Agenda Setting theory was developed by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw. According to Griffin (2011), McCombs and Shaw believe that the mass media have the ability to transfer the salience of items on their news agendas to the public agenda. This theory refers to mass communications effects which hold that news media, through the editorial selection process, transmit to the public the salience of political objects, which affects the relative importance of these objects to the public. (Kaid & Holtz-Bacha, 2008) According to this theory, the news media do not tell the public what to think, instead they tell the public what to think about. In addition, this theory suggests that the public’s sense of what problems need attention is affected as much
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This is now called the “policy agenda.” The policy agenda is the outcome of the public agenda with the influence of the media agenda. As issues arise, people will protest and write petitions or give complains to the government until they acknowledge the problem and propose a law or a policy that grants, allows or prohibits a certain act. An example of policy agenda is the recent earthquake drill. The news about the earthquake was given full attention and that made the President Benigno Aquino III take action. This cycle is further explained in Stefaan Walgrave’s research, “Towards a general theory of agenda-setting. How preferences, information, and institutions drive agenda-setting,” Walgrave says that “the presence of an issue on the agenda is the precondition for all political decision-making. If political actors do not devote attention to an issue — if the issue is not on the agenda of the parliament, government, courts, or bureaucracy — there will be no political decision and, thus, no policy change. As there is not enough room on the agenda of any policy-making institution to pay attention to every issue that could be considered, the process by which issues rise to the agenda is important (n.d., p.
This is now called the “policy agenda.” The policy agenda is the outcome of the public agenda with the influence of the media agenda. As issues arise, people will protest and write petitions or give complains to the government until they acknowledge the problem and propose a law or a policy that grants, allows or prohibits a certain act. An example of policy agenda is the recent earthquake drill. The news about the earthquake was given full attention and that made the President Benigno Aquino III take action. This cycle is further explained in Stefaan Walgrave’s research, “Towards a general theory of agenda-setting. How preferences, information, and institutions drive agenda-setting,” Walgrave says that “the presence of an issue on the agenda is the precondition for all political decision-making. If political actors do not devote attention to an issue — if the issue is not on the agenda of the parliament, government, courts, or bureaucracy — there will be no political decision and, thus, no policy change. As there is not enough room on the agenda of any policy-making institution to pay attention to every issue that could be considered, the process by which issues rise to the agenda is important (n.d., p.