Mass media and setting agendas for the public

Mass media and setting agendas for the public

Mass media can be defined as a media technology meant for a broader audience. Deriving from its name, “mass,” which means many it is, therefore, a means that is intended to share and reach many people within the shortest time. Media is a strong tool of information, education, and entertainment and plays a critical role in disseminating information. The mass media is the most means of communication that the general public relies heavily for information. Mass media tools include radio, newspapers, television, magazine, and the internet, which covers social media platforms.

Apart from educating, entertaining, and informing, the media also plays a significant role in setting agendas for the public. The media does this by creating public awareness and concern of critical and issues of public interest. The television particularly, is a strong media tool given that it combines both audio and visuals and motion, thus becoming more appealing to the audience. The tv, as a news media and as the most preferred media tool by many people, plays the role of agenda-setting by choosing what side of the story to take. Television news editors select between several stories brought in and have the final say on what is to be aired and what is not to be aired. As a result, the television may choose to remain objective and present stories with utmost faith or twist the reality to fit their intended purpose and serve their interests.

With agenda-setting, television channels choose what they want the viewers to perceive as valuable. Through editing, both at the editing room and even at the editorial desk, the editors package the various stories as they prefer giving them their preferred perspectives, which of course, determines how the audience will reason and feel about specific scenarios and incidences be it political, social or even economical. A relevant example is when for instance, when the television channels are covering political events by different political leaders, various television channels will package their stories as they please, and the editors will determine the angles the stories will take. By virtue of the fact that before the news is aired, there are some men and women who will decide how the stories will be presented and which ones of the stories are to be given priority tells how the agenda-setting role of the media impacts directly on the news.

Besides the agenda-setting role of the media, media ownership also affects and directly influences television news significantly. Media ownership is equally a significant component of the media as it provides funding to the media houses. Televisions are as well owned by people who fund them and who equally share in decision making. Television ownership immensely affects the various decisions and the types of news to be aired, and as a result, most television channels will not air stories that will put their owners in a bad light since they have a responsibility to guard the image of their bosses. With the need to protect the public image of the media owner, television news will more often than not tend to bend the truth, especially when the truth is portraying the television owner negatively. As a matter of fact, by choosing not to tell the negative stories of the owners then, it means that the news has been bent to serve the interests of a few people.

With the fact that the mass media platforms are owned by either private individuals or even the government, it, therefore, means that a part of their funding will be from the ownership. Besides other sources such as advertising, the owners also fund the activities of the media organizations, thus determining their scope of operations and media coverage. The owners also decide on the people who work in their organizations. With such an influential role, it is no doubt that most and even all the television channels will serve the interests of their bosses who, as a result, will determine the content of the television news and how the news is to run.

Time compression is yet another significant factor that directly influences television news. Time is a vital resource in the media and, more especially, the television, which relies heavily on visual images and videos. As opposed to other media tools like radio, which uses audios in conveying its messages, the power of television depends on the visuals, which unlike audios, take time and must be organized sequentially to make it easy for the viewers to follow. Given that television space is bought, then the news must be brief and direct to the points to make sure that all the intended programs fit in the television programming. With such a strict and tight rule, it, therefore, means that the news editors are to choose the best stories to run as news and leave the rest and this explains why television news differ from one channel to the other both in the order in which the news is read and the stories covered.

In relation to the factors of ownership, time compression, and agenda-setting role of the media, the consuming hunger documentary is a good example of how the western media and especially television channels covered the 1984 hunger in Africa and that of America. The television series which, is an analysis of how the western media covered and presented the Ethiopian famine and the promotion of the life aid event, analyzes the various interviews with various journalists, cooperate leaders, and news footage. The documentary vividly displays how the above factors played out and how they impacted the news packaging.