McCombs and Reynolds How the News Shapes Our Civic Agenda and accompanying lecture What is agenda setting Role of the news media is the ability to influence the salience of topics on the public agenda Initial stage in the formation of public opinion Public opinion responds to the pseudo environment world constructed by news media Walter Lippmann world outside and pix in our head Early Agenda setting studies McCombs and Shaw 1972 supported Lippmann 1968 presidential election central hypothesis o mass media set the agenda of issues for a political campaign by influencing the salience of issues among voters how do you rank the most important issues Evidence supporting agenda settings effects More than 425 international studies confirmed the correlation o News coverage of civil rights issued 1954 1975 corr 71 Comes from controlled lab experiments Time Lag Studies What if we look at the media in Jan Feb March and then look at the public agenda in Apr May June If the media agenda is influencing the public agenda then what is media agenda now will be public agenda later Correlation and Causation THEY DO NOT EQUAL there is a 3rd variable taken into account Causation requires 3 factors o A correlation between variables must exist o The cause must precede the effect o Other variables must be ruled out No correlation between trends in news coverage of major issues and reality of those issues but was correlation between patterns of news coverage an the publics perception of what were the most important issues Experimental design to demonstrate causation Can identify causation Shown not just the correlation but actually that it is media content that causes the public to focus on certain issues Acapulco Typology Differentiated according to ways to see the influence of agenda setting Perspective I COMPETITION o Looks at the entire news agenda and entire population o There is a number of possible issues that compete for our attention o Original view on agenda setting 1960 pres Election Perspective II AUTOMATON o Looks at entire news agenda but how it effects a specific individual o Not a huge correlation between individuals and entire news agenda people don t just go along with everything media say Perspective III NATURAL HISTORY o Single item of agenda and how it effects the entire population competition o Similar to perspective I o Big correlation number of issues compete for our attention o Look at things in media and how it affects people over time Perspective IV COGNITIVE PORTRAIT o Looks at a single item on the agenda and how it affects individuals o Like perspective II BIG correlation Obtrusive and Unobtrusive Issues Obtrusive those we experience personally o Local specific pertaining to everyday life o Ex We don t need to be alerted about rising Gas prices o WEAK AGENDA SETTING Unobtrusive issues we encounter only in the news and not our daily lives o Social problems that may influence your life o Ex Starvation in African country o STRONG AGENDA SETTING Issues can be both obtrusive and unobtrusive Need for Orientation Individual differences in the need for orienting cues to an issue and in need for background info on an issue Relevance and Uncertainty SOMETIMES personal experience High relevance and low uncertain Orientation moderate High Relevance and high uncertain orientation high Who sets the media s agenda Key external news sources political and corporate elites most powerful ones in society and public relations effective with large sums of money behind it Intermedia agenda setting media sources look to other media Issues that are not crucial are not covered elite doesn t want us to know Ex Project censored Project Censored To trap the stories that are not being covered by the mainstream news media Obama s war on whistleblowers bank interests inflate prices US left Iraq with epidemic of cancers and birth defects 20 of Americans go hungry Fracking our food supply Priming Consequence of first level agenda setting effects Attribute priming a consequence of second level agenda setting effects Attention is called to something so it is fresh in your memory and you pay attention to it Once we are primed to think about something its easier to think about it in that way Shaping our opinions Someone tells you something and then you can t NOT see it Second level agenda setting information Cognitive component First level media tells us what to think about Just o Information about substantive characteristics that describe the object Affective component positive tone negative tone neutral tone of these characteristics on media or public agenda Depending on the overall framing around the stories second level agenda setting o Not just what to think but what to think about o Influence of attribute agendas in the news on the public s attribute agenda is the second level of agenda setting Salience Media Framing Selection emphasis elaboration exclusion Some parts left out which should be included o There will always be a frame influences what we think about and what are the most important points Two types Aspects and Central Themes Changing the frame changes the entire meaning of the story Laswell s Three Functions of Mass Media Surveillance of the larger environment o Tells us what s going on in the world Achieving consensus among segments of society o Found increased similarities between demographic groups with increased levels of media use Transmission of the culture o From generation to generation Hardy Political Advertising in U S Presidential Campaigns Messages Targeting and Effects Political Advertising History At first idea was contested Handbills were some of the first forms of political advertising in contested presidential elections in the US Can target specific audiences to receive their messages Political Ads and money TV exceeded radio in ad spending 5 billions dollars was made by TV stations in the last election Examples of controversial political ads Daisy ad from Lyndon Johnson campaign against Barry Goldwater o Suggested that Goldwater would cause nuclear war doesn t say it explicitly 2004 campaign Bush vs John Kerry s proposal to cut intelligence funding Controlling the message and deception Positive ads about person they are campaigning for cruel ads about the opponent Result from the communication environment established by US presidential campaigns the cognitive capacity of average citizens and the argument structure of political advertisements Enthymemes Targeting Voters Based