Agenda-setting theory relates to mass communications and media; particularly news coverage. It focuses on how the news is presented and what news is shown to the public as being newsworthy. My focus in this blog will be on the recent phenomenon of participatory or ‘citizen’ journalism, and how this new development disrupts the assumptions of agenda-setting research.

The terms ‘citizen journalism’ and ‘participatory journalism’ are interchangeable. Weblogs and participatory journalism have changed the face of the traditional agenda-setting process. Agenda-setting theory states that the media do not necessarily tell people what to think, but rather what to think about. Participatory journalism facilitates an alternative public sphere that provides news differently, and in many cases, more accurately than traditional mass media. I argue that agenda-setting theory does not apply to the emerging medium of participatory journalism. In their critique The End of Mass Communication? Steven Chaffee and Miriam Metzger from the University of California Santa Barbara predicted that “the key problem for agenda-setting theory will change from what issues the media tell people to think about to what issues people tell the media they want to think about.”

Agenda-setting theory was first introduced in 1972 by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw in their ground breaking study on the role of the media in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. McCombs and Shaw investigated the presidential campaigns in 1968, 1972 and 1976. Examining the agenda-setting function of the mass media of the time, they tried to assess the relationship between what voters said were important issues and the actual content of the media messages being presented during the campaign. They concluded that the mass media exerted a significant influence on what voters considered to be the major issues of the campaign.

Hundreds of studies have since explored the agenda-setting hypothesis, but most of this research assumes a clear distinction between reporters and their readers. Weblogs and participatory journalism erode this distinction, facilitating participatory media behavior on the part of what was formerly “the audience.” The actions of journalistically focused weblogs provide us with new ways to consider the agenda setting process.

Webloggers and citizen reporters allow us to construct an alternative agenda within the limited realm of the so-called ‘blogosphere.’ News reporting is being re-conceptualized every day as the industry tries to adapt to the evolving news environment. Many media analysts were taken aback by the ‘Arab Spring’ and the huge role participatory journalism played in bringing that struggle to the attention of the world, but this trend will only grow. What is emerging is a new media ‘ecosystem’, where online communities analyze and discuss important issues in the news, and the function of mainstream media itself. Communities will continue to produce participatory journalism, innovative reporting and commentary.

These ecosystems are no less legitimate – and in many cases, far more legitimate – than mainstream news sources because they are not filtered through traditional corporate media channels. Whatever yardstick you use, it is clear that audience participation in the news media is exploding. It is likely that this will become even more widespread as mobile devices and more advanced technology like video-enabled phones – which allow you to transmit text, photos and video directly over the phone, in real-time – become even more commonplace.

The news industry is capitalizing on this high-tech interaction to create a ‘new’ journalism that resembles a conversation again, much like the original journalism occurring in the salons and coffeehouses hundreds of years ago. Journalism’s primary function has not fundamentally changed in the digital age. The techniques are different, but the underlying principles are the same: information gathering and dissemination.

The trend toward personalized media is valid because the one thing that engaged, active citizens have today thanks to modern technology is choice. There are many options available, and we can pretty much ‘tailor’ the media it to suit our needs. In this way, the influence of agenda-setting is greatly diminished. Unfortunately, even with all of this information readily available, it is alarming that so many people today are still so ill-informed, by choice.

Do young people even watch the news anymore? Apparently not. Citizens cannot participate in the news if they pay no attention to it, and this is one of the problems related to participatory journalism and agenda-setting: there needs to be a desire created on the part of the audience to actually participate. The other negative factor to consider in this ‘ecosystem’ is that if we can tailor the news to suit our needs, are we not then acting as our own built-in media filter, censoring the news we do not want, and only concentrating on the news that we prefer?

Occupy Wall Street was one shining example of the power of participatory journalism in this country. Responsible participatory journalism can help, rather than hinder, the spread of accurate, agenda-free news – if only in the sense that pictures and video do not lie. Images speak louder than words in most cases. Of course, nowadays it is also easy to digitally manipulate images, so that is something to seriously consider as well.

According to a recent study conducted by the Pew Research Center entitled Understanding the Participatory News Consumer: “The process Americans use to get news is based on foraging and opportunism. They seem to access news when the spirit moves them or they have a chance to check up on headlines. At the same time, gathering the news is not entirely an open-ended exploration for consumers, even online where there are limitless possibilities for exploring news. While online, most people say they use between two and five online news sources and 65% say they do not have a single favorite website for news. Some 21% say they routinely rely on just one site for their news and information.”

