Does Agenda-Setting Limit Society's Power to Seek Information?

The mass media act as the gatekeepers of information that is released to the general public. The controversy surrounding this issue addresses whether the agenda-setting function of today’s mass media has effectively narrowed media consumers’ ability to be interested in, and actively seek information relating to important topics such as war, genocide, politics, and international issues.
For my topic, I was researching whether the agenda-setting function of the mass media limits our ability and interest to seek information about important issues that may not be given high levels of salience in the mass media.
One side of the controversy would argue that agenda-setting DOES limit our ability to seek important information, therefore does act as a form of social control. The main concern of the mass media is not informing the public, but is generating high profit and high ratings. Therefore, they focus on entertainment related news over hard news, because that is what is most popular. The agenda-setting function of the media tells us not what to think, but what to think about, so if the media tells us about Britney Spears and Eliot Spitzer’s affair, that is what we’ll think about. If these issues are assigned a high level of importance by the mass media, media consumers will be disinclined to search for other issues to real importance such as issues relating to politics or world conflict. This side of the argument is reflected in the statistics on Google Trends, which keeps record of what people are searching for. Over a one month period of time, the majority of the top 50 searches everyday were related to entertainment news. In every US subregion, people searched exponentially more for “Lindsay Lohan” over “Barack Obama.”
The other side of the controversy would argue that the agenda-setting function doesn’t limit our ability to seek information. With increasing access to the internet, the public has free access to serious news source web sites such as NYT.com, cnn.com, and BBC.com. There are millions of web blog users which reflects how society is seeking information through alternative outlets as opposed to traditional media sources. Besides just web blogs, there has been an increase in readership and subscriptions to many serious news magazines such as The Economist and The New Yorker.
In my opinion, our ability to search for information is not compromised, but our ability to search for important “hard” issues has been. The media reports heavily on entertainment news, so society holds these “soft” stories to high importance which is reflected by the internet search patterns of Americans. I think the only way to break this cycle is to understand how the agenda-setting function of the media works, and to understand that the mass media does not necessarily have the public’s interests at the forefront of their reporting scope.



Searches for "New York Times" are declining, while searches for entertainment website "perezhilton" are rising.
You can compare other trends at : Googletrends.com
Look at the top 50 Google Search trends here: http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends?sa=X ... notice that the majority of them are related to some form of entertainment news... not much related to hard news stories.

What do people care about? Entertainment or world issues? The mass media pays a great deal attention to entertainment news... reflected here:

Angelina Jolie vs. Darfur Genocide. I don't think it's because people don't care... it's because people don't know. Why don't they know? Because of the media's agenda-setting, which proves just how useful it can be in social control.

But... there is an huge increase in the trade of information on web blogs.

This takes alot of the power out of the hands of the mass media and puts the power into the media consumer's hands. This effectually reduces the affects of agenda setting on how we seek information.

The Tribulations of Global Image Promotion

“Advertising that works in one country could very well wind up inhibiting sales in another.”
-Rodman p. 444

When a product sells well in one country because of a great advertising campaign, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will sell equally well in another country with the same campaign. This demonstrates how advertising executives need to be creative with their products and take into account many factors regarding their audience so as to streamline their message in the best way possible. Advertisers need to know their consumer demographic and understand how to manipulate that consumer demographic’s wants to sell more product.
I recently ran into an example of how advertising campaigns work differently in different countries based on conflicting projections of the “ideal beauty.” During my travels in South and Southeast Asia last year, I observed many advertisements for beauty products such as lotions, creams, deodorants, and face washes. In SE Asia, all the advertisements I saw were for “whitening” skin products. According to the advertisements, people would be able to see a considerable change in the lightness of their skin color after use. The advertisements in this region portrayed the ideal woman as having pure white skin. I thought about how this portrayal was almost a complete 180 degree turn from the ideal beauty portrayed in American advertising. In the majority of ads I see in our country the ideal beauty is bronzed from head to toe. A walk down the beauty isle in any US supermarket reveals a plethora of tanning products: tanning spray, bronzing lotion, tanning oil. Many of the whitening skin products of Asia and the tanning products of the US are made by the same company. The advertisers need to have an understanding regarding the cultural ideals of the demographic they are targeting. If the company marketed it’s whitening products in America and it’s tanning products in Asia the profit made off these sales would decrease. SE Asian people with tan skin wouldn’t buy tanning products and Americans with light skin wouldn’t buy whitening products. It seems like a revelation in body image problems: to market the ideally beautiful skin color as one that many people of a population already have. But then, advertisers and producers would never make any profit off this idea so we’ll likely never have to worry about this logical solution in the future.



Victoria's Secret Models: tans all around encourage American women to buy tanning products like this:

Tanning spray, which the women of SE Asia would never purchase. Tan skin in SE Asia is considered ugly by many. Tan skin is a likely sign that a woman is a lowely laborer and work out in the sun all day. White skin is seen as a sign of affluence, while in America tan skin is seen as a sign of luxury. A tan Western woman has the time to go frolic on the beaches of the Carribbean and spend money on her appearance.


