Chapter 28 Agenda-Setting Theory

After discussing McCombs and Shaw's theory on agenda setting in class it made me think a little differently about the news. Before learning about this theory I had always though that the news and media always covered stories on things on our society because they were the most important and the ones that needed to be addressed. After learning about the two levels of agenda setting that occurs with in the media, and the idea that the media tells us what to think ABOUT, my view on this has changed. Just the other night the news was covering the current story on Don Imus who was fired from CBS for making inappropriate racial comments on his talk show. The idea that the media is basically telling us to think about this issue never crossed my mind. Along with that In McCombs' first level of agenda setting he talks about the people who set the agendas foe the agenda setters. Looking back on this news story I can see how this specific station could have been told to broadcast this story because the person who owns the station could be connected to the station it occurred on, therefore being directly connected to it.