Agenda-Setting And Framing Theory

This paper will deliberate the two theories of agenda-setting and framing. Although these theories are related, they are different in how they explain certain concepts in communication within media and society. Agenda-setting is a theory that says that more frequently covered topics in news and media result in the belief from the audience that these topics are more important . The framing theory refers to how audience’s thoughts on issues are shaped directly in relation to how media and news cover them . Agenda setting was presented as a theory in 1972 by Donald Shaw and Maxwell McCombs. The theory claims that whatever media covers more frequently is what the overall public sees as important. To elaborate, the more an issue is covered in mass …show more content…
citizens who believe our economy is the top problem facing our country today is at an all-time low. The percentage is the lowest it has been since 2007. This result is rooted in a trend of Americans disregarding economic issues and concentrating instead on immigration and healthcare. According to the poll, 75% of Americans believe a noneconomic issue is the largest problem facing the U.S. The poll’s results found that a mere 8% of Americans claim the economy is the nation’s number one problem. The results of this poll were collected in October 2016, which was when media coverage of Donald Trump’s presidential election was at its peak. This is a huge distinction from 2008 to 2012, when fears from economic uncertainties were on American’s minds much more than immigration and healthcare issues . What this shows is agenda setting in media coverage because from 2008 to 2012 the recession and the nation’s unemployment rate was the main focus in the media. This resulted in a panic across the country as citizens were exposed to repeated coverage on the downfall of the stock market and plummeting house prices. In 2016, the presidential election of Donald Trump was excessively covered as well as his views on immigration and healthcare. Therefore, people’s views on which issues were more important changed as well. The theory of agenda setting is shown because of the correlation between what is covered in mass media …show more content…
The poll claims that the percentage of U.S. citizens who think an economic issue is the biggest problem facing the nation right now is at an all-time low. The theory of agenda setting used coverage in mass media to prioritize American’s thoughts. However, the framing theory could provide an argument that the reason for this shift is because mass media chooses to direct their audience’s attention on specific facets of noneconomic and economic issues. Presentation and language all come in to play when deciding how to frame a particular news story. When the audience is only given one side of a story they may end up inaccurately comparing stories in their mind, as a direct result of how the issue was “framed”. For example, Gallup’s poll results might be because of mass media’s discriminatory coverage on economic problems that are facing the country. It is possible that the news chose to highlight noneconomic problems as more serious which resulted in audiences believing immigration and healthcare to be of utmost importance. We can even see how episodic coverage could have hindered audiences from making a connection between issues and result in the failure to see a link between them. Through the framing theory and the understanding of episodic and thematic coverage, how the results of Gallup’s poll could have been influenced can be easily explained. While different,