Agenda-Setting Campaigns in The Media: According to MAXWELL E. McCOMBS, DONALD L. SHAW
When choosing and displaying news, editors, newsroom staff, and broadcasters play an important part in shaping political reality. Readers learn not only about a given issue, but also how much importance to attach to that issue from the amount of information in a news story and its position. In reflecting what candidates are saying during a campaign, the mass media may well determine the important issues—that is, the media may set the “agenda” of the campaign.[.pdf]
The existential threat today is not a foreign invasion, but an agenda-driven “news” organization. Gone are the days where the “News” organization in America could not give personal biased opinions on a subject for fear of losing Journalistic objectivity.
Most of the “News” we consume today is skewed toward one political viewpoint or another, depending on party loyalty or personal view.3 types of agenda-setting: Policy-makers, Media and Audience
See also: Political warfare, Media bias, Yellow journalism, Sensationalism, and Public relations Spin
How We Got To Media Polarization
The fairness doctrine of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, was a policy that required the holders of broadcast licenses to both present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was—in the FCC’s view—honest, equitable, and balanced. wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine
- The Death of the Fairness Doctrine
- Ronald Reagan’s Federal Communications Commission abolished the Fairness Doctrine, clearing the path for the emergence of Fox News.
More and more Americans gravitate to news sources they agree with instead of news that is fair or balanced.
An example of how the media can sway public opinion.
Today the most polarising topic is China. So we will look at news organizations and how they cover the news from said country. Below we provide a typical list of current news from Western news organizations regarding the targeted country China.
The U.S FOX NEWS Network is custom-tailored for Conservative viewers.
Below we look at a steady stream of anti China articles from FOXNEWS.
Sky News Australia
Sky News Australia is the Australian equivalent of the American FoxNews. Both organizations essentially push the same narrative. Most of the News About China is negative and one-sided.
Sky News UK
Sky News is a British free-to-air television news channel and organisation. The News Organization is catered to conservative audience. What we see below is “Opinion run News” masquerades as legitimate news.
What we see from Western Media is the constant dissemination of negative news about China. Not one contrary news articles that question the narrative.
All announcements from the Western Governments are considered facts without question, any journalist that questions or deviates from the narrative lose access to press meetings.
- Trump suspends CNN analyst’s credentials in another shot at the press
- White House revokes press passes for dozens of journalists: an unprecedented move, the White House revoked the press passes of a significant chunk of the Washington press corps because they didn’t meet a new standard, according to Washington Post
- Obama Administration: AP’s White House staff: Press losing presidential access as Obama officials close doors
Note: Under both Republican and Democrat administration, the press had to maintain appeasement for access.
Commander in Chief Donald John Trump
Trump has been using China as his perfect scapegoat for most of America’s problems, something his conservative audiences are readily receptive to hearing during his many T.V appearances.
Consequences Of Bias News
One of the Consequences Of Bias News is it shapes people’s perception and views of a subject. In turn, it can have negative implications or consequences against a people that happen to be from any given country or ethnic group targeted by the bias news.
Yellow Peril
Xenophobia is not something new to most western countries, in fact it has a long history.
Yellow Peril
The Yellow Peril (also the Yellow Terror and the Yellow Specter) is a racist color-metaphor that misrepresents the peoples of East Asia as an existential danger to the Western world.[2] As a psycho-cultural menace from the Eastern world, fear of the Yellow Peril is racial, not national. The new Yellow Peril?
Sinophobia
Anti-Chinese sentiment or Sinophobia. In places where Chinese people constitute a minority — such as Europe, the United States and Australia — sinophobia seems to be incited by harmful stereotypes that classify Chinese people as dirty and uncivilized. Headlines such as “New Yellow Peril,” “China Virus Panda-monium” and “China kids stay home” have prevailed in Western newspapers. – Dailycal.org
Pushback from China CGTN
Media Soft Power. After facing continues negative news from the West, CGTN has taken to YouTube to give it’s own side of the story.
CGTN, formerly known as CCTV-9 and CCTV News, is an international English-language news channel based in Beijing owned by China Central Television, a state-owned broadcaster.
Closing Thoughts on Agenda-Setting Campaigns in the Media.
Agenda-Setting Campaigns are a form of propaganda because they lack neutrality and only show one side of the issue. Thus leaving viewers to believe there is no other alternative to the one–sided version of the facts.
News Organizations should go back to reporting and doing investigative journalism and keep opinions away from the front page. Although today China is the primary country receiving the negative and bias news, it can easily be turned on any other country, group, or people.
[…] They point out something painfully obvious to most critical thinking individuals, that is, western Media is bias. […]
[…] breaks down the way the Western Media portrays China to its western audiences. Basically western agenda-setting news gets […]
Comments are closed.