Psychology and the Media

Psychology and the Media

Agenda-setting theory is one of the theories regarding psychology and mass media. The article by Gross (2021) examines how learners can work towards creating a daily agenda for their newspaper. In this case, the students use a simulation that makes budget meetings across multiple newspapers. Additionally, the simulation created approximates the media ecosystem with stories important to various audiences. Additionally, through this article and the author’s exercise with his students, one can see that the executive editors are motivated to select stories that match their audience. Thus, this approach shows scholars exactly how the media institutions set their stories’ agendas and pick the right top story for their front page.

When examining the approaches the author has used, one can tell that this approach can be generalized because it is practical and scientific regarding the media industry. According to Luo et al. (2019), simulations that media outlets employ are strongly influenced by what the specific media wants to give their audiences. What remains as the question is whether the impact of the type of audience is greater than the impact of the executive editor (Wasow, 2020). Additionally, the ideas shared in this article reaffirm the week’s theory, agenda-setting theory. The agenda-setting approach holds that the media can shift the public’s perception to consider certain issues as important when they highlight specific topics (Naser, 2020). The media can thus influence what people think about it.

The only limitation of this article is that it does not fully discuss the agenda-setting theory in detail. The research done is more concerned with helping learners understand how to set agendas for their top stories. As such, a scholar who uses this article to understand the agenda-setting theory better may not find much information to use. However, it is a reliable source and can be used to explain the agenda-setting theory.

References

Luo, Y., Burley, H., Moe, A., & Sui, M. (2019). A meta-analysis of news media’s public agenda-setting effects, 1972-2015. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 96(1), 150–172. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077699018804500

Naser, A. (2020). Relevance and challenges of the agenda-setting theory in the changed media landscape. American Communication Journal, 22(1), 1–15.

Wasow, O. (2020). Agenda Seeding: How 1960s Black protests moved elites, public opinion, and voting. American Political Science Review, 114(3), 638-659. https://doi.org/10.1017/s000305542000009x

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For this week, we covered the evolution of mass media as well as the basic theories regarding psychology and mass media. For this assignment, you will find and review an article related to one of the theories covered this week. The article needs to be a peer-reviewed journal article and written within the last 5-6 years.