Agenda Setting and the Public (Essay 9)

Viewer’s Ages and Frequency of Viewing of Network Nightly News: 1974 and 2002 Combined

1974                  frequently (%)                    rarely (%)

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18-29                  45                                                  13

30-44                  50                                                 12

45-64                  68                                                  8

65+                      71                                                  5

2002                 frequently (%)                    rarely (%)

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18-29                  19                                                  22

30-44                  22                                                17

45-64                  40                                                  11

65+                      53                                                  8

     One of the most important ways the news media influence politics is through agenda setting. Policy agenda can be defined as the issues that people are concerned about that the government is dealing with. The national news media engages in agenda setting by giving the people, voters, information. The people then can go to interest groups and linkage institutions to put these issues on the political agenda. 
     The president tends to have an advantage over Congress in gaining media attention because the president has more power than congress. He is the national representative for the government and has the power to change and affect laws more so than Congress. 
   
     In the table above it is shown that the older population watch news more often than the younger people. From 1947 to 2002 the viewing habits changed for all age categories. The viewing of TV news in all of the age categories decreased. This is because there are now more options for what can be viewed on TV instead of the news. 

     In order to promote their political and policy objectives to the American public, the president should use other media to increase viewing because other people watch other stations more often. They should be interviewing on Jimmy Fallon or Comedy Central, which are stations more often viewed by the whole population than the news.