Agenda-Setting - Unconfirmed Theory or Real Phenomenon?

Abstract

Each day the media filters information, making a set hierarchy of importance. Media agenda has a great influence on the point of view of most ofthe viewers who get most oftheir world knowledge from mass media. This phenomenon is called the agenda-setting process or the day-order theory. Research on this subject on a wild scale was conducted by two professors, Maxwell McCombs and Donald Show. As a result of those experiments the researchers reached the conclusion that the media has an influence on what we are supposed to think. A great role in setting the media agenda play gatekeepers - journalists who decide what information are crucial for society. After al it is them who political parties and advocacy groups are trying to reach making pseudo-events. As a result of further analysis attention was pointed to the second level of agenda-setting which infers to the features and properties of specific messages. Receiving them from the media, we create certain images in our minds. Despite many years ofresearch the agenda-setting theory is still a big riddle and requires further consideration. Many of its aspects pose a challenge to future communicology.