Agenda Settings

Similar to news values, agenda settings are a set of topics that members of the public perceieve as important. They are the values chosen by the media that best represtent the angle of their news as well as their demographics. For instance the Townsville Seven local news will be based on local stories, events, crimes and developments and the Rugby League Week magazine would publish articles relevant to football.

The concept of reality is socially constructed through a process of communication using shared language. Reality exists, but not through social life. The agenda settings differs between commercial and public media, selection of news include the proccess of critical reflection, substance, political correctness and the reflection on public opinion, which is filtered and shaped. Mass media injects direct influence into the audience and use images to support and influence the reader into further believing the story; especially negative and positive views on high profile stories such as those regarding refugees and celebrities.

Term	Description
Gate keeping	Exposure of an issue and what the media chooses to reveal to the public
Advocacy	Promoting an event, development or issue, etc, in a positive light
Cutting	The truth is not represented and less issues are cared about
Surfing	Media following trends and public interest (E.g. Kony)
Diffusion	Process of released news: how, where, when…
Portrayal	Issue perceived by public from media news
Media dependence	Dependant to the media and susceptible to the story