Adgenda Setting

Adgenda Setting- Donald Shaw, Maxwell Mcombs, Renita Coleman and David Weaver

Adgenda Setting: "the process of the mass media presenting certain issues frequently and prominently with the result that large segments of the public come to percieve those issues as more important than others."

This article goes into great depth about the impact and the mechanics of adgenda setting in the media. An interesting point raised is that the theory of adgenda setting has been adopted by other disiplines such as health communication, political communication and business.

I also found it interesting that the development of the adgenda setting theory rose from those who were wrried about the influence of the 'pictures in our head'. Whenever I think about the influence of the media I always arrived at the radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds broadcast. To get such an immense reaction from the spoken word ia really amazing. It is A lot easier than people think to influence others through the media.

Reading this article make me wonder what would happen if the focus of the news was slowly changed and things that are of little impotance of the news were brought to the forefront. I also wonder what the relevance sometimes of the latest Lindsay Lohan trial when there are so many other stories that could be covered.

I thought a good point covered was a consumers 'need for orientation'. People use the media to understand the events that are happening around them. I think the problem with some is that they take what is said as truth. Even if something seems clear people must realise that there is more than one way to look at things.

News Values

News Values

News Values: The degree of prominence a media outlet gives to a story, and the attention that is paid by an audience.

News Values
1. IMPACT
2. AUDIENCE IDENTIFICATION
3. PRAGMATICS
4. SOURCE INFLUENCE

"A sense of news values is the first quality of editors they are the human sieves of the
torrent of news, even more important even than an ability to write or a command of language."

"The College of Osmosis"

Evans (2000)

News Values
Impact- The facts and events that have the greatest effect on the audience are the most newsworthy
Weight- The significance of a particular fact or event lies in its value with respect to other facts or events
Controversy- Arguments, debates, charges, countercharges, and fights increase the value of news
Emotion- Take into account human interests that touch our emotions
The Unusual- When a dog bites a man it's not news. But when a man bites a dog, it is news.
Prominence- More prominent individuals are given more attention
Proximity- Concentrate on news that is of local interest; the closer to home the better
Timeliness- Emphasize what is new
Currency- Take into account what is on people's minds
Usefulness- Help the audience answer questions and solve problems in their daily lives
Educational Value- Make readers more knowledgeable rather than merely informed

Tensions of newsworthiness

1. Journalism / Commercialization of media and social life
2. Journalism / Public Relations
3. Journalism‘s ideals / Journalism‘s reality

Golding and Elliots News Values

1. Drama
2. Visual attractiveness
3. Entertainment
4. Importance
5. Size
6. Proximity
7. Negativity
8. Brevity
9. Recency (exclusives, scoops)
10. Elites
11. Personalities

Galtung and Ruge News Values

Value	Description
Negativity	Bad news - involving death, tragedy, bankruptcy, violence, damage, natural disasters, political upheaval or simply extreme weather conditions - is always rated above 'positive' stories (royal weddings, celebrations etc)
Closeness to home (Proximity)	Audiences supposedly relate more to stories that are close to them geographically, or involve people from their country, or those that are reported that way(eg '12 Hong Kongers aboard Australia Crash Plane'). News gatekeepers must consider carefully how meaningful a story will be to their particular audience
Recency	Newspapers are very competitive about breaking news - about revealing stories as they happen. 24 hour news channels such as CNN and BBC World also rate this value very highly. However, as we have seen with the events of September 11, stories may take a while to develop, and become coherent, so recency is not always the best value to rate.
Currency	This is almost opposite to recency, in that stories that have been in the public eye for some time already are deemed valuable. Therefore a story - for instance about the abduction and murder of a child - may run for weeks and weeks, even if nothing new really happens.
Continuity	Events that are likely to have a continuing impact (a war, a two week sports tournament) have a high value when the story breaks, as they will develop into an ongoing narrative which will get audiences to 'tune in tomorrow'.
Uniqueness	'Dog Bites Man' is not a story. 'Man Bites Dog' is. Any story which covers a unique or unusual event (two-headed elephant born to Birmingham woman) has news values
Simplicity	Obvious, but true. Stories which are easy to explain ('Cat stuck up tree') are preferred over stories which are not (anything to do with the Balkan or Palestinian conflicts)
Personality	Stories that centre around a particular person, because they can be presented from a 'human interest' angle, are beloved of newspapers, particularly if they involve a well-known person. Some say this news value has become distorted, and that news organisations over-rate personality stories, particularly those involving celebrities ('Posh Goes Shopping'). What do you think?
Expectedness (Predictability)	Does the event match the expectations of a news organisation and its audience? Or, has what was expected to happen (violence at a demonstration, horrific civilian casualties in a terrorist attack) actually happened? If a news story conforms to the preconceived ideas of those covering it, then it has expectedness as an important news value
Elite Nations Or People	Any story which covers an important, powerful nation (or organisation) has greater news values than a story which covers a less important nation. The same goes for people. George Bush is newsworthy whatever he does.
Exclusivity	Also a major factor when setting the news agenda. If a newspaper or news programme is the first and only news organisation breaking a story, then they will rate that very highly. The UK Sunday papers are very fond of exclusives, and will often break a story of national or international importance that no one else has.
Size	does matter when it comes to news stories. The bigger impact a story has, the more people it affects, the more money/resources it involves, the higher its value. This is also known as threshold

