Agenda Setting

     Agenda setting is how the media agenda will cause the public agenda (aka-media tells everyone else what is important).  Thus, topics that are given much coverage in newspapers and television are the same topics that people think are important issues.  Three related agendas are taken into the discussion of agenda setting:
1) Media agenda-  topics given by media sources.
2) Public agenda- the set of topics that the members of the public deem are important.
3) Policy agenda- issues that decision makers think are salient.

     Miller (2007) argues that these three agendas can be viewed as dependent variables in a causal equation; thus, they are interrelated.
     Several factors are related to using this theory.  First, is orientation.  This is the combo of interest and uncertainty in an issue.  Secondly, is issue obstrusiveness.  A topic is obstrusive if the audience has had direct contact with the issue.  ( Foreign Policy is nonobstrusive and teenage pregnancy is).  Framing is the last factor this blog will mention and this is when the media emphasizes some issues and downplays others.
     Critiques of this theory include the fact that some scholars do not even look at this like a theory at all; they consider it to be more like a model.  The fact the this theory is simple contributes to it's "fruitfulness" and critiques.
For more information:
Miller, K. (2007). Communication Theories: Perspectives, Processes, and Contexts. McGraw-Hill publishing.