Feature Article

Who’s Setting Your Agenda?

By Philip Ard

Today’s world is rapidly shrinking thanks to vast improvements in communication technology. This technology allows information to be instantaneously transferred across vast distances facilitating our global society. As a result, the modern world has become saturated by media in all its forms. One only has to look out the window to see people standing on desolate street corners plugged into iPods, playing handheld video games or watching downloaded television programs as five-minute-old newspapers scuttle about their feet after having been quickly ravaged for all pertinent information. Landscapes have become oceans of advertisement while radio and satellite signals broadcasting the latest in audio/visual news and entertainment permeate every square inch of air and space. In a society so inundated by a litany of mediated information and twenty-four hour news, what effect does this have on how individuals perceive the important issues of the day? Agenda setting theory states that the media coverage supplies consumers with cues to what issues are important and how one should perceive these issues.

Because of its agenda-setting ability, the media becomes an all powerful tool in shaping the world of international relations. Wanta, Golan and Lee conducted a study in order to determine what correlation, if any, existed between the amount of coverage a country received and public opinion (Agenda Setting and International News: Media Influence on Public Perceptions of Foreign Nations, 2004) . They found that countries receiving the greatest amount of media attention were perceived by the public to have the greatest amount of importance to national interests and that those portrayed more negatively were also viewed more negatively by the public. This becomes problematic as the media relies heavily on the Pentagon, the State Department and the White House, as primary sources in the vast majority of international news stories.

The major downside to media reliance on this “Golden Triangle” of government sources is that it limits the perspectives given to international events as few alternative sources are provided to contradict or validate the government’s position. Routines of news generation, particularly the heavy reliance on government sources for information on international events, have precariously placed the power to influence public agenda in the hands of the government. This limited perspective is what media scholar Lance Bennett referred to as indexing. This is the idea that issues debated in the media range only as far as they are debated by those in power. The ensuing consequence is that events not discussed by those in power are not discussed in the media thus leading them to be perceived as less important.

This presented an enormous problem after September 11, 2001 when the media turned to the Golden Triangle for an explanation of what had happened and why. At a critical turning point in U.S. foreign policy the media offered no critical look at alternative explanations and courses of action. As a result, the media essentially became a soap box for the government to spew its rhetoric of “they hate us for our freedom” thus facilitating the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

This power to manipulate the public consciousness makes it imperative for viewers to scrutinize international news with a discerning eye. Advances in communication technology have provided a deluge of information which allows the media consumer to seek out additional points of view that flow from the multitude of alternative media sources. By doing so, one becomes less susceptible to the government’s agenda and a more responsible and well rounded member of society.