London Riots Recreation- Art

Locked in time: London riots scenes recreated in tiny clocks featuring looters, riot police and street-sweepers

By Stephen Hull
I found the concept of using the london riot scenes in this way as interesting and a the same time contentious.

The link and some of the pictures are as follows: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2038824/London-riots-2011-Scenes-recreated-tiny-clocks-featuring-looters-police.html

Adgenda Setting and Constructing Reality

Adgenda Setting

Agenda Setting is a theory, but like all good, solid theories is all a bit obvious really
Redman, 2011

The media play a large role in ‘constructing’ or ‘mediating’ the social world as we understand it.An individual’s conception of reality is socially constructed through a process of communication using shared language. Reality exists, but the way we come to know it, talk about it, understand it, is mediated through social life.

The four agendas in media
1) PUBLIC AGENDA -the set of topis that members of the public perceive as important.
2) POLICY AGENDA -issues that decision makers think are salient. (i.e. legislators)
3) CORPORATE AGENDA -issues that big business & corporations consider important.
4) MEDIA AGENDA -issues discussed in the media.

“Agenda setting is the process of the mass media presenting certain issues frequently and prominentlywith the result that large segments of the public come to perceive those issues as more important than others. Simply put, the more coverage an issue receives, the more important it is to people.”
(Coleman, McCombs, Shaw, Weaver, 2008)

“Propaganda is used as a tool to help shape images in the minds of human beings in support of an enterprise, idea or group. Propaganda can be used to substitute one social pattern for another.”

http://blog.15minutephilosophers.com/2010/11/19/walter-lippmann.asp

Two Levels of Agenda Setting
First Level Agenda Setting Theory: This is for the most part studied by researchers and emphasizes the major issues and "the transfer of the salience of those issues." At this level the media suggest whatthe public should focus on through coverage.
Second Level Agenda Setting Theory: This is essentially, how the media focuses on the attributes of the issues. The media suggests howpeople should think about an issue.

Components of Agenda Setting
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
Agenda Surfing - The media "surfs" on the wave of topics originally mentioned in the opinion-leading media.
The Bandwagon Effect -public opinion influences others towards that opinion

The most common media dependency is Facebook/Twitter. It has become a way of life as people are constantly feeling the need to check Facebook or Twitter every couple of minutes.

Strengths
•explanatory power because it explains why most people prioritize the same issues as important.
•predictive power because it predicts that if people are exposed to the same media, they will feel the same issues are important.
•can be proven false. If people aren’t exposed to the same media, they won’t feel the same issues are important.
• meta-theoretical assumptions are balanced on the scientific side.
• It lays groundwork for further research.
• It has organizing power because it helps organize existing knowledge of media effects.

Weakness'
Media users may not be as ideal as the theory assumes. People may not be well-informed, deeply engaged in public affairs, thoughtful and skeptical. Instead, they pay casual and intermittent attention to public affairs, often ignorant of the details.
•For people who have made up their minds, the effect is weakened.
•News cannot create and conceal problems. The effect can merely alter the awareness, priorities and salience people attach to a set of problems.

Public Media

Public Media Notes

Public media:

• not so much taxpayer support media but media that serves the general public
• media whose mission is to serve or engage a public. 
• publicly-funded broadcasters and networks
• distribution mechanisms- Internet, podcasting, blogging. 

