Agenda Setting Research

United Airlines was first formed by the partnership of United Aircraft and Transport Corporation. This establishment formed on July 1, 1931 and was advertised as “world’s largest air transport system.” Not only did United Airlines fly commercially, but they also helped out during World War II. In the beginning of May 1942, United began to service to Alaska and across the Pacific Ocean in order to help the troops. Even over the many years of development, United is still of the top three airlines (History of Airlines). United Airlines has been using theories ever since they were formed in 1931. One of those theories is Agenda-Setting. This theory has been around ever since the 1920s when a public opinion scholar, Walter Lippmann’s stated, “Pictures in our heads.” He was referring to the media and how they don’t tell us what to think, but what to think about. McCombs and Shaw were the professionals behind the true beginning of Agenda-Setting. They created this theory in their study during the three-presidential election. They focused on …show more content…
One of the main occurrences that Agenda-Setting was used, was during United Airlines Public relations crisis. In April 2017, a man was violently dragged off a United plane because they needed seats for crew workers. The video of the man being dragged off the plane was releases and United Airlines became a top priority for the media. This is when Agenda-Setting comes into play, because the media was not telling the viewers what to think, but how to think about it. By the media using certain words such as, “horrified” or “traumatic” the viewers don’t really get an opinion for themselves (Domonoske, 2017). They are already being told how to think about this incident because the media wants them to feel bad for the guy. In the study, we will go into more detail about how the Agenda-Setting makes the viewers