The concept of agenda setting is the idea that the media forms and shapes the public perception of reality by giving certain issues prominence in the media and thereby causing the public to place those issues as more important to the public agenda than others.
Agenda setting covers four areas.
Public Agenda- The set of topics that the public perceive as important.
Policy Agenda- Issues that policy/decision makers think are salient. i.e legislators
Corporate agenda- Issues that big business and corporations consider important.
Media Agenda- Issues discussed in the media.
The agendas are not separate entities.
These agendas are interrelated and interdependent.
The above diagram shows the nature of the agendas and the cause and effect relationship that they share.
The mass media shape our reality through the filtration of information. Were this filtration absent we would be constantly dealing with news. This is where news values affect agenda setting. News values provide the criteria necessary to filter news that reflects certain agendas.
News values create the agendas that shape society's focal points. It is not the concerted effort of the journalism and media industry to decide what issues should be focused on by society. News values and agendas are often the unintended by-products of necessity to focus the lens of the news.
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