Agenda-Setting Theory

1: Discusses the agenda-setting theory and the cumulative effects theory. Please choose either of those two theories, define it, and give a current example of this taking place in the media.

2: There are currently so many examples of outrageous media hype on TV, social media, in our newspapers, and online. Please share one example that you have seen within the last week. Include a link to your example.

Agenda-Setting Theory

Another important approach to media effects– agenda-setting theory –was posited by researchers in the 1970s. Studying the way political campaigns were covered in the media, these investigators found the main effect of media to be agenda-setting– telling people, not what to think, but what to think about. In other words, the amount of attention given to an issue in the media affects the level of importance the public assigns to that issue.

The main thrust of agenda-setting is that media content might not change a person’s perception of a particular issue, but it will change the person’s perception of what is important. For today’s researchers, the main point to make about agenda setting is that once issues capture people’s attention, they have a tendency to influence government policy. Televised pictures of the corpses of whole families of Kurds in northern Iraq helped make the case against the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the years leading up to the American invasion of 2003. Later, pictures of Iraqi prisoners being abused by Americans helped turn public opinion against U.S. involvement there. Agenda setting is also important when one considers that a small number of conglomerates such as Time Warner and Viacom/CBS set the agenda for what other media outlets report. Alternatively, very small political blogs and entertainment gossip sites can set the agenda for major media. They do this by uncovering human interest stories that major media are then forced to report.

Cumulative Effects Theory

Many theorists do not believe that agenda-setting is media’s primary effect. One opposing theory, known as cumulative effects theory, suggests strongly that media do, in fact, tell us how to think. Cumulative effects theory holds that media messages are driven home through redundancy and have profound effects over time. According to this theory, a “spiral of silence” occurs when individuals with divergent views become reluctant to challenge the consensus opinion offered by the media. Historians point out that this is what happened in Germany in the 1930s, when many people who disagreed with the Nazis failed to speak out against them