"The press may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its reader what to think about."- Bernard Cohen
Ok so there are four different types of agendas:
1.
Public Agenda- what you and I think are
important issues
2.
Policy Agenda- what decision makers like Gillard
& Co. think is important
3. Corporate Agenda- what big businesses think is
important
4.
Media Agenda- the issues we see on tv and hear
on the radio ect.
All these things are interrelated. Here is a nifty diagram
to show how:
I thought I was impressive in finding this diagram, only to
realise that it was actually used in the PowerPoint.
The mass media do not merely
reflect and report reality, they filter and shape it. Media concentration on a
few issues and subjects leads the public to perceive those issues as more
important than other issues.
That is a massive responsibility that has been placed in our
hands. We have the power, as journalists, to completely sway the opinion of an
entire culture. We’ve seen this happen over in the US. I’m in no way an expert
on US government however I have seen the incredibly bias yet extremely good
documentary by Michael Moore called “Outfoxed”. In short, Murdoch and George W Bush
were good mates and, as most people know, Murdoch owns Fox News. During the
election campaign Murdoch, in his plight to be “fair and balanced”, aired
footage depicting Bush to be a fallen angel whilst showing his rival at the
time, Al Gore, to be a bumbling idiot who didn’t know much about anything. With
a cousin, or some long lost relative of Mr Bush working in conjunction with Fox
News, prematurely announcing that Bush had won a crucial seat in one of the
states, critics say that Fox News actually won Bush the election. Don’t quote
me on that however it’s easy to see that the power of one man and his agenda
quickly translating into the public agenda.
Where did all this power come from? I’m sure there are
examples from earlier however I think the one that stands out was coined by
Adolf Hitler and Leni Riefenstahl. Riefenstahl knew what she was doing when she
made the propaganda films for Hitler during the Second World War. In hindsight
it seems ridiculous that Hitler could convince and justify his actions to an
entire country but the power of images should never be underestimated. When we
look back in fifty years will there be something that we will feel ashamed
about believing, a secret agenda that we were oblivious to?
I applaud the ABC and SBS sometimes. They appear somewhat
immune to the ‘bandwagon’ effect you hear about when talking about the media’s
agenda setting. When the head honchos’ of Channel Nine and Ten (I pick on TV
because they are easy examples) walk into their meetings and ask “What are we
going to talk about today lads?” I’m sure the response would be “Well, what do
people want to hear about? Kony, Justin Bieber or oh wait, what about that
YouTube clip of those babies yelling at each other, that made me lol! Heck, as
long as we make some money on it, who cares?” It’s not about what we want to
hear, it should be about what we need to
hear. No one had even heard of Kony or the terrible things he was doing before
that clip came out. Not going to lie, even I got swept up in the whole fan fair
of it all and it wasn’t until the ABC gave some alternative viewpoints that I
started read and see and listen to reports with a grain of salt. High five ABC
for pulling some heads in.
I wrote a few weeks ago that violence sells, ‘if it bleeds,
it leads,’ which I still agree with but I’m now aware of why. Public, policy,
corporate and media agendas and how they all interrelate as well as the
influence they possess, blows my tiny first year mind. I really feel as though
we have a massive responsibility as journalists to shape the way that the
public think. We are the voice to the politicians, we shouldn’t be manipulated
by spin because then the public will be too. We decide what’s important, Bieber
and Kony are only important because we made them that way. If we hate the way
media perceives issues, why don’t we just change it?
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