Role of Media

How much of an impact does the media really have on our daily lives. I’ve been doing some reading for a paper on the role of the media in policy and have been struck by how many different ways the media do in fact impact on society. The question is not whether the media impact on society but how.


We’ve all heard the argument about violence on television breeding violence in society – an argument which is usually centred around children and violent television and today goes even further to include video and computer games and their impact on children’s behaviour. There are however more subtle functions (if we can call them that) of the media and these include the traditional agenda-setting role and the framing role. The agenda-setting thesis argues that the media is able to shape the public’s priorities (usually around public policy) by making the public view certain issues as more important than others (by covering them more frequently, and in the way that issues are covered).


Framing in communication studies is the notion that certain content or information is ‘framed’ or packaged in a particular way in order to sway towards certain interpretations and away from others (while Wikipedia is not an authority on any subject, it is always useful to get background information.)


Part of why I’m writing about this has to do with the paper I’m doing research for, but also the way I find myself reacting to the British media. I’m not sure what about the way they tackle issues makes me scoff and question what seems to me to be the sensationalisation of almost every issue – there is very little straight forward reporting. Although they report on serious issues like attempted bombings and crime, I find it difficult to take the reports seriously because they are packaged in a particular way. I guess the media here are responding to a demand from the public for that kind of news (which is obviously big business for the many tabloids on sale) – but isn’t part of what the media do (whether right or wrong) is ‘tell’ the public what they want? Couldn’t they tell the public here they want intelligent, serious and little-dramatised news?