Own Agenda

The media has an impact on people’s understanding of society. In Agenda-setting theory, the mass media can influence people’s attention to events through the information the mass media provide and the topics they organize (University of Twente, 2018). Of course, more and more clever audiences will not be completely dominated by the mass media. The […]

The agenda has been set: politicians, take action and take to Twitter

“The Agenda Setting Function of the Mass Media” written by Donald Shaw and Maxwell E. McCombs is testing the plausibility that mass media ultimately force our attention to certain issues—not necessarily telling us what to think, but what to think about as stated in their research. If this is true, then politicians like Cory Booker […]

Politicians and Their New Love: Twitter

With the power of social media, politicians are given larger platforms to spread their opinions and interact with constituents. Citizens are also able to readily see these opinions which has lead to both positive and negative effects on the current political climate. People are taking to social media to gather deeper understandings into different issues […]

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