News media play an important
role in shaping the reality. It does not only provide the information regarding
the issue but also tells how much information is essential in understanding the
stance of political authority. While supporting and rejecting media can set the
agenda. (McCombs & Shaw, 1972)
Carroll & McCombs (2003) believes that newspapers communicate cues about
relative salience of the object they are portraying. This object can be the
government or the authority or any prevalent issue. Lead story on page one,
inside pages, size of headlines, and the length of the story communicate based
on news agenda.
Entman (1993) postulates mass media as a significant player in
image-formulation. It can create the image of the image of the government stance
or the agenda set by it. He finds that U.S Media supports national interest in
portraying the image of foreign countries. Analysis of media content in US has
been influenced by the government. Economic interest is dominant factor in
framing. U.S media framed foreign countries negatively where it was having
interests. Media approach was biased stereotypical approach in framing Muslims
countries, negatively. Prescribed by the government U.S media gave favorable
coverage to those countries where it had economic, political, and military
interests. U.S media supported U.S policies of foreign affairs and hence, framed
foreign counties accordingly to the interest of government.
Kim (2000) investigated the interdependent relationship between media and
government. He conducted the comparative study of New York Times & Washington
Post news coverage of Kwangju & Tiananmen. This reporting was influenced by U.S
government and its foreign policy
HARMON AND MUENCHEN (2009) analyzes that one-year record of broadcast news
records after 9/11 attacks from 11th September to 11th October, 2002. The
framing words and phrases are seen harmonizing Bush government’s thrust for war.
Fox News, more than ABC, CNN, CBS, CNBC, NBC, and public broadcasting, focused
pro-war framing terminology. Results found that the top-ten words were war,
president, people, state, united, resolution, weapon, resolution, time, Bush and
Saddam. The list makes it clear that Iraqi links to al-Qaeda and Weapons of Mass
Destruction were repeated topics. Both CNN and Fox News had higher proportion of
pro-war and lower proportion of anti-war terminology compared to other
broadcasts.
Soroka (2001) states that agenda-setting works on both media influence and
policy-making. Content analysis of Canadian newspapers, public opinion polls,
committees, speeches and legislature from 1985 to 1995 shows that is significant
interaction between public, policy makers and media to act upon policies. Agenda
setting is the means of sculpting media effects and policy making and the
importance of certain issues. There is an empirical evidence of relationships
between political actors of Canada.
Vangshardt & Poulsen (2009) investigates agenda setting effects of regional
newspapers during U.S presidential election 2008. General perception is shaped
by media as to inculcate what issues are the most important during election
campaign. Firstly, the analysis finds that U.S political actors are advantaged
from mass-media diversity and its easy accessibility. Secondly, now election
campaigns are increasingly dependent on news media for its publicity. Thirdly,
news media is the essential source of information for issues and political
actors for shaping the general public opinion. Where as talking about
governmental elections and media it is right to say that mass media has had
significant effect on electoral process that combines public and presidential
actors closer together (Friedenberg & Trent, 2000). Whereas the coverage of 2000
South Korean presidential election concludes that “the Internet as a mass medium
can influence the formation of public opinion for political campaigns, as well
as other traditional mass media” (Lee, Lancendorfer & Lee, 2005).
Counter political reaction can be experienced by media if it does not support
the government stance. The reason behind this reaction is that they too are
affected by media as the ordinary citizens are prone to. Political actors
actually consume news and in their eye the covered issue is of utmost
importance. Politicians are news addicts as they are exposed to the media
content. (Eilders 1997)
Framing of women in TV advertisements is the political agenda in U.S elections
since 1964, as to gain more female voters. This agenda is supported by
television media as John Kerry won 51 percent votes from females where as George
W.Bush attempted to increase female support from 43 % in 2000 to 48% 2004,
seeing the impact created by media. (BOSTICK, 2005)
Larcinese et al (2005) investigates agenda-setting political behavior of U.S
newspapers from 1996-2005. It is found that there is a strong support from
newspapers in their diverse coverage of economic news as a function of political
affiliation. Newspapers with pro-democratic patterns publish unemployment in
fewer amounts when national unemployment rate is higher and the ruling president
is democratic as compared to ruling Republican president. Thus favors democracy.
Kahn & Kenney (2002) analyzes the newspaper coverage of 37 U.S senatorial
campaigns across three election years. Coding the tone used in articles provides
the evidence that the reporting and the use of words supported government stance
on senatorial campaigns with positive coverage.
Ali & Khalid (2008) inspects the media coverage of twelve Muslim countries by
Time magazine and Newsweek from 1991 to 2001. U.S has the prescribed agenda in
which specific identity is given to certain Muslim countries i-e allies, enemies
and neutral counties. This is based on the nature of relationship U.S has with
these Muslim countries. This agenda is supported by the print media. They
portray these countries with the labels given by the government. Content
analysis of articles shows that the ratio of negative coverage of theses Muslim
countries is higher than the ratio of positive coverage.
Vreese (2005) believes that the news framing with positive and negative
portrayal of any event can shape public support for governmental policies. Media
is the bridge that uses supportive framing mechanism using headlines,
photojournalism, captions, sources, statistics, and written paragraphs to
influence the audience.
Weaver & Elliott (1985) finds that the local newspapers played the role of a
transmitter rather than the filter of agenda set by the authority. Philosophiae
(2007) argues that news flow in Singapore is supportive of the government. The
government agenda is reinforced by media coverage related to any issue including
press, television and radio.
Two decades later, role of political leaders in setting the media agenda is
strongly established in the on ‘War on Iraq’ in three American newspapers. It is
found that heavy reliance of media on official sources for surveillance resulted
in the support of the agenda set by the government. This set agenda influenced
public opinion strongly with the help of media. (Tajima et al; 2003)
Scheufele & Tewksbury (2007) believe that 9/11 11 attacks and Afghan War shows
framing process. U.S Media frames have portrayed the attack and it’s after
effects in such a way that it is having support for war in Afghanistan. McCombs
et al (1997) argues that Bush Administration does not only control American
people with “what to think about” but manipulates them in terms of “how to think
about some objects” with media support.
Riaz (2008) conducts content analysis of two Pakistani national newspapers; Dawn
and Jang. Major issues covered are terrorism, Pak-India relations, energy and
food crisis, problems of judiciary and the issue of Lal Masjid. It is found that
media agenda setting worked except the two issues of energy and food crises.
These two crisis issues gained more importance in public agenda than in media
public was facing the problem individually. It concludes that personal problem
of public is independent of media agenda. But the remaining issues are having
strong relationship with media portrayal. Media framing of these two issues was
in favor of Pakistani government but maximum public is found against government
agenda of framing food and energy crisis. In this case media could not change
public opinion about their personal problems. Whereas Jones & Baumgartner (2004)
argues that government requires agenda-setting. Public is involved in this
agenda-setting process. The public focuses on forced set of issues, but the
government copes with multiple issues.