The document summarizes agenda setting theory, which describes how the media can influence the public's perception of what issues are important. It discusses the history and development of the theory, including key researchers like Walter Lippmann and Maxwell McCombs. The theory proposes that the media can set the public agenda by focusing on particular issues and influencing what the public thinks are the major issues. It also discusses how agenda setting can apply to social media and politics. The theory has since been expanded to include factors like how audiences actively engage with media and the influence of different types of media sources.

1. CHAPTER 4:
AGENDA SETTING THEORY

2. What is the most important issue that you think
about today?
Agenda setting describes a very powerful influence of the media
– the ability to tell us what issues are important.

3. History of Agenda Setting Research
2 STAGES
2) The
Establishment of
the Theory
1) Pretheorethical
Conceptualization

4. “The events that happen in the world are brought to people by the
mass media and the way these events are reported shape how people
structure the images of these events in their minds.” - Lippmann
WALTER LIPPMANN (1922)
HAROLD D. LASSWELL (1948)
“There are two important functions of mass media: Surveillance and Correlation.
Surveillance: The process of newspeople scanning information and deciding which of the events deserve
attention in their news outlets.
“IF IT BLEEDS, IT LEADS”
Correlation: The way that media put attention on certain issues through the public and policymakers.
Pretheoretical Conceptualizing
Robert E. Park (1915-1935)
“Editors are gatekeepers because they have the power to “kill” stories
and to promote other stories.” - Park

5. Establishing the Theory of Agenda Setting
• In the research, they focused on two elements: Awareness and Information.
• Stated that the media agenda would, over time, become the agenda for the public.
• Investigating the agenda-setting function by the relationship between what voters
in one community said were important issues and the actual content of the
media messages used during the campaign.
 Example: They interviewed 100 undecided voters for presidential election.
 Question: What are you most concerned about these days?
 Result: Foreign policy, law and order, fiscal policy, public welfare and civil rights.
 Lots of news articles, and broadcast stories about these issues including TV,
Newspapers and News Magazines.
• In conclusion, they found that the mass media exerted a significant influence on
what voters considered to be the major issues of the campaign.
McCombs and Shaw investigated presidential campaigns in 1968, 1972 and 1976.

6. Assumptions of Agenda Setting Theory
Three basic assumptions:
The media establish an
agenda and in so doing
are not simply reflecting
reality, but are shaping
and filtering reality to
the public.
The media’s
concentration on the
issues that comprise
their agenda influence
the public’s agenda, and
these together influence
the policymaker’s
agenda.
The public and
policymakers have
the possibility to
influence the media’s
agenda as well.

7. What do you think happen during GE-14th in Malaysia?

11. TWO Levels of Agenda Setting
What is the important issue? (agenda)
• The first process agenda setting transfers the salience of
items on their news agenda to our agenda.
Which part of those issues are most important? (media framing)
• The second process framing transfers the salience of
selected attributes to prominence among the pictures in our
heads.
• There is a related process called priming.

12. The priority of issues to
be discussed in
mediated sources.
The result of the media
agenda interacting with
what the public thinks.
The result of the public
agenda interacting with
what policy makers
think.
Three-Part Process of Agenda Setting
Media Agenda Public Agenda Policy Agenda

14. APPLICATIONS : SOCIAL MEDIA (TWITTER)
• Twitter: Direct effect on political campaigns.
• Allow users to showcase their political opinion without functioning two directions.
• Before: political candidates were using blogs and websites to portray their
message and to gain more attention and popularity among their followers.
• Politicians and political parties have been labeled "influentials" on Twitter.
• Twitter is being used as a resource to gather information, reach a larger
audience and engagement, stay up to date with current social and political
issues, and to achieve the agenda building role.

15. Expansions and Refinements to Agenda Setting Theory
2nd phase: merged Agenda Setting Theory with Uses and Gratifications Theory (C23)
• Audience is pictured as a group of active seekers, employing media for specific uses
and to satisfy particular gratifications.
• Steven Littlejohn and Karen Foss (2011) suggest that 4 types of power relations
between the media and other sources.
1. High power source and high-power media
2. High-power source and low-power media
3. Lower-power source and high-power media
4. Both media and source are low power

16. • Intermedia influence – the news organizations affect one another’s agenda.
• Maxwell McCombs and Tamara Bell observed that intermedia effect can come
from individual newsworker as well as news organizations.
• Journalist live in an ambiguous social world-they rely on one another for
confirmation and a source of ideas.
• Pack journalism: the phenomenon of journalists having their agendas
influenced by other journalists.
Expansions and Refinements to Agenda Setting Theory

19. INTEGRATION
•Socio-PsychologicalCommunication
Tradition
•Mass/MediaCommunication
Context
•Positivistic/EmpiricalApproach to
Knowing

20. CRITIQUE
Scope
Utility
Heurism
• The scope is too large (sometimes the opposite)
• Concept of framing should be separated.
• The agenda setting effects still relevant regardless of which type of
media was used.
• Both old and new media environment.
• Jennifer Brubaker (2008), concluded that Agenda Setting is not effective
when people have much more freedom in media choices.
• Consider as successful
• Although many focus on politics, they are not confined to that topic.
• Includes new media, traditional media, political issues, and responses to
visual stimuli among other issues.

21. CLOSING
• If an audience does not believe in credibility of a media source, he or she will likely
dismiss the agenda promoted on the surce.
• The public agenda will be swayed only by the media sources they find credible.
• 2 important key variables:
1. Relevance
2. Uncertainty
Strengths
• Focuses attention on audience interaction
with media.
• Resulting in the links between media
exposure, audience motivation to seek
orientation, and audience perception of
public issues.
• Integrates a number of similar ideas
including priming, story positioning and
story vividness.
Weaknesses
• Too common to political campaigns
• Direction of agenda-setting effect is
questioned by some