Agenda Setting and Framing 

Agenda Setting Theory is concerned with explaining the extent to which the amount of media coverage of an issue has an impact upon the public’s attention to, and interest in, that issue (Watts, 2010). Media has a large influence on audiences by their choice of what stories are newsworthy and how much prominence and space to give them (Watts, 2010).

News surrounding the Michael Jackson’s or MJ’s Death is an example of Agenda Setting theory.  During this historic event, the media was all about it.  The media place MJ’s Death story in a full page, colour articles and top stories on news programming that made it clear that people should place this event as important issues.  Some suggests that MJ’s death is a fake and some wondering the cause of his death. Therefore, the media aren’t very successful in telling us what to think, but they are stunningly successful in telling us what to think about. As McCombs and Shaw stated, “We judge as important what the media judge as important.”

McCombs also stated that the media can do more than that. It can influence the people and one of the ways is through framing. Framing is the selection of a restricted number of thematically related attributes for inclusion on the media agenda when a particular object or issue is discussed (Griffin, 2012). Below is an example of a story in Country X. If a journalist wants to write an article about it, how should he or she write it? What are the key ideas to frame?

The Minister of Health of country “X” is very concerned that the older citizens are spitting and urinating in public places and the younger generation believes that to be a cultural norm. This will adversely affect the image and economy of the country as foreign companies will be less willing to invest in a country that cannot manage public deviance that fosters an unhealthy environment. The government believes that public education must start immediately. At the same time, a public survey was recently conducted by an independent body and the predominant public concern is the lack of primary schools for younger children who are working and running amok in the streets, which is causing a rise in criminal activities. The public believes that public education must begin with the development of schools so that a higher educated population will curb the acts of social deviance. In the long run, these changes will attract investors and help the economy. 

A journalist may take policy agenda (government agenda) as his or her priority in an article. From the text above, he may frame on the unhealthy environment in X i.e. spitting and urinating, how this environment may affect the country’s image and economy, and also how to cater the needs of the public. He may come up with a catchy heading such as “Spitting and Urinating in Public is a Common Sight across X”.

The journalist may also need to outline the framing strategies. He could start with frame amplification, which is clarification of a set of a problems or issues. In this case, he may concentrate on public’s poor manner as one of the causes to the unhealthy environment and its economic downturn. Next, he could do frame extension. It refers to adding ideas or issues to an argument. Therefore, he should add ideas like the government of country X should introduce measures to curb the poor behaviour of the public. This may be done so by penalising the public for spitting and urinating in public, banned those behaviours, or use media to teach or create awareness on good manners to the citizens.

Hence, framing is not an option (Griffin, 2012). Journalists inevitably frame a story with the personal attributes of public figures they select to describe (Griffin, 2012). However, this does not mean, of course, that most journalists try to spin a story or deceive their audiences (Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007). In fact, framing, for them, is a necessary tool to reduce the complexity of an issue, given the constraints of their respective media related to news holes and airtime (Gans, 1979).



References

Griffin, E. (2012). A First Look At Communication Theory 8th Edition. New York: McGraw Hill.

Scheufele & Tewksbury (2007). Framing, Agenda Setting, and Priming: The Evolution of Three Media Effects Models. Journal of Communication.

Watts, D. (2010). Dictionary of American Government and Politics. Edinburgh University Press Ltd.