Mass Media & Public Opinion gOOD OR BAD?
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It is widely known that media influences public opinion and behaviour through various channels, with certain restrictions, and therefore it is important to analyze the role of media in shaping the public opinion. The media as a prime source of information can influence a whole society as it has the power to induce particular habits, tastes or attitudes, promoting discussions between various experts around a same subject. The concept of framing is related to the agenda-setting tradition but expands the research by focusing on the essence of the issues at hand rather than on a particular topic.
Agenda Setting theory
The Agenda setting theory was primarily developed by Dr. Max McCombs and Dr. Donald Shaw in a study on the 1968 presidential election (McCombs & Shaw, 1972). Some of the assumptions are that the basis of the Agenda-setting Theory might be obsolete however not discarded. Despite the fact that public issues did not dominate the media agenda, they were selected as the focus of the research because of long-standing interest in the relationship between journalism and public opinion (McCombs, p.552, 2005). Research has showed that the agenda-setting theory has evolved objects and attributes, which can be used in many ways other than public issues. According to McCombs, innovative scholars have applied the core idea of agenda-setting theory to broader areas (McCombs, p.553, 2005) linking the public, their attitudes and behavior.
The term agenda- setting usually refers to the transfer of importance of a topic from the mass media to audiences. The original model suggested that if a particular issue is covered more frequently in the news, the audience is more likely to attribute importance to this particular issue (Foss & Littlejohn, p.31-33, 2009).
article by: Elaine Cardoso