No point in marketing this product in SE Asia. No profit = No point.


White skin is a sign of affluence in Asia. There is a huge market for whitening skin products. While a huge industry in Asia, this would never work in the West.

Whitening deodorant.

Skin whitening products on foreign shelves.

News as Entertainment

The somewhat new phenomenon of “News as Entertainment” and how this affects media consumers is of great interest to me. Since the advent of “yellow journalism” and “The Penny Press,” techniques of sensationalism have been used to create stories and sell newspapers. Readers want to read interesting stories and be entertained while simultaneously learning about what’s happening in the world. Is this possible? Television today is full of “news” programs that report the latest redundant stories on celebrity gossip and pregnancies. These programs are all about flashiness and attractive images to get viewers hooked and keep them watching. Celebrity news programs like these are the ultimate rechanneling of the sensationalist techniques used by yellow journalists decades ago. The unfortunate part is that these sensationalist techniques have actually made the passage through to hard news stories on real channels such as CNN, Fox, and NBC. A few months ago, I was watching the 2008 election primaries on CNN. I watched the Oregon primaries unfold minute by minute on the TV screen in front of me. I’m not usually an avid TV watcher and was quite taken aback at how the election was approached on CNN. I felt like I was watching a horse race of a Ali vs. Foreman fight rather than the most important election so far in my lifetime. The coverage was all about glitz and glam, “Hilary vs. Obama,” I felt as thought this was more like ESPN than anything else. I started thinking about why the election was being covered like this. People want to watch the elections and they can watch them on a variety of cable channels. CNN was obviously competing with channels such as Fox News, for the highest election week ratings. Just like any other show, it was be attractive and flashy to captivate audiences, and most importantly, entertain them. I felt that CNN’s main goal was not to inform me about what was going on, but to entertain me and keep me hooked to their station with sensationalist techniques. This just shows how the idea of entertainment as news, and news as entertainment, has taken to a whole new frontier.

Television Addicts?

“Adults who describe themselves as addicts watch an average of 56 hours a week” (Rodman, p. 313.) I was shocked by this huge number, 56 hours a week equals a staggering 8 hours of TV a day. As opposed to a self-described “addict,”the average adult watches 30 hours a week (4 ½ hours a day). In my opinion, even 4 ½ hours a day is astoundingly high. After reading this, I started to wonder why people become so easily addicted to television and what effect it has on viewers.

Why is television so addicting to the point that people are willing to sacrifice 8 hours of their free time? That’s 33% of a day, and if you get about 8 hours of sleep, you only have 8 hours for other things like family, social time, work, school, etc. Rodman suggests the theory that people use TV as a distraction from an unhappy life. TV becomes a means of self-medication. It has numbing qualities that allows the viewer to get lost in another world and leave their own reality behind.

I have another theory about television addiction. We live in an incredibly voyeuristic culture. We love watching people’s lives and knowing every detail concerning what they do. What they eat, who they date, their sex lives, their jobs, their social habits. As a culture we are fascinated with this. Just look in tabloid magazines and you’ll see pictures of the latest celebrity grocery shopping or taking out the trash: “See! They’re just like us!” And it’s not just celebrities’ lives we’re fascinated with. There’s a huge number of reality shows on TV including The Real World, The Bachelor, Laguna Beach, Flavor of Love, Survivor, and The Girls Next Door. These shows play on our culture of voyeurs (were we already voyeurs or did TV create a culture of voyeurs?). Let’s take The Real World as an example. It’s a show of supposedly “real” people going about their everyday lives. In actuality, it’s a completely sensationalized version of “real life.” Constant parties, beautiful people, glamorous lofts, buzzing cities, exotic vacation. Whose life is really like that? We watch because it’s a sensationalized version of reality, much more interesting and dramatic than our everyday lives.

This TV addiction based on voyeurism has some major effects on our society. It ties in directly with cultivation-theory which states that the world perception of heavy TV viewers will be greatly distorted. I think watching sensationalized reality will only make self-medicating with TV a greater problem. Addicts will compare their “average” lives to the “average” lives on TV bringing on further unhappiness and addiction. Another effect? Only one in four Americans read a book last year. Besides just voyeurs, we’re quickly becoming aliterates too.


From US Weekly website. Titled: "They Pack Their Own Trunk!" Uma Thurman, packs her own trunk. See other funny ways they are "Just Like Us": http://www.usmagazine.com/just_like_us_08_01_07?slideshow_id=247&o=0


Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County??


Flava-Flav and his ladies. Mind-numbing fun.

Investigative Journalism Today

In Chapter 4, I found the topic of investigative journalism to be particularly interesting. Investigative journalists often go undercover or put themselves in situations they normally wouldn’t be in to understand an issue more deeply and personally. They are then able to reveal truths based on their findings to the general public through the media. Reading about the famous investigative journalist Nellie Bly (1864 - 1922) reminded me of many modern day journalists who have followed in Bly’s footsteps.

