How does the news really shape our civic agenda? The article begins exploring the news in the early decade of 2007 in order to demonstrate an example. Due to constant news footage and consistent journalists, the world was well informed of the Iraq War and then considered it to be the most significant event going on. After examining this example, the authors then moves on to say that “this ability to influence the salience of topics on the public agenda has come to be called the agenda-setting role of the news media (Bryant & Oliver, 1).
The fact of the matter is that issues are always competing to gain public attention. Some are successful but other times issues are not even broadcasted to the public at all. If so many issues do not even make the news, how can we say that the world is well informed of all issues in society? According to the media, the news broadcasts the most updated and significant issues but my question is who determines what are the most significant issues? What differentiates the more important news from the less important news? The media alone holds a huge influence on the minds of individuals. News in particular, has a very strong influence on individuals especially because the news displays ‘real-life information.’
Viewers fail to realize that everything that they see on television is not real, including the news. Even if a news story may deliver accurate facts, there is almost always a bias tone or image included. For instance, according to the article news has been proven to heavily influence viewer’s choice of electing political figures during campaigns (Bryant & Oliver, 1). This is not surprising considering during campaigns political figures are usually shown in a positive light or a negative light in order to convince viewers. “Traditional journalism norms emphasize that the media is trying to inform, not persuade” (Bryant & Oliver, 1). This may be some journalists’ intentions but I’m sure most of us would agree that this is not a realistic statement that applies to the media in general.
I believe that the news has an even greater influence than fictional media such as sitcoms or movies because the news is purposed to be a portrayal of current, real-life footage. Viewers watch the news and automatically assume that everything that they see if exactly what is going on in the world. Viewers watch the news are automatically think that whatever the leading story is or the most publicized story is currently the most significant matter in the world. With all of this in mind, who has the authority to set the media agenda?
The authors sum up this article by exploring this question in relation to agenda-setting influence. Using a metaphoric explanation, they say the process is like “peeling an onion" (Bryant & Oliver, 13). I do not know if I would explain this process using the metaphor that they chose, but I do highly agree that the news not only shapes our civic agenda, but it shapes our mentality of the real world. It is fair to say that there are many influences like authority figures and other types of media that influence agenda-setting. We may not know who exactly is behind it all but what we do know is that the news holds a huge impact on how we view the world.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
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