Agenda Setting

Agenda Setting – How the media constructs the audience’s reality. It can be assumed that the mass media filter, shape, reflect and, report reality.

Types of agenda setting:
- First Level: Media look at what the public should focus on.
- Second level: How the public should think about these issues.

What does agenda setting do?

•Transfer of issue salience from the news media to the public
•Transfer of issue salience for both issues and other objects such as political figures
•Elite media often set the agenda for issues in other media

The Hypodermic Needle model: The mass media articulates each piece to affect a certain percentage of people who will be interested in a specific topic.

Agenda family:
1. Media gatekeeping
2. Media Advocacy
3. Agenda Cutting
4. Agenda surfing
5. The diffusion of news
6. Portrayal of an issue
7. Media dependence

·         Public agenda: Set of topis that members of the public perceive as important. 

·         Policy Agenda: Legislators

·         Corporate Agenda: Issues that businesses think are important 

·         Media Agenda: Issues discussed in the media