Communication Event Analysis: Agenda Setting Theory

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Communication Event Analysis: Agenda Setting Theory

Ahmad Young

Gordon State College Event Description
The Casey Anthony trial was one of the most discussed trials in history, behind the OJ Simpson murder trial. There was a continuous stream of social media posts, headline pictures, and news coverage on major television channels that were aired to the entire country. Casey Anthony developed to be the subject of every discussion amongst everyone for a long period of time. During the trial there were so many spectators outside the courthouse, so they could receive the most up to date information and they ranged from news stations, protestors and even people who insisted on her innocence. There are thousands of homicide cases …show more content…

The media gives a level of significance to the stories they run plus the amount of attention it receives, therefore, the attitude of the viewers is molded around the amount of attention certain content receives. According to Dearing and Rogers, agenda-setting theory is composed of three features. These are "the media agenda, which influences the public agenda, which in turn may influence the policy agenda." The main investigators involved in this theory are Max McCombs and Donald Shaw. The two conducted the Chapel Hill Study in 1972, which dealt with the 1968 United States presidential campaign. The main focus behind the study was a question of how the unsure voters would rank which campaign topics were key and which others were not as important. McCombs and Shaw selected precisely to study the unclear voters because they supposed that people who were unsure about the candidate they were voting for were the ones that was most vulnerable to being persuaded by the mass media’s agenda-setting …show more content…

Author Terrance Mullins says, “Why this trial? Why this murder? How many American children went missing today alone seemingly ignored by the same media that is myopically focused on Casey Anthony alone?” It is because the television’s reporting of this one trial controls the news and as a result, makes other just as significant topics unimportant. Mullins carries on that this agenda setting causes Americans to become so devoted in one trial “even though said trial holds very little value or relevance to the lives of average