Does the public or the media set the agenda? This question has been on my mind for several days now. Before discussing the topic in class I had never really thought about the fact that there could be a group setting the agenda that is not the media. To be honest, even though the public was an option for agenda setters, I still firmly believe that the media sets the agenda.
Take for example my overall experience here in Oxford so far. Of course I am not at liberty to speak for everyone else, but there has been a, sort of, huge realization for me when it comes to my contact with news and what is going on today. Because I am not capable of watching a television at will, or even have enough time to stop and look up news online, I am not very up to date. As a student in Public Relations, I would consider myself one of the publics that has many opportunities to set agendas for media and other publics, but I am not. This is only because of a lack of easily accessible media ports. What I am trying to say is that there are many people like me in this field, and others that are news related, that do not seek out the information too. Therefore I believe that it is the media that is setting our agenda, and we as a public just frame it as we see fit.
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I wrote my first paper on agenda-setting and its relationship to magazines. My opinion is that it is sometimes the media, and sometimes the public--sometimes both. It really depends on the type of medium, and social context surrounding it.
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