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Grace Glaze Professor WellerCommunication TheoryDecember 4, 2014Agenda Setting TheoryThe chapter I am discussing is called Agenda Setting Theory, found in the 9th edition of the textbook, A First Look at Communication Theory, written by authors Em Griffin, Andrew Ledbetter, and Glenn Sparks. Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw developed the agenda setting theory in 1972. According to McCombs and Shaw, “mass media have the ability to transfer the salience of items on their news agendas to the public agenda” (p375). Agenda setting, in basic terminology, is the idea that the media doesn’t tell you what to think, they just tell you what to think about. In today’s society, what is put on the news is what the nation wants it’s citizens to be thinking about. More specifically, there are certain news platforms that show importance on differing opinions. For example, CNN is considered more liberal, while FOX News is considered more conservative. Depending on the platform, the viewers will receive different biases. This is when the media will start to tell you what to think, not just what to think about. This is called framing. In the textbook, the authors write, “Framing is not an option. Reporters inevitably frame a story with the personal attributes of public figures they select to describe” (p381). The most relevant example of this would be the incidents happening in Ferguson, Missouri. I won’t get into the details of the story, but CNN and Fox News have covered many topics about the issues in Ferguson, and it is very interesting to see the biases from each side. CNN focuses more on justice for Michael, while Fox News focuses more on defending the police officers of America. Depending on which news platform people follow, their opinions will inevitably side with what they cover and deem to be important. Another example I have found concerning the idea of agenda setting in the media involves Angelina Jolie. Jolie decided to tell the world about her decision to undergo a preventative double mastectomy. Her mother died at the age of 56 from breast cancer, and her decision to have surgery was largely driven by that fact. It’s interesting, however, how much media attention she got about her decision about the surgery. She decided to write to the New York Times about her decision on May 14, 2013. An article written by John A. Fortunato, Ph.D. titled, “Setting the Media Agenda: A Study of Angelina Jolie’s Op-Ed Announcing Her Undergoing a Preventative Double Mastectomy” states: The announcement by Angelina Jolie was covered by all national television network evening news broadcasts on Tuesday, May 14, the day the op-ed appeared in The New York Times. ABC ran the Jolie story second while CBS had it as the fourth story and NBC ran it as the fifth story. ABC and NBC did follow up stories on Wednesday as well. The story on ABC appeared fourth in its rundown and on NBC it ran as the fifth story. (p. 5-6) The mass media coverage of Jolie’s decision shows how much power and influence people with high acclaim have over the media. The reason Jolie wanted to tell the world of her decision was so that people dealing with the same issues can relate and know that they aren’t the only ones going through a tough time. She also wanted to be able to tell her kids that they won’t lose her to breast cancer. The article stated, “[Jolie’s] chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 percent to under 5 percent” (p1). Media can also play a role in how people view their body and how it might affect their self-image. A paper, written by Temple Northup titled, “The Role of Image Body Size, Race, and Familiarity on Subsequent Evaluations of the Self”, talks about how the media can place an importance on looks and notoriety. The paper states: Whether it is music stars like Lady Gaga, movie stars like Jessica Alba, or manufactured stars like Kim Kardashian, there is currently an obsession with celebrities, and especially female celebrities, who are constantly followed so the public can know exactly where any of them have been, what they were wearing, and even who they were with. …With very few exceptions, these celebrities are very thin and attractive… (p3)I believe it is very accurate to point out that most celebrities that news stations cover are beautiful, have a nice body, and are portrayed to be the ideal body image for women in this generation. People are not going to watch a television if it’s not pleasing to the eye; therefore in order to keep viewer ratings high, producers are going to put attractive females in their lead stories. Regardless of whether or not the reasoning behind why the celebrity is on the television in the first place is good or bad, what’s portrayed is the simple fact that only a person with their body type and notoriety can be in the position to be covered by the news. This is just another example depicting how the media can influence what, whom, and how we think about an issue. My last example comes from an article published in the Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly journal. The article is titled “Race in Media Coverage of School Shootings: A Parallel Application of Framing Theory and Attribute Agenda Setting” and it is written by Sung-Yeon Park, Kyle J. Holody, and Xiaoqun Zhang. In this study, the researchers wanted to find if there was any correlation between media coverage and the races of the shooters in recent school shooting incidents. Every time there is a school shooting, the media does an in-depth evaluation about the shooter, and comes up with certain conclusions. The article states, “By measuring the amount of news coverage of the incidents, the researchers showed that shooting incidents that resulted in more deaths or greater injuries were covered more” (p478). When I think back to the movie theatre shooting and compare it to the most recent high school shooting, the movie theatre shooting got much more coverage than the high school shooting. I believe this is due to the fact that three times the people were affected. The high school shooting involved five to six people, including the student that was the shooter. The movie theater shooting involved more than 50. I think there is a lot of truth about the number of people affected dictates how much media coverage it gets. I believe race becomes involved when the media starts to question why someone would be provoked to shoot any number of people. In my opinion, I believe it wasn’t until 9/11 that our country has since then become so paranoid with certain attacks. Our country is now quick to figure out the background of the people behind the attack, and figure out if they are a real threat to our country, and also, if they are a part of a bigger organization, possibly a terrorist group. This drives the media to create such an importance on these types of incidents, as well as the race of the suspect. Thus, I believe it is the media’s agenda to make sure the nation is thinking about these issues, as well. To conclude, I think the most important piece of this theory is to understand that media can influence people in certain ways when we are completely unaware of the fact that we are being influenced. It’s important to research a situation from all sides before making an opinion, so that you can make the fairest opinion. An ethical problem that I see with this theory is that people already have viewpoints and stereotypes about which medias they prefer, so it would be difficult to change their level of acceptance. ReferencesFortunato, J. A. (2014). Setting the Media Agenda: A Study of Angelina Jolie's Op-Ed Announcing Her Undergoing a Preventative Double Mastectomy. Florida Communication Journal, 42(1), 1-9.Griffin, E., Ledbetter, A., Sparks, G. (2012). A First Look At Communication Theory, 9th Edition. New York, NY: McGraw Hill Education. Northup, T. (2012). The Role of Image Body Size, Race, and Familiarity on Subsequent Evaluations of the Self. Southwestern Mass Communication Journal, 27(3), 1-33.Sung-Yeon, P., Xiaoqun, Z., & Holody, K. J. (2012). Race in Media Coverage of School Shootings: A Parallel Application of Framing Theory and Attribute Agenda Setting. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 89(3), 478-494. doi:10.1177/1077699012448873 ................
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