Public Agenda

Mass media shapes the public’s agenda of issues by agenda setting.

In that the more time and newsworthiness the media places on an issue the more the public will respond to it.

Therefore the media can literally shape the agenda of issues just by making an issue into a big deal.

By doing so the media can cause the public to respond to an issue rapidly if they so desire just by giving it a lot of attention.

For example the media was making a big deal about the judge retiring from the Supreme Court and who the president would replace him with.

The media can have a great impact on the publics agenda of issues in fact the media holds most of the power in the issues to be concerned by the public.

Policy makers, political figures and regular citizens all use the media to set agendas for the public making the media the largest influence on shaping the publics agenda of issues.

Thus it made the public more concerned about the issue just because the media did a lot of stories on it and brought a lot of attention to it.