Newscasts: Society’s Script
Media and the news present information in a way that definitely influences the way people talk about certain issues. The agenda-setting function theory, is a theory that mentions that the media highlights what issues should be talked about in our society. They shed light on issues they believe are important to hold conversations about and usually what is presented in the media is what the public finds important.
Though I’m one to gather my information via Twitter rather than sitting down to watch the local newscast every evening, when taking the time to do so, clear patterns between the news being presented and the agenda-setting function theory were very evident. It was interesting to see how the topics in the news (and not just the one’s presented on Twitter) can have an impact on our conversations with one another.
Framing is a huge component in the agenda-setting function theory because it refers to only the portions news outlets want us to see in the media. Whichever topic they are talking about, they are choosing to speak about that topic in a certain way. When watching my local news channel, the story about our local school district opening up again for elementary school students was presented. They mentioned that our local school district is preparing to open up for kids as early as April. For many parents, this might be scary, but for others, they might actually want their kids to go back to school in person. What was interesting in this news was that they mainly shed light on the positives of going back to school and the safety measures they’d be taking, as opposed to mentioning potential risks knowing that we are still actively in a global pandemic. The way this news was presented is an example of framing because they took a situation and only presented a certain portion of it, omitting other valuable information many parents would like to be informed about.
In addition, it was interesting to see Lady Gaga being talked about in my local news because I never saw that being relevant to my community. According to my local news, Lady Gaga’s dog walker had been shot and Lady Gaga’s dogs were stolen. Not only did I happen to see this the one time I sat down to watch my local newscast, but I had seen it throughout social media all day as well. Due to the fact that the media is clearly taking the time to talk about Lady Gaga’s stolen dogs over perhaps the discrimination that the Asian community is currently facing, this is clearly an example of priming. Priming refers to the media choosing to cover a news story over other news, which is what I believe is happening in this case.
Lastly, another major news that was shown was the case of a fifteen-year-old murdering an eight-year-old about six years ago. Today, the now twenty-one-year old murderer is considered to be released soon. The news mentioned that if an individual who was under the age of sixteen at the time of the crime, can’t be tried as an adult at any time even after passing the age of eighteen. When I first saw this news what instantly came to mind was issue obtrusiveness because not everyone can have a direct effect by this ruling. Many might not even care for it, but because it is being highlighted in the media, individuals will still be informed about it. This is also closely related to the agenda-setting theory due to the fact that we can see media agenda, public agenda, and policy agenda very much present in this specific news. We see what is currently happening, the news outlets decide whether they want to speak about this news, then they go into the framing process where they determine which specific aspect of the news they want to speak about. After seeing it in the media, viewers will begin to talk about it, which leads to policy agenda, which essentially is the government making decisions based on what the public is talking about. In this case, the state law decision to not try teenagers as adults took place based on the fact that individuals were simply talking about the issue.
It is important to note that not only does media have an effect on what we should believe, but they have an effect on what we should talk about within society. Though the examples previously mentioned were only a portion of what news outlets present, newscasts play a vital role in the conversations we hold today.
