Formulate Public Opinion: Making President By Theodore White

2.1 Formulate Public Opinion

Mass media is an information channel that forms public opinion. In the past, citizens found it difficult to obtain more consulting information through individual experiences such as parents and friends, so the development of mass media has made it quickly become the core of public life (Negrine, 1994). However, if mass media want to lead public opinion, nurturing informed citizens is a very important prerequisite. Only by obtaining sufficient political information citizens can express their opinions on political affairs, and eventually reach a consensus on certain political affairs, thus forming a public opinion of a small scope or a larger scope. The mass media formally used its advantages to break the limitations

In his book "Making President", American journalist Theodore White discussed the influence of American mass media, pointing out that the mass media "setting the agenda for public discussion determines what people are talking about and thinking about." If there is no newspaper industry to lay a solid foundation for public opinion, no major congressional act, diplomatic action or major social transformation will succeed in the US. （Combs,2004）According to Philip Seib's investigation and research, he believes that sometimes the public opinion threatened by mass media is a huge engine of democratic politics (2008), which determines what the government should do. At the same time, according to Maxwell McCombs' investigation, the influence of the mass media's agenda has not been confined to the United States. Countries such as Germany and other countries and region the phenomenon of mass media setting up a political agenda also prevails. （Kaid，2004）Because news media, such as newspapers, radio, television, and the Internet, have the role that they can decide what is "news", they are selective reports. At the same time, what kind of methods they use to report determines the status and importance of this news. Therefore, the mass media "limits and determines people's news knowledge and argumentation to a large extent. And they can set society by focusing on certain issues, such as extensive reports on Brexit and paying attention to public attention. The agenda, and thus formed a pressure of public opinion, forcing the government to put these issues into their own