Week 11 Agenda Setting

“What we see is what we believe” a fact which is explained in the form of the word  “Agenda Setting”. To be more specific, the term Agenda setting is a mass communication theory that states the prominence of a news issue presented by mass media, which results in public perceiving those issues as more important than others.

The theory of Agenda setting was invented ages back, and the roots of its invention comes from the journalist Walter Lippmann”, who views Agenda setting as “News Media construct our view of the world”.

Most of the issues are back seated and not presented, issues like killing baby girls, child sexual abuse, AIDS and many more are not paid much of focus. Now a day’s media goes on with the latest trends.  We will be more aware about a celebrity’s relationship status rather than the important and practical problems.

The way a news story is portrayed, depends on the way public perceives it. One of the main weaknesses of this theory is that people may be ignorant and not well informed.

Talking about its strengths, the agenda theory is explanatory, which explains why some issues are considered to be more important. It is quite organized and predictable, stating that people consider those issues more important, which are presented in front of them as more important. Also it has a good pathway of research and lastly if people are shown the same news again, they might feel it less important that is it can be proven false.

At the end, I would just conclude that lecture was quite practical and knowledgeable.

Thank you