THEORY 4: Agenda-Setting and Framing (Week 6)

To begin with, media has a big influence on its audience as the content of the media, be it printed or electronic is capable of spreading the news within just in a blink of an eye. Particularly, media and communication professionals such as journalist must be able to decide what type of content that they want to inform the audience so that the right ‘agenda’ can be selected to highlight a certain issue.  Cohen (1963) stated that the media had much greater capacity to influence which issues were perceived as important. 

The importance and interpretation of people attach to potential items on the public agenda are strongly influenced by how the media present news stories (Chyi & McCombs, 2004). The framing of the content will take place once an agenda had been chosen. It is very crucial that framing must have a narrative fidelity because it will be a good frame thus the content can elevate people’s concern about life.

The text below will illustrate how agenda-setting and framing can be applied.

The Minister of Health of a country "X" is very concerned that the older citizens are spitting and urinating in public places and the younger generation believes that to be a cultural norm. This will adversely affect the image and economy of the country as foreign companies will be less willing to invest in a country that cannot manage public deviance that fosters an unhealthy environment. The government believes that public education must start immediately.

At the same time, a public survey was recently conducted by an independent body and the predominant public concern is the lack of primary schools for younger children who are working and running amok in the streets, which is causing a rise in criminal activities. The public believes that public education must begin with the development of schools so that a higher educated population will curb the acts of social deviance. In the long run, these changes will attract investors and help the economy.

In this case, a journalist may choose government agenda as a priority in the article. Government agenda becomes a priority because the government points out that the development of the nationwide and welfare of the public depends on economic and environmental health. On top of all the issues in country ‘X’ the journalist is focusing on the issue of unhealthy environment in country ‘X’ such as urinating and spitting. Thus, the journalist decides to highlight it as a priority because this may lead to bad image and reputation of country ‘X’. Moreover it could also affect the public’s health. For instance, “Spitting and Urinating in Public is a common Sight across X” is the heading for his article to draw attention to the issue. Therefore, clarification of set of problems or issues is called frame amplification.

After frame amplification, the journalist must extend or widen the issue by pointing out that the public lifestyle will be better if the environmental pollution is at minimal. Moreover, he can put in more ideas into the case such as the measures taken by the government to reduce the environmental pollution or creating public awareness on the adverse effects of the pollution in long term. This framing process is known as frame extension where the journalist adds ideas or issues to an argument. After that, frame bridging process takes place. Frame bridging is the linkage of two or more ideas which is similar to frame extension. In this case, the frame bridging is the foreign investors will be interested to invest in country ‘X’ if the government implements effective actions in preventing public urination and spitting thus the money can be used to develop both education and health sectors.

In conclusion, different people will have a different priority on what they deicde to frame. But, it deosn’t mean that the journalists are trying to make a wrong speculation or mislead their audiences (Scheufele & Tewksburry, 2007). 

References

Chyi, Hsiang Iris & McCombs, M. (2004). Media salience and the process of framing: coverage of the Columbine school shootings. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 81(1): 22-35.

Cohen, Bernard C. (1963). The press and foreign policy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Scheufele & Tewksbury (2007). Framing, Agenda Setting, and Priming: The Evolution of Three Media Effects Models. Journal of Communication.