Agenda Setting Essay

Agenda oscilloscope Patricia Wigington peremptory C some(prenominal)on University COM 126 Introduction The gage media today, no longer reports overt opinion, it drives it. This paper discusses how mass media stricts the agendum, and what impact this had on the issues that emerged during the 2008 presidential preference. gibe to Donald Shaw and Maxwell Combs, docket is a conjecture to describe now the refreshingsmedia cigarette shit a considerable impact on cause the commonplaces opinion of a cordial reality, on influencing what large outlet believe argon important issues. (Shaw& international ampereMcCombs, 1977) Agenda SettingMedia consolidation is cardinal thing that contri exclusivelyes to order of business- scope. As the number of newspapers dwindles and radio and TV station are s sometime(a) to 1 or two conglomerates, the news is in come to the forecome organism censored because it reflect scarce the messpoint of a single organization. If contrast vi ews are never even mentioned, the cosmos is never aware that there is an wholly different side to the issue than the one universe inaugurateed. It requires persistence to find out the facts of an issue, and muckle may non induct the suit. Then too, the media itself has changed dramatically in youthful years.Many people now lounge or so their news from digital media including the Internet, only if the gormandize of electronic information may not make them more(prenominal) companionshipable, just more certified round issues they may not consider important. Marshall McLuhan once gorgeously argued that the medium is the message David Considine twists it slightly, to the belief that the medium is the massage, and that we are all being worked over by the media, in point jr. people (Considine, 2009, p. 65). Todays technology, people using several electronic de evils simultaneously,practice astray known as multitasking (Considine, 2009). Time powder store wondered, ho wever, if people are too pumped(p) for their own good, and whether modern media were contributing to students cut down prudence spans, making it harder for educators to reach and discipline them (Considine, 2009, p. 65). There is a legitimate incredulity as to whether this environment of electronic go and constant communication makes them active and informed citizens or merely spectators moving from one distraction to another (Considine, 2009, p. 65).The answer seems crystallise when Considine reveals that despite the fact that in 2006, the number of younker people ages 18-29 in the U. S. was 50 million, only seven million voted in the mid-term choice (Considine, 2009). In other words, they let access to information but take ont transform that information into knowledge or political action. Younger people are a volatile universe of discourse when it comes to voting. They become wildly enthusiastic for a particular candidate much(prenominal) as Ron Paul or Howard Dean, b ut operate to show up at the canvass (Considine, 2009).Barack Obama was able to energize this group on his own behalf and that of other Democratic candidates pull polling from the January 2008 Iowa caucus for the Democratic candidates showed a record turnout among eighteen-to twenty-nine year olds, who to a great extent supported the theme of change promoted by Senator Barack Obama (Considine, 2009, p. 66). Now of course they seem to flummox disengaged again and organizations such as democracy for America and Moveon. org are actively on the job(p) to re-energize them and get them to the polls in November. burst of Barack Obamas triumph in the 2008 election was due to his savvy use of electronic media (Considine, 2009). He was able to use new technology to reach and energize voters his fight back built a substantial database and achieved record-breaking fundraising (Considine, 2009, p. 66). It also seems logical that part of his spell is that he does know how to use chirru p and FaceBook, and that he tweets personal messages his electronic nominal head immediately makes his opponent look old and out of touch.He further endeared himself to young voters and reaffirmed his commitment to communication technology when he insisted on keeping his personal inexorableberry bush (Considine, 2009,p. 66) The tendency of the media to entrap dockets was clearly shown in the summer of 2009, when electronic forums such as YouTube and Twitter, along with traditional outlets such as newspaper columns, took up the health-care debate and buzzed about such ludicrous and inaccurate items as death panels, socialism, Hitler and fascism (Jones & McBeth, 2010, p. 29). These scare tactics, which are all completely false, were used to take heed and discredit both the rectify effort and the President, and are a clear display caseful of the focus the media sets an agenda. Picking up on the hysteria of the far right, the media repeated the lies without doing any fact che cking, leading commentators to wonder how these ideas rationally relate to the debate over reform (Jones & McBeth, 2010, p. 329).The fact that these crazy notions were not only given credence but reported widely, and continue to appear in the media, show how powerful such things can be in shaping public opinion and ultimately in shaping governmental action (Jones & McBeth, 2010, p. 329). The cheapjack claims about death panels, the idea of Obama being Hitler and leading the country into a collectivised government are all elements of large policy tall-tales that were intentionally used by opponents of health-care reform attempting to derail President Obamas reform.Obamas supporters countered these lies with stories of their own personal accounts from Americans who, for mixed reasons, were priced out of the heath care form or even denied care (Jones & McBeth, 2010). The use of narratives is a powerful diaphysis in screen background the political agenda in the United Stat es. One field launch that although TV and internet users had a common agenda (the use of electronic media), their graded agendas differed greatly from the ranked agendas of the media themselves (Brubaker, 2008).That is, the TV watchers and internet users were not interested in the programming or information that was being presented to them The overall general media audience ranked 10 or the 11 public affairs issues significantly different than presented by the media (Brubaker, 2008). TV watchers and internet users were interested in important public affairs issues, but the agenda they were following significantly differed from the agenda that medium was showing them (Brubaker, 2008). This implies that the media are not powerful in setting the agenda of important public affairs or political issues.People encounter particular issues they feel are important, regardless of what the media present (Brubaker, 2008). This seems to be at odds with the idea that the media sets the agenda. and people simply put up with it. With regard to the 2008 Presidential election, the agenda presented by the media was that of the war in Iraq, but it was promptly displaced by concern about the scrimping an agenda driven by consumers interests, not those of the media (Agenda setting and the Obama election, 2010). scarcely this author claims that the media set another agenda, a highly macroscopical but totally unnecessary one, that of tend.Barack Obama is black, and that became a major issue in the election The measurement of Obamas potential success didnt lie in whether or not voters were willing to vote for a black candidate, but whether or not voters, more specifically white voters, could view Obama, or blacks in general, as leading (Agenda setting and the Obama election, 2010). Had the media been more concerned about Obamas positions and qualifications and less about the touch of his skin, the entire election would have been conducted on a much higher level.This source also notes that the racial issues was studied in swing states like Ohio, where it was deemed to be highly important (Agenda setting and the Obama election, 2010). In one study, Ohio was measured for favorability between candidates in the areas of republicans, democrats, independents, men, women, whites and blacks it was found that a vast majority of black voters, as many as 90%, favored Obama, no matter what their preceding voting record or company affiliation was (Agenda setting and the Obama election, 2010).The question embossed by this result is whether our society is the way it is because of the media, or is the media a direct upbraiding of the way society is In the case of Obama for President, the media clearly allowed race to chase to the draw of the list of exaggerated issues that never should have been a part of the presidential election in the first place (Agenda setting and the Obama election, 2010).In response to the popularity of Obama, the Republicans tried to set the media agenda to focus on issues such as Iraq and health care, arguing that race should not be consuming the attention focused on it (Agenda setting and the Obama election, 2010). But Republicans also tried to set an agenda favorable to them by introducing Sarah Palin as their vice presidential candidate to appeal to women voters setting the agenda worked in Ohio, where pollsters noted a shift among women of all races who were not previously affiliated with a particular companionship (Agenda setting and the Obama election, 2010).