Investigative journalism seems to have boomed recently. A few names that come to mind are Morgan Spurlock (Supersize Me, 30 Days), Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine, Sicko, Fahrenheit 9/11 ), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma), and Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickle and Dimed). In Supersize Me, Morgan Spurlock throws himself into fast-food culture by eating McDonalds three times a day for 30 days. Spurlock also investigates the corporate side of fast-food. The movie revealed much about the industry that the corporate giants would have liked to keep under wraps. Shortly after Supersize Me was released, McDonalds began to make nutrition facts available for their food and introduced healthier options to their menu such as salads. Investigative journalism like this, while entertaining, is also very revealing about practices and policies we would not otherwise know about through daily newspapers. Spurlock, Moore, Pollan, and Ehrenreich delve into great detail in their investigation. As shown by Spurlock the often appalling findings, when made public, can lead to major positive change.

Although investigative journalism can be very revealing about important issues in society, it has recently crossed a fine line between enlightening and morbidly entertaining. The realm of the obscene has been entered with shows like Dateline NBC’s “To Catch a Predator” with Chris Hansen. The show involves Hansen going undercover to catch men who are hoping to engage in sexual activity with young girls they met on the internet. The men believe they are entering a private home, only to be surprised by NBC’s television cameras, then broadcast on national television. This show is not based on revealing important issues to the public but on our society’s voyeuristic obsession. While going undercover may require some “cheap tricks,” investigative reporters should still try to uphold strong journalistic ethics.



Supersize Me: An example of good investigative journalism.



To Catch a Predator: Where the line should be drawn.

Cultural Imperialism: Is Globalization Simply Americanization?

Chapter 1 & 2 Response:

I had recently moved to the rural Nepali village, Sankhu, and was exploring the streets. I meandered down dirt paths filled with squawking chickens, herds of goats, mangy stray dogs, and groups of children running after each other barefoot. Women adorned with massive golden nose rings and red tikka dots on their foreheads squatted on the streets selling small piles of monsoon vegetables including Nepali varieties of onions, potatoes, lentils, and tomatoes. Set in the Himalayan foothills, in my mind this village could not be more removed from everything pertaining to Western culture. I continued my exploration and peeked into a small hut out of which was coming blaring sounds. To my surprise about a dozen Nepali men were huddled around a small TV watching a WWF wrestling match! This was one of the last places on earth that I expected to see Hulk Hogan clad in a spandex one piece smashing a chair on another wrestler’s head. The American influence embodied by the American media had permeated this culture much deeper than expected.
Reading about the American dominance of the world media reminded me of story. I fully agree with Rodman’s statement that “American domination of world media products has been so strong and so long-lasting” that some have called it “the American Empire.” We are living in a globalized world which has much to do with technology and mass media which is dominated by the United States. America exports so much in the way of mass media messages which reach foreign locales all over the world such as Nepal. I think the reason the rest of the world is so receptive to US media endeavors does have much to do with a large production budget and because our media is produced for such a wide variety of interests (i.e.;World Wrestling Federation, American Idol, rap music, Britney Spears, Spiderman). The world is rapidly globalizing which means that we are merging into a collective society rather than many small societies. I believe the American media has taken a large part in this cultural globalization that we seeing more and more of. Almost anywhere in the world American media influences can be observed. Globalization can be a good thing because it can break barriers and allow people access to knowledge and resources not previously available. But, its negative affect is cultural imperialism. Many country’s traditions and cultures are quickly being replaced by American culture. In today’s world we can now replace the term “globalization” with “Americanization.”



A Nepali boy displays his "Spiderman" t-shirt.

About Me

I just transfered to U of O and have been "school hopping" for the last few years. My first year of college I went to University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC and my second year I went to Oregon State University in Corvallis. I ended up hating Corvallis so I decided to end that year early and take off on a travel adventure through Asia. So, my school career has been on hold for the last year as I backpacked around Asia for 10 months. I just got back to the United States a few months ago and decided I was ready once again for school so I moved down to Eugene. So far so good in Tracktown, USA. I haven't had any urges to leave yet so this is good. I'm enjoying being back in school, but hoping to finish as soon as possible so I can pack my backpack and travel once again. Right now trips to India, Africa, and South America are in the works.

The Journey Begins

Welcome to my blog! This blog was created and will be maintained for my Journalism 201 class: Mass Media and Society. It also marks (hopefully) the beginning steps on my journey to become a journalist. I love everything that journalism encompasses; writing, reading, curiosity, understanding, photographs, stories, and most of all people. The world is a big place with billions of people living on it's surface. Each and every 6,704,845,726 living on planet earth have a story and I believe stories are what make this planet a fascinating and curious place. By gaining insight into the lives and stories of others the world seems not such a vast planet. It is because of the interesting stories of people around the world that I've decided to embark on this path to becoming a journalist.