Agenda-setting

Valmora Gogo , University College Bedër, Albania
valmoragogo@gmail.com

Agnieszka Hess, Jagiellonian University, Poland
agnieszka.hess@uj.edu.pl

Agenda setting theory is addressed to what McCombs and Shaw determined in 1972 that it is the mass media that sets the agenda of electoral campaigns, shaping the political reality, influencing their readers not only on a specific issue presented by the media but also on the level of importance because of the amount of information in a news story and its position. The agenda setting theory holds that information is not a simple reflection of social reality, but its reconstruction – a product that is affected by various factors and mechanisms. Various actors participate in the process of creating the media agenda of everyday life, including in particular journalists, political leaders, groups of interest, and other opinion makers. By using multiple forms and strategies of manifesting specific issues and interests, actors who want to shape the public agenda influence the processes of prioritising, gatekeeping, and framing individual events, topics and issues on which the media should focus. Creating such an image of the public affairs agenda in the media is of fundamental importance for shaping public opinion. This theory places the mass media in the main role of selecting news and media content, and it is precisely the mass media that prioritise those contents that people should follow.

Keywords: agenda setting, mass media, public affairs

Related Entries: Frames, Media Effects, Public Opinion

References:
McCombs, M. E., & Shaw, D. L. (1972). The agenda-setting function of mass media. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 36(2), 176–187. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2747787
McCombs, M.E. (1976). Agenda-setting research; A bibliographic essay (pp. 1-24). Working Paper, School of Public Communication, Syracuse University.
McCombs, Maxwell. (2008). Setting the agenda: The mass media and public opinion. Polity Press.McCombs, M., & Valenzuela, S. (2020). Setting the agenda: Mass media and public opinion. John Wiley & Sons.