Scheufele, D. A., & Tewksbury, D. (2007). Framing, agenda setting, and priming: The evolution of
three media effects models. Journal of communication,57(1), 9-20.

The aim of this article is to examine how framing, agenda setting and priming are related and what
these relationships tell about the effect of mass-media.

First of all, framing, agenda setting and priming are models of political communication. Agenda
setting refers to the fact that there’s a strong correlation between the emphasis that mass media
place on certain issues and the importance attributed to these issues by the mass audiences.
Priming has to do with shaping the considerations that the audience takes into account when
evaluating the performance of leaders and governments. Thus, it can be said that priming is a
consequence of agenda setting, as in people’s considerations tend be to shaped as a result of
making some issues more important in their mind through news content.

Framing is based on the assumption that how an issue is presented in news reports can have an
influence on how it is understood by audiences. The theoretical grounds for this assumption are
both sociological and psychological. The findings of these sociological/psychological researches
were that people’s choices are influenced by the way facts are presented to them, because they are
in a continuous struggle to try to understand the world.  At the same time to mention that the
framing method is necessary for journalists not only for spinning reasons, but also as a tool to
reduce the complexity of an issue. Still, we can assume that framing effect occurs because people
pay substantial attention to news messages.

To draw a clear distinction between framing and agenda setting, the article emphasis on the idea
that one has to do with the exact information about the issue, while the other one has to do with a
certain amount of processing time and attention.

The agenda setting effect has been criticized for focusing on certain issues, while ignoring
others. On the other side, some scholars have argued that it can actually shift people’s attention
to the most important issues, keeping them aware.


Entman, R. M. (1989). Democracy without citizens: Media and the decay of American politics. New
York: Oxford University Press. Chapter 1.

The article starts by describing the ‘’vicious circle’’ in media, where high quality political
journalism does not occur simply because the audience is not requesting for such. The common people
know and care little about government, while the media outlets can’t even afford to deliver high
quality content. The high number of media outlets leads to competition, which makes pressure on
delivering only information that can incite the public’s interest. But this harmonious
interdependence can only have a negative impact for the democratic representation. At the same
time, the article tackles on how democracy can be compromised by the media, when there’s a lack of
citizenship. The public seems to fail in meeting the expectation for a high quality media, thus for
a democracy on this level.

The least expensive way to make news is to rely on the political elites for most information. But
even without the economic reasons, the media would still occur the same way. The need to deliver
the news in time compels journalists to resort to political elites as familiar sources of
information.  Also, driven by the idea of prestige, media outlets will always seek to please
audiences by offering them what they’re expecting.



Graber, D. A., & Smith, J. M. (2005). Political communication faces the 21st century. Journal of
Communication, 55(3), 479.

Electoral politics are probably the main case study when it comes to political communication
research. The fact that it occurs at regular intervals and that it casts new characters incite
interest in studying how the candidates are covered through various forms of media.

Many scholars conduct their research based on the idea that citizens are generally ignorant and
unable to fulfill their citizenship tasks, as in to critically judge the political scene.


Questions:

1.       As pointed out in the first article, there’s an important distinction between framing and
agenda setting. If for the first one attention is more necessary so that the effect would occur,
for the second one more exposure might be sufficient. Based on this hypothesis, one should ask
himself if repetition is really sufficient for an agenda setting, taking into account that it must
shape people’s major considerations ? Or to put it the other way around, isn’t it saying that
repetition is sufficient for agenda setting excluding the necessity of framing, for we know that
agenda and framing can only go together?


2.       In a real market producers supply what consumers like and stop supplying what they do not
like. As pointed out in the second article, journalism does pretty much the same thing: delivers
only information that the audience is interested in. But if journalism also functions under
financial pressures, why can’t it be considered another market? Is the free press ideal preventing
us from seeing it as what it is: another market?[INS: :INS]


3.       User-friendliness factors are presented as a future direction in political communication.
It is based on the idea that news overwhelms people with more facts and figures and even pictures
than they can readily absorb. Still, without all this data, the audience might not acquire the
necessary comprehension of facts. But taking this into account, is political journalism becoming
more than media/news? If it necessary providing so much information for a better understanding,
than isn’t political journalism becoming more of a scientific work and less of a media product?