Response #2

Chapter seven discusses agenda setting.  Is this concept still relevant in the age of the Internet, citizen journalism, blogs, youtube and an abundance of information?

Following today’s class discussion concerning agenda setting I would have to say that, yes agenda setting still plays a role in our current media environment.  Major media sources seem to be the first to tell people what to think about, and from there the blogs, citizen journalists, etc. take that message to another level.  However, in some cases it is the citizen journalists who are the first to break big stories, but the major media outlets soon pick up the stories and play the footage/air the information and then society as a whole is aware of, and thinking about the story.

Furthermore, in an effort to maintain their status and avoid being “scooped”, especially by citizen journalists, the major media organizations are willing to pick up any story gaining popularity on Facebook, Twitter or any other social site.  So, while agenda setting doesn’t play the role it used to in that major news organizations can no longer be the first to choose what the public will think about, it does influence public thought, even if it can’t always choose the topic.

In response to my classmate’s question: “Why is it that when a new technological advance is made, society fears social change?”

I think when a major new technology hits the market and begins to be accepted society doesn’t fear social change as much as they fear the loss of an old way of life.  Take print journalism for example, people are currently worried about what will happen to the industry in light of the digital convergence.  However, the overall medium of printed word will never go away, it will just find a new form.  While the industry is wading through this period of change, wonderful new methods of story telling like multimedia, animation, audio slideshows and interactive websites have emerged.  Yet, these hybrids of the old and new are often ignored because people tend to focus on the negative in that the old ways of print journalism are changing.

All in all, people fear what will be lost, not what the future holds.

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