Agenda Setting, Framing and Priming

Agenda setting is the theory that the mass media has a powerful influence over the people by the news’ choices in which stories they cover and how they cover them. This theory is mainly concerned that the media sets our own agendas for us by telling us not only what to think but how we should think about it.
It is difficult to give an exact example of agenda setting for the current 2008 election campaign. Considering that all of our information about the upcoming elections comes from the media itself, we are completely unaware of what we should and shouldn’t believe from the information that the media is reporting to us.
In general the media’s coverage on the presidential elections has been changing for the worse. Because of propaganda and tactics such as satire, the media is spreading tall tales and misinformation about politicians rather than spreading the truth. Like in the article by Don Hazen, The Bad Frame: Why Are the New Yorker, Salon, and Other Liberal Media Doing the Right’s Dirty Work?, he states that the use of satirical vices such as a condemning caricature of Barak Obama and his wife, could have the opposite effect,

Editor David Remnick and artist Barry Blitt’s attempt at satire seems so arrogant and indulgent in its insensitivity, and so out of touch with political and media dynamics of tabloid TV and blogs, that it just might make a lot of people angry (...)(p.1).

Indeed the cartoon that depicted Obama in a Muslim turban seems a little out of the genre of humor. Considering Obama has been called a Muslim in the past, this representation will, instead of be humorous, reinforce that belief of Obama’s religion. Satirical propaganda such as this advertises Obama as an individual person other than Obama as the leader of the Democratic Party. Instead of advertising his campaign and what his agenda is for running the country, the news media, in this case The New Yorker runs a cover of him as a caricature.
It is because of this kind of news coverage during this election in particular, that is leading to an increasing number of cynics about the election and our current government. News Frames, Political Cynicism, and Media Cynicism by Joseph N. Cappella and Kathleen Hall Jamieson states just that. To them, cynicism has become an epidemic growing amongst the most educated people in our country. “Herbert Asher and Michael Barr’s analysis of the 1978-92 American National Election Studies (ANES) data suggests that Congress is rated more poorly among ‘the more politically active and attentive citizenry.’” It also states that “those who were more knowledgeable about control of the House were much more critical of Congress than were less informed respondents”.
It is because of such tactics as framing, when the media chooses particular events and places those events in the public’s eye often creating an air of importance around those events over others that they tend to overshadow. A good example of framing would be in the 2004 election when the media framed the war on terrorism as the number one issue in choosing the next president of the United States. During this election one issue that I believe the media is framing is experience. There is a overwhelming amount of media coverage on whether or not Obama is “experienced” enough to be the next President. This topic of experience is one topic that is being framed as a number one issue in this election when in fact, experience is just one of the many important issues in this election.
Within all of the different outlets of media and news coverage available to us, we, as an audience, know or have a particular idea about what a proper and trustworthy news station looks and acts like. It is more likely that we will trust a report coming from a well known name like BBC or CNN more than we would trust a piece of news from a small or independent name like Salon.com or freepress.org. This association is called priming. Between priming, framing and agenda setting it is very difficult to know what to believe. In fact, no one can know the truth unless they are truly present at the time and place in which something happens. Why should we trust the media? What media should we trust? Who decides what news is the news that is fit to print? Why can’t we decide?