Media And Politics: Agenda Setting And Framing Essay Example

the public, but "in most instances the media severs as conduits for agenda-setting efforts by competing groups and forces" (Ginsberg, Lowi & Weir, 1999, p. 298). To gain public support, groups and forces need media coverage to promote their ideas. However, the media has great control over which issues they televise. The issues must have media appeal or be considered newsworthy.

The media also influences how the public perceives issues. The placement of political issues during news coverage influences the importance of political issues on society. The ranking of media issues and society's ranking suggest that the media influence the public (Weaver, 1996). The importance of an issue may rests on its time slot, sequence in the news story, or in the advertisement for the news.

Another way media frames political issues is inserting media's own position on the issue. The media's position tends to be more liberal and promotes more democratic policies and issues. This bias coverage stems from a long growing relationship between the media and liberal forces (Ginsberg, Lowi ; Weir, 1999). However, any bias can distort new coverage and influence audiences in that direction.

Political Events and Campaigns

The media brings public attention to political events and campaigns. However,

the media influence how events are interpreted by the public. The media's own bias or preference can slant the stores in one direction or another and thus influence how people perceive the events or the results. Some elements are left in while others are left out and some elements are emphasized while others are de-emphasized. All these factors contribute to how we process the story. (Ryan & Wentworth, 1999).

In campaigns, the media does not focus on

explaining the differences among candidates and the implications of these differences, focusing instead on style, tactics, and strategy. New coverage is reduced to personality contests and mud slinging. Complicated issues and events often are trivialized into easily dramatized conflicts between personalities, and slanderous ad campaigns. The mediated campaigns have little effect on public opinion about candidate's issues and policies, but influence public perception of candidate's image. (Weaver, 1996)

Conclusion

The media uses several methods to shape public perception of political figures, events, or issues. However the media cannot directly change public opinion. People obtain political information through other non-mediated sources such as their family, friends, peers, and social groups. Personal difference including education, socioeconomic status, and political efficacy changes the way people process mediated, political information.

Access to other sources and differences in the public "lessen the media's ability to force an agenda on an unwilling public" (Stuckey, 1999, 100). The low voter turnout and political participation are indicators of a disenfranchised public who see the "trivialization of politics by politicians and those who cover them" (Stuckey, 1999, 103). For those who seek it, political information is available through alternative mediated sources which are less slanted, bias, and superficial.

Bibliography

Ginsberg, B., Lowi, T. J., & Weir, M. (1999). The media. We the people:

An introduction to American politics. (pp. 274-311). New York:

W. W. Norton & co, Inc.

Stuckey, M. E. (2000, Spring). Here we go again: Presidential elections and the national media.

Perspectives on Political Science, 29 (2), 99-104.

Ryan, J., & Wentworth, W. M. (1999). "Mass media effects II: Societal effects."

Media and society: The production of culture in the mass media, (pp. 65-85).

Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon.

Weaver, D.H. (1996, July). What voters

learn from the media.

Annals of the American Academy of Political & Social Science, 546, 34-48.