Around 46% of Americans get their news from four to six different media sources on an average day. Only 7% get their news from a single media source on a typical day. The study shows that the internet is now the third most popular news medium, behind local television news and national television news.

The rise of the Internet as a viable news platform has been an integral part of these rapid changes in news consumption. The Pew study discusses two significant technological trends that have influenced consumers: first, the advent of social media, like social networking sites and blogs which has helped the news become a more social, participatory experience for media consumers. People use their social networks and social networking technology to filter, assess, distribute and react to news. Second, the rise of mobile connectivity via smart phones and similar technology has turned news gathering and global awareness into an ‘anytime, anywhere’ affair for news watchers. The public outrage at scenes of recent police brutality against Occupy Wall Street protesters in Oakland and UC Davis would not have been possible without citizen journalists broadcasting the images across the Internet.

There is much debate on the influence that the blogosphere and user-generated content in general has had on traditional journalism and the mainstream media. There is a growing importance and emphasis on user-generated content with various established major media outlets like Huffington Post, CNN, BBC and The Guardian trying to integrate weblogs and other forms of citizen journalism into their portfolios. This debate must be seen in a wider context of a traditional media critique that is questioning the role and power of mass media to define which topics are relevant to influence public opinion.

Some researchers have argued that participatory journalism is able to offer an alternative to traditional media power structures by giving formerly passive audiences the technology to become the actual producers of news themselves, to a potentially huge audience on the Internet. Some of this optimism has been borne out on occasions where stories that were not reported (or seriously under-reported) by the mainstream news agencies were first reported on blogs, which eventually had to be picked up by traditional media outlets. Again, the Occupy Wall Street movement comes to mind as a direct beneficiary of this new paradigm.

The Internet and new social media are changing the underlying Principles that define journalism and how it is utilized in our society. Prior to recent technological developments like smart phones and cheap, commercially available video-editing software the news consumer had little control over the content being produced and no alternative to messages being broadcast by mainstream sources. Now independent citizen journalists create their own versions of reality in conjunction with like-minded people working to reshape the social narrative in their image. The audience is now able to create their own agendas. Agenda-setting theory does not sufficiently address these emerging ecosystems.

Participatory journalism has evolved rapidly in recent years and this is representative of the surrounding culture, organizational structures, and politics of contemporary society. More generally, citizen journalism has proved to be more adept at constantly updating, superseding and adapting communication technologies that are widely available. These highly portable, low cost, miniaturized, digital communication technologies which are easily plugged into and uploaded to the Internet have become for many people an integral part of life and the preferred medium of conducting social relations and analyzing and disseminating news. Encouraged by differing conceptions of both ‘citizenship’ and ‘journalism’ citizen journalists assert their presence outside of, throughout, and within today’s mainstream news media in a positive way.

Agenda-setting theory describes a very powerful influence of the media – the ability to tell us what issues are important. Participatory journalism allows citizens to circumvent these power structures altogether and create their own agendas. It represents a bottom-up, grass-roots phenomenon where there is little or no editorial oversight or formal journalistic restrictions dictating the content; thus agenda-setting theory is virtually irrelevant when applied to weblogs and citizen journalism.

REFERENCES

Chaffee, Steven H., & Metzger, Miriam J. (2001). The End of Mass Communication? Mass Communication & Society 4 (4), 365–379.

McCombs, M.E., & Shaw, D.L. (1972). The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media. Public Opinion Quarterly, 36 (2). 176-187.

Meijer, M., & Kleinnijenhuis, J. (2006). Issue News and Corporate Reputation: Applying the Theories of Agenda Setting and Issue Ownership in the Field of Business Communication. Journal of Communication 56, 543-559.

Purcell, K., Rainie, L., Mitchell, A., Rosenstiel, T. & Olmstead, K. (2010). Retrieved 11/20/11 from Pew Internet website http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Online-News/Summary-of-Findings.aspx.

Walgrave, S., & Van Aelst, P. (2006). The Contingency of the Mass Media’s Political Agenda Setting Power: Toward a Preliminary Theory. Journal of Communication 56, 88-109.

Wu, D., & Coleman. R. (2009). Advancing Agenda-Setting theory: The Comparative Strength and New Contingent Conditions of the Two Levels of Agenda-Setting Effects. J&MC Quarterly Vol. 86 (4), 775-789.