Agenda Bender

The sun is shining, not a cloud in the sky and paradise awaits me (I'm in Noosa). But hang on, says my responsible, boring side of my brain, you haven't wrote about agenda setting yet! the choice is defiantly not a hard one, but I suppose I had better get it over and done with. 

Thanks to that somewhat unenthusiastic introduction to agenda setting, you're most likely getting the impression that i don't care much for this subject, well, your right and wrong really, because as normal young adult with any sort of idea what life is all about this isn't the funnest of topics, but as a budding journalist agenda setting is pretty much the pinnacle of my someday future. 

Absolutely everything we see in the media, is courtesy of agenda setting. I'm going to get all deep here, think about your idea of reality, it exists right? Sorry to break it to you, but you didn't think of it all by yourself, you see, the way we know reality and the way we talk about it is constructed through social life, and the media plays a big role in mediating the way we understand the social world. 

Before i go into the exhilarating technicalities of agenda setting, an example (perhaps exaggerated) springs to mind. Somehow, the media has made us think that a "flu scare" in the Queensland Origin camp is more important than starving children in third world countries. 

OR

Don't worry, we are not heartless human beings, it's because by the media concentrating on select few issues and subjects, this makes us perceive the issues presented to us as being more important than other issues.

The four players in agenda setting......

- Public agenda

- Policy agenda

- Corporate agenda

- Media agenda

Why does the media set an agenda? In the wise words from Dr Redman it's because they can. 

Throw in some fancy awe inspiring quotes, some important people that feel they have given birth to agenda setting, who the family members of agenda setting are, a KONY and JB haircut reference, social media dependency syndrome and you've got yourself some knowledge on agenda setting. As Dr Redman said, its all pretty obvious. Voila' my week 11 lecture.