Setting the Agenda, somewhat.

"In truly effective thinking, the prime necessity is to liquidate judgments, regain an innocent eye, disentangle feelings, and be open-hearted." - Lippman

It starts here, with a lackluster opening sentence emphasising my inability to today write coherently. Next, a somewhat irrelevant pre-amble regarding the various happenings which occurred in the lead-up to this, the most recent lecture, whilst punctuating every other word with only-slightly relevant adjectives which serve to only further highlight the aforementioned inability, before mercifully continuing on to the actual topic.

(Segue to dowdy journalism student discussing said-topic)

AGENDA SETTING!
Fun stuff, to be sure. 

Basically, it was an information overload. From setting the four basic agendas, (public, policy, corporate and media) Bruce then proceeded to branch into a plethora of sub-topics, each working as a veritable piece to the overall puzzle that is 'Agenda Setting.' But what IS it, and where the deuce did the term come from? 

A pun, for the well read / versed / spoken watched.

Well kids, in the fall of 1968, Uncle Max McCombs and Donald Shaw conducted an 'experiment' during the presidential election campaign in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Surveying 100 undecided voters, they asked what voters believed to be the main 'issues' that the running candidates should focus on addressing. This data was compared with recent political-related media content, and what they found was a significant trend towards the media emphasising a subject or topic, and the public's opinion on the matter. Therefore, the media was seen to be setting the agenda with which the public cried foul on the politicians. More than 40 years on, and this still occurs.

Agenda Setting: The more coverage an issue receives, the more important it is to the people.

Once my peers and I had achieved a basic understanding of the concept, we were inevitably force-fed with the aforementioned sub-topics. Fortunately they were fairly easy to grasp, and even easier to summarise...

• Media Gatekeeping
• Media exposure and control of content.
• Media Advocacy
• Purposeful prevention of a message.
• Agenda Cutting
• Majority isn't represented.
• Media attention invariably translates to public interest.
• Agenda Surfing (Bandwagon Effect)
• Media follows crowd trends.
• Existing public opinion causes bandwagon effect. (see: Kony2012)
• News Diffusion
• Process of communication between media and public.
• Issue Portrayal
• Alternating representation of similar topics.
• Influence public perception.
• Media Dependence
• The more we are dependent on the media for information, the more susceptible we are to altered perceptions; hence agenda setting.

In essence, it has become even harder in today's society to trust in your own opinion. Because of the levels of generalised agenda setting that have become commonplace in all forms of news-related content, there is a stark difference between knowing what is happening, and knowing what you are being told is happening. 

" The press may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about." - Bernard Cohen