Introduction
In 1922, American journalist and social commentator Walter Lippmann ( 1922) suggested that the press is a spotlight that constantly scans the environment for news. As events occur, the spotlight shifts its focus. Lippmann argued that the media’s spotlight selectively frames and creates our mental pictures of the world, a world that is often outside our direct experience. Although his conceptualization of media effects offers a rich foundation for theoretical research, the first generation of scientific mass-communication research ended in 1960 with the publication of Klapper ( 1960) The Effects of Mass Communication, which basically concluded that there are no direct effects of the media on individuals, particularly on attitudes and opinions ( McCombs, 1993).
Against this research tradition, McCombs and Shaw ( 1972) returned to Lippmann’s conceptualization of media effects and tested the specific proposition that through their selection and display of the news, the mass media influence public perception and salience of what are the important issues of the day. More specifically, they argued the causal assertion that over time the priorities of the media become the priorities of the public. This basic premise has spawned more than 200 empirical studies over the last 25 years.
Literature Review
Based on this research tradition, in 1988 Rogers and Dearing modeled a broad conceptualization of the agenda process that incorporates three main components: media agenda setting, in which the main dependent variable is the media’s news agenda; public agenda setting, in which the main dependent variable is the content and order of topics in the public agenda; and policy agenda setting, the distinctive aspect of which is its concern with policy as a response to both the media agenda and the public agenda.The model also comprises three other components: influence agents, such as gatekeepers, influential media, and spectacular news events; personal experience and interpersonal communication about the issue of concern; and real-world cues about the importance of an issue, which offer an objective measure of the severity of the issue devoid of the fictions, or the representations of the issue created by people. This study utilized this model to address the complex sets of relationships concerning the drug issue from 1984 to 1991 in the United States.
The Research paper on Cognitive Dissonance, Media Illiteracy and Public Opinion
Topic – The article ‘Cognitive Dissonance, Media Illiteracy and Public Opinion on News Media’ is examining and discussing public opinion, media illiteracy and cognitive dissonance. The author takes you through a break down on public opinion of newspapers and television news and shows why a lot of the quantitative research taken over the past several decades is in fact invalid. The main purpose of ...
Agenda Setting
Agenda setting is by definition a time-related process, yet it has often been approached as a nonprocess because it has been generally treated as one part of the general quest by mass-communication scholars for media effects. A new component of agenda-setting research turned to ARIMA modeling to address agenda setting as a process and to control for the important mathematical properties of stationarity and autocorrelation in time-series analysis. Again, this study of the drug issue is but a part of this new component of agenda-setting research.
Primarily, this study of the drug issue used Rogers and Dearing ( 1988) broadened agenda-setting model to examine Lippmann ( 1922) concepts of how the media and other influence agents, such as the president, selectively frame perceptions of the reality of the issue. It then incorporated time-series analysis with ARIMA modeling to address key methodological concerns about stationarity and autocorrelation and to unravel the causal order of relationships among the issue’s primary agendas while controlling for the effects of other important measures.
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Management Information Systems Quarterly Volume 10, Number 1, March, 1986 The copyright for this document is owned by the Management Information Systems Quarterly. The article may not be printed out or sold through any service without permission of the Management Information Systems Quarterly [pic]Issues & Opinons Four Ethical Issues of the Information Age by Richard O. Mason Today in western ...
Media coverage of the drug issue was like a steadily rising roller coaster ride, structured by drug issues and events, both real and politically contrived, that plummeted in the early part of 1991. Presidential public-relations efforts were also a roller coaster ride through time, yet took a few more severe dips and turns. Like the media, however, the presidential ride also came to a crawl in the early part of 1991.
In the preproblem stage ( July 1984-May 1986), the media initially structured coverage around the rather unobtrusive, yet concrete, events of the drug-related problems of prominent sports figures, the John deLorean case, and the death of Salazar. These real events captured the media’s attention, although they did not create the public opinion that drugs were the country’s most important problem.
Rogers and Dearing’s agenda-setting model offers a broad conceptualization of the agenda process and incorporates three main components: media agenda setting, in which the main dependent variable is the media’s news agenda; public agenda setting, in which the main dependent variable is the content and order of topics in the public agenda; and policy agenda setting, the distinctive aspect of which is its concern with policy as a response to both the media agenda and the public agenda. The model also comprises three other components: influence agents, such as gatekeepers, influential media, and spectacular news events; personal experience and interpersonal communication about the issue of concern; and real-world cues about the importance of an issue, which offer an objective measure of the severity of the issue devoid of the fictions, or the representations of the issue created by people.
Conclusion
The distinction between issues and events is the foundation for determining how new information affects the restructuring of the media’s agenda over time. If journalists do not have new information about an issue, news coverage will stop. This new information, or event information is necessary for news gatekeepers to consider an “old” issue newsworthy, and the new information must allow journalists to restructure the issue in a new light. When the frequency of monthly media coverage of an issue is plotted over time, the plot is usually a recurring (and sometimes exponential in growth) cycle, with each cycle, or portion of the cycle, representing a restructuring of the issue via event information: “The over-time content of the media coverage of an issue represents not only new information, but also periodic changes in how journalists, editors, and hence viewers and readers, interpret the old issue in light of new information” ( Rogers et al., 1991, pp. 3-4).
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Discuss the relationship between 'Media' and 'Information Technology " The term 'Media' could today be defined as a collective term for television, radio, cinema and the press. The media are nowadays often discussed as a single entity, because of their combined importance as providers of entertainment and information, their presumed power to mould public opinion and set standards and the growth of ...
an event is defined as discrete happenings that are limited by space and time, and an issue is defined as involving cumulative news coverage of a series of related events that fit together in a broad category; that is, events are specific components of issues. Also, this distinction between issues and events is the foundation for an answer to how new information affects the restructuring of the media’s agenda over time. This new information, or event information, is necessary for news gatekeepers to consider an “old” issue newsworthy, and the new information must allow journalists to restructure the issue in a new light. When the frequency of monthly media coverage of an issue is plotted over time, the plot is usually a recurring (and sometimes exponential in growth) cycle, with each cycle, or portion of the cycle, representing a restructuring of the issue via event information.
References
Lippmann W. ( 1922).
Public opinion. New York: Macmillian.
McCombs M. E. ( 1993).
The continuing evolution of agenda setting research. Seoul: Korean Press Institute.
McCombs M. E., & Shaw D. L. ( 1972).
“The agenda-setting function of mass media”. Public Opinion Quarterly, 36,176-184.
McCombs M. E., Einsiedel E., & Weaver D. ( 1991).
Contemporary public opinion: Issues and the news. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Rogers E. M., & Dearing J. W. ( 1988).
“Agenda-setting research: Where it has been, where is it going?” In J. A. Anderson (Ed.), Communication Yearbook 11 (pp. 555-594).
The Business plan on Critical Issues in Managing Information System in Organization
And, each of the four researchers will conduct analysis of four research areas namely new roles of CIO, IS Finance and Investment Management, IT Project Management and Legal Issues. The facts will be analysed and recommendations proposed to improve overall efficiency of the company. 1. 1 Background to the Company Dell is a worldwide information technology company that offers its customers a broad ...
Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Rogers E. M., Dearing J. W., & Chang S. ( 1991, April).
“AIDS in the 1980s: The agenda-setting process of a public issue”. Journalism Monographs, 126.
