THE AGENDA SETTING THEORY

According to the main proponents of the Agenda Setting Theory, Maxwell McCombs and Donald l. Shaw (1972), the media, particularly the news media, through its manufacturing processes gives much prominence to certain socio-political and economic issues to the neglect of other important issues.


The public pick these issues as projected salient by the media, put prominence on it and it forms the basis of discussion throughout the day. The Theory according to Bernard Cohen (1963) says, the media (mainly the news media) aren’t always successful at telling us what to think, but they are quiet successful at telling us what to think about.

A good example is the actions surrounding the O.J case and the Clinton scandal. Some people believed O.J was guilty and others believed he was innocent. Some believed Clinton should have been impeached, and others thought otherwise. The media was thus not extremely successful in telling us what to think on these issues, but most Americans believed these were both important issues for along period of time.



Weaknesses of the Agenda Setting Theory are that; sometimes the media gives prominence to certain frivolities to the neglect of other important issues. It tries to direct the publics’ focus to these frivolities. For instance, instead of highlighting issues like, how to help farmers in the village to get their crops to the big cities in order to boost agriculture upon which the country derives most of its profits, they would rather go about giving prominence to less-important issues like beauty pageant shows.

Again, as a limitation the theory focuses only on the presentation of issues during election campaigns and the willingness of voters to listern to issues presented by the media but fails to evaluate the degree to which mass media is able to raise issues and attract information-seeking audience on its own.

Lastly though the Agenda Setting Theory has predictive power which states that if people are exposed to the same media, they will feel the same issues are important, it can be proven false. If people are not exposed to the same media, they won't feel the same issues are important.