Agenda-Setting Assignment
5th of November 2012
Agenda-Setting Assignment
In agenda-setting news outlets act as gatekeepers of information. Policy agenda is when the media sets their own agenda based on issues that they think are the most important. And when they decide on these most important issues, they give them the highest importance. The media highlights certain aspects because they believe that these aspects are what we should know; and if there is something they don’t mention, then that’s something that according to them, we shouldn’t know – whether for our benefit or theirs. Despite the simplicity of creating an agenda, every different news outlet has a different agenda, based on their interest or what they believe to be our interest. Something important however to bear in mind is that, even though the media draws our attention to certain issues, they can’t tell us how to think about them – at the end of the day, how you perceive an issue depends on you.
To give examples on how differently agenda-setting can be used, I will talk about two different news sources, an independent one and a national one.
As a national news outlet I will talk about “CNN”. CNN (Cable News Network) is both America’s first news channel as well as the first channel to offer 24-hour coverage. CNN in the United States is sometimes described as CNN/US to differentiate the American Channel from the International one. CNN/US was founded by Ted Turner in 1980, and since then has been one of the worlds leading news outlets.
“The Independent” is an independent, British, morning newspaper owned by Alexander Lebedev with Chris Blackhurst as the current editor in chief. The Independent was first launched in 1986 and holds the title as UK’s youngest daily newspaper.
To analyze different agenda-settings, lets look at two similar news items reported in both of these newspapers and compare their similarities and differences.
Let’s take the picking of Egypt’s new pope as one news story. Both news
Agenda-Setting Assignment
In agenda-setting news outlets act as gatekeepers of information. Policy agenda is when the media sets their own agenda based on issues that they think are the most important. And when they decide on these most important issues, they give them the highest importance. The media highlights certain aspects because they believe that these aspects are what we should know; and if there is something they don’t mention, then that’s something that according to them, we shouldn’t know – whether for our benefit or theirs. Despite the simplicity of creating an agenda, every different news outlet has a different agenda, based on their interest or what they believe to be our interest. Something important however to bear in mind is that, even though the media draws our attention to certain issues, they can’t tell us how to think about them – at the end of the day, how you perceive an issue depends on you.
To give examples on how differently agenda-setting can be used, I will talk about two different news sources, an independent one and a national one.
As a national news outlet I will talk about “CNN”. CNN (Cable News Network) is both America’s first news channel as well as the first channel to offer 24-hour coverage. CNN in the United States is sometimes described as CNN/US to differentiate the American Channel from the International one. CNN/US was founded by Ted Turner in 1980, and since then has been one of the worlds leading news outlets.
“The Independent” is an independent, British, morning newspaper owned by Alexander Lebedev with Chris Blackhurst as the current editor in chief. The Independent was first launched in 1986 and holds the title as UK’s youngest daily newspaper.
To analyze different agenda-settings, lets look at two similar news items reported in both of these newspapers and compare their similarities and differences.
Let’s take the picking of Egypt’s new pope as one news story. Both news