Are we setting agendas, or following them?

1. Chapter 5 discussed propaganda to a great extent using Nazi Germany as an example. There are several ways for media to use propaganda to set an example, or agenda, to the audience. As an audience, are we smart enough today to realize what’s propaganda and what’s not?

This week, we’ve talked a lot about agenda setting, and how the media tell audiences what to think about. The media structure stories in such a way to impact people of certain demographics, and the audience gobbles it up.

As an audience, do we realize what we’re reading? Do we know it’s news, and not propaganda? Do we know that the media is sending us certain messages? Yes and no.

Sometimes, audiences read for the sheer pleasure of the task. If a reader sees an interesting headline, he or she might read a couple paragraphs and move on. That’s pleasure. Reading for dedication and information is different. That’s when the reader sits down and reads articles from beginning to end, and retains most of the information, and possibly forms an opinion from the article.

This is when we know what we’re reading. An informed reader can read between the lines, as it were, to decipher a message from the media. For instance, the New York Times has a reputation for being liberal. Their stories are going to provoke readers. Fox News takes a more conservative edge, and viewers may have to do more work to construe a message.

Sometimes, it’s hard to separate news and propaganda. Consider society after 9/11. This was media heavy event, and afterward, people put up flags and banners in a show of patriotism. The newspaper at home printed copies of American flags and stuck them in the daily. Is this propaganda?  Is the newspaper saying, follow this ideal or risk being unpatriotic? It can certainly be argued either way.

Propaganda can also be designed to look like news information. Is this ethical? Propaganda strives to make audiences think a certain way. If that end result is something positive, is it o.k. to pass propaganda off as news?

Audiences today have more power than in the past with social networking. If media outlets follow twitter posts or Facebook notifications, they can easily see what the audience is interested in. If a paper runs a story that Facebook users aren’t interested in, it is more likely that those users won’t follow the story as closely. Social networking allows for clearer two way communication.