The Setting of Agenda

Just as we thought the media corporations couldn't get any more one-sided! Agenda Setting, as we learned in our most recent instalment of Jour1111, is the ability of the news media to to manipulate and influence what we think is important in the public agenda. In other words, they choose the media that we watch, ergo, we watch what they want. Bernard Cohen was on the money when he said:

"The press may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think,

but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about."

An example of this "Agenda Setting" is the constant news footage and writings about the Alison Baden Clay (scroll down to read more). Her name and picture is peppered everywhere across Australian tabloids and yet, mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, sons and daughters are murdered everyday around the world, let alone Queensland; sometimes under more gruesome circumstances...

The 2004 tsunami in Thailand, which killed thousands, plagued the headlines for months - deservingly; it was a terrible tragedy - however, thousands of people die every year in India from floods and nobody ever hears about that.

Fair? No. Probably not. But that is just how Agenda Setting works - the media tells us what to think and talk about. As Richard Nixon so honestly put it (albeit referring to Americans):

"The American people don't believe anything

until they see it on television."