According to Wikipedia, agenda setting theory is defined as "the theory that the mass-news-media have a large influence on their audiences by their choice of what stories to consider newsworthy and how much prominence and space to give them." Agenda setting theory is valid in terms of influencing the public unknowingly. When the news or other such mass media, promotes a certain topic, it becomes more important in the public eye; making it seem that the more something is discussed in the media, the more important it is. This causes people who are already well informed on a certain subject either unsure or change their mind. There are positive and negative influeces of agenda setting. The positive is that people who are clueless are filled in on certain issues, but the negative is that the media sways them in one direction with regards to the issue. Wikipedia states, "The two basic assumptions underlie most research on agenda-setting are that the press and the media do not reflect reality, they filter and shape it, and the media concentration on a few issues and subjects leads the public to perceive those issues as more important than other issues." This basically means that the media is highly influencial on important issues--rather than giving blunt information, they give you selected information to think just like them. I think that the news is heavily influencial, especially if you only watch/read one broadcasting company's views. A lot of times, people watch different news broadcasts on different channels in order to get different information which then demonstrate all the different views. Even with corporate issues, public issues, and governmental issues are all disected and then projected to the public--in the way that the mass media corp. wants it. There seems to be no balance between this, which greatly changes the way people think.
In an interview with Herbert Gans, PressThink focused on what Gans believes to be a multiperspectival viewpoint in journalism. Herbert Gans is a top sociologist in news along with being the author of Deciding with News. He studies the tactics, rules, ideologies, and the writing style of most journalists--and how they influences media. Gans states in his interview with PressThink, "Journalists should be covering politically relevant activities of all social strata, economic classes, races, and so on— which means that journalism has to be more than about the issues and problems that concern the white middle class mainstream." What he is trying to say is that journalism needs to be versitle and well-roundedly written--with information from all viewpoints. I have to agree with Herbert Gans that journalists must provide all sorts of information, and must definitely put a limit on how far they go with concealing certain points. It almost seems unfair, but when thinking practically, there is bound to be bias in the media.Here is a video called, "How the News Works." This video points out the flaws in the news media and they way it affects the public. The video demonstrates agenda setting in use, along with how some corporations conceal certain information but then focus on others.
Sources:
YouTube. UpdocFilms. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pajKfN9VP8
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. "Agenda-setting Theory." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda-setting_theory
Jay Rosen. PressThink Media, http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2004/01/13/interview_gans.html
