AGENDA SETTING THEORY
- This theory refers to how the media’s news coverage determines which
issues become the focus of public attention.
- proposes that issues that receive relatively more media attention tend to
be perceived by audiences as being relatively more important.
ASSUMPTIONS
- The first is that the media filters and shapes what we see rather than just
reflecting stories to the audience. An example of this is seeing a sensational
or scandalous story at the top of a broadcast as opposed to a story that
happened more recently or one that affects more people, such as an
approaching storm or legislative tax reform.
- The second assumption is that the more attention the media gives to an
issue, the more likely the public will consider that issue to be important.
Another way to look at it: Mass media organizations aren’t telling us what
to think or how we should feel about a story or issue, but are giving us
certain stories or issues that people should think more about.
ELEMENTS OF FRAMING
- Framing refers to the way the media and their gatekeepers organize and
present the events and issues they cover, and the way audiences interpret
what they are provided.
- is based on the idea of how media base an event or an issue within a
particular field of meaning which plays an important role in people’s
decision making procedure.
- Fairhurst and Sarr (1996), framing consists of three
elements: Language, thought, and forethought.
Language helps us remember information and acts to transform the way in
which we view situations. To use language effectively, the media must have
thought and reflected on their own interpretive frameworks and those of
others.
MAGIC BULLET THEORY (hypodermic needle theory)
- Mass media is able to influence a very large group of people “directly,
immediately and powerfully,” almost as they were shot at or injected with
messages designed to trigger a desired response
- The theory suggests that media messages are like hypodermic needles
(Berger, 1995; Croteau & Hoynes, 1997) that inject ideas, values, and
beliefs directly into the minds of the audience, who are passive receivers of
the message. For example, if a news program presents a biased report on
political issue this theory would suggest that the audience will immediately
accept the information as truth and be influence by it.
TWO-STEP FLOW THEORY
- Opinion leaders (media celebrities and politicians)receive the information
from the mass media. Then these opinion leaders pass on their own
interpretations in addition to the actual media content.
- This theory expressed a view that the media is dangerous because the
receiver or the audience is “powerless to resist the impact of the message”.
Example: the audience has no escape from the effect of the message even
as he/she was a passive receptor of the media text
- People construct their own meanings from media messages
1. Passive audience – absorbs the message
2. Active audience – deconstruct the message to suit his/her need
- However…
In both cases, the media consumer constructs his/her own meaning of the
media message because his/her understanding is colored and is influenced
by his/her own cultural experience, values, and beliefs.
- ( FRANK PARKIN 1972) SOCIOLOGIST
Argued that the meaning of a message was not uniform to all because
people from divergent social strata deconstruct the message differently
- Dallas Smythe (1981) Media theorist
On one hand, media producers present messages; on the other hand, the
audience must act on messages contents and mold these to their particular
needs and values to create their own view
MEDIUM THEORY
- Medium theory is a set of approaches used to convey the difference in
meanings of the message conveyed with regarding to the different
channels used to communicate it.
- the concept that the type of Medium used to communicate with the user is
just as important as the content presented by the medium itself.
REFERENCES:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/
1e1hT0dlW6SHKwcc_AkW3Mu7iNjv3f2vSbwFM3_TgDLU/
edit#slide=id.g22417d1b1ea_1_2646
https://helpfulprofessor.com/hypodermic-needle-theory/
(https://online.alvernia.edu/articles/agenda-setting-theory/)