Public Media Players
SBS
SBS radio
TripleJ
ABC: Local Radio
ABC: Radio National
ABC: Classic FM
ABC 2
ABC
ABC 3
ABC 24 news
SBS 2

International Public Media
BBC -  UK funded by a license fee
PBS - US
NHK- Japan
4 - UK Public media
NPR - US
ARTE- France
DR - Danish
TVNZ -New Zealand
HK - Hong Kong
CBC- Canada

Public Media

• Lots of journalists start careers in local media
• For example: 4zzz - Four Triple Z - Triple Z
• Public medias role in terms of democracy is to support the public in democratic decisions.
• Public media needs to have public value.

In 1985 the Broadcasting Research Unit defined public service broadcasting as involving:-Geographical universality. Broadcast programmesshould be available to the whole population.
-Universality of appeal. Broadcast programmesshould cater for all tastes and interests.
-There should be special provision for minorities,especially disadvantaged minorities.
-Broadcasters should recognisetheir special relationship to the sense of national identity and community.
-Broadcasting should be distanced from all vested interests, and in particular from those of the government of the day.
-Universality of payment. One main instrument of broadcasting should be directly funded by the corpus of users.
-Broadcasting should be structured so as to encourage competition in good programming rather than competition for numbers.
-The public guidelines for broadcasting should liberate rather than restrictbroadcasters.

ABC programs
- Rake
- Australian Story
- Hungry Beast
- Angry Boys
- Catalyst
- Compass
- ABC news
- Radio Australia
- Dig music
- The Chasers War on Everything
- The Gruen Transfer

SBS programs (Hybrid model of funding)
- Wilfred
- Fat Pizza
- World News
- Insight
- The World Game
- Rock Wiz
- Living Black

Function of public media include ; nation building, national identity, national, conversations and national heritage.

Style and Aims of Public Media

• Serious
• 'broadsheet' style
• importance over interest
• considered, not quick and unchecked

To produce quality –while the budget might be tight PM need to produce programming that people want to watch (less commercial imperative)
To make themselves relevant (do they have a role to produce programs that mass audiences want to watch (ratings and audiences numbers?)
To engage with the democratic process (to provide programs that give voice and access to the political process, both mainstream and niche)
To Inform the public (hard and soft programming, accurate and balanced, reflective of the nation.)
To be independent (regulators and independence of funders government)

Challenges
The media is not owned by the government but is funded by it. This can cause tension between the government and the public media that acts as a watchdog.

The government exercise indirect control in two ways:
Legislation: stipulates what the ABC / SBS can and can’t do. Places guidelines on program content. Prevents advertising (though some on SBS).

Funding: Both, how much funding, and what the funding can be used for. Funding is increasingly not ‘block’ but for individual and specified programs like rural media or commissioning independent work.

There is always pressure to maintain independence.
Funding is always an issue.

Factual Storytelling Exercise

Commercial Media vs Public Media notes from week 7 and 8

Commercial Media

 

Media for advertisers to generate profits
audiences generate the profits

Austalian players
News Limited- branch of news corp : newspapers (local) , cable tv, film, magazines, books, NRL,
Nine Entertainment Co: (nine nsn, tickiteck, acer, magazines)
Win: (Win TV, Channel Ten and Nine, Radio Stations, ST George, TPG)
Fairfax Media: Newspapers and Digital Media (Brisbane Times, RSVP, My Career)
Southern Cross: Ten, Southern Cross TV, B105, Triple M
Seven West Media: West Australian, Pacific Magazines, Yahoo 7,
Ten Corp: Channel 10, 1HD, Eleven

• Commercial media is either from subcription, sponsored or subsidised.
•  
• propagandaa- fox news, news limited
•  
• social fuction eg citizen journalism
•  
• important part of democracy

 the public sphere-

A space between commerce and government where people can debate freely (and form public opinion).

Social responsibility of The Media in a Democracy:

1.a truthful, comprehensive, and intelligent

account of the day’s events in a context which

gives them meaning;

2.a forum for the exchange of comment and criticism;

3.the projection of a representative picture of the

constituent groups in the society;

4.the presentation and clarification of the goals

and values of the society;

5.full access to the day’s intelligence.

(Hutchins Commission 1947)

Challenges for commercial media

Advertising revenue for broadcast media is down and continues to slide which causes a loss of revenue:
Less investment =
Less money for quality production =
More bought-in content (Less original) =More repeats of US sitcoms, more reality TV.