Gatekeeping and Agenda Setting

Have you ever noticed any specific commonalities between medias that serve as news outlets? Or a difference between the ways that they explain certain events? The reasons may shock you if you dig deep enough, but there is a short and simple way to confirm that why the merit of the aforementioned questions. Gatekeeping, and agenda setting. These are the two methods through which news medias show you what they want you to see, and let you hear what they want you to hear. Politics, ethics, social spectrum, and culture are all controlled by the power of story, and emotion. Which is exactly why specific techniques are used when powerful information is presented to the mass.

To explain in better detail, I'd like to start by defining the two terms. Gatekeeping conceptually is when a person, or corporation decides what news should and should not move past them. Agenda setting is the idea that mass media sets a standard of information that people should care about. You may have already noticed, but both of these theories could really be bracketed in the same family. Agenda setting begins with a real event occurring, through which the news processes it and feeds it to the public. The way they present it, whether that be the positive or negative language, influences whether or not the public have a positive or negative reaction to that news. That then leads to the public having an agenda on the      topic that they were presented, creating their perception of that piece of news. 

To tackle the issue from a different angle, we can explore that two levels of the theory that make it click. The first level is called priming, which is when the media gives importance to an event to convince them that certain news is important. The next is framing, which is how people are attached to the news they are consuming. This can be through production technique, language like mentioned previously, or even timing. Nevertheless, it is a deliberate attempt to convince the public to believe certain narratives which can build or destroy the reputations of places or people.

Gatekeeping can be described as the grandfather of agenda setting, preluding and playing a key role in the concept. Gatekeepers establish a hierarchy which decides how the social system works, by ensuring that the public only hear certain piece of a larger story. This creates a specific value for news that people expect. A model of how this works can briefly be described. Gatekeepers take note of a major event that has occurred, then polish into a media agenda which is presented to the public. Selections of stories that involve real people with an experience of that event get highlighted, but only if they suit the agenda that the gatekeepers want to run. That then goes into a policy agenda, in which the government reacts to the publics desires after they have had time to digest the event.

Both of these models must be taken into consideration when viewing any type of news from mass media corporations, due to the danger of brainwashing. It is easy to fall into the trap of agenda setting depending on your political views, which could blind you to the bigger picture and cause you to do lazy research. American society today highlights things such as the war between Ukraine and Russia, but pays little attention to the conflicts that have been occurring in the middle east for decades. This is because media has a bias, which gears politicians to take advantage of the public agenda that has been set and make promises to fix certain things the certain things that the media is highlighting. I don't see this sort of calculated manipulation of news ending anytime soon, but what we can do as citizens is research and take note of the way some journalist, media outlets, and politicians react too topics and see through them with a discerning eye.