Topic > The Importance of Agenda Setting Theory - 921

On 8 March 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was reported missing. There were 227 passengers on board, from 14 different countries, over half of the passengers were from China. along with 12 crew members. The flight was headed to Beijing International Airport in China from Kala Lampur Airport in Malaysia. The search for the plane was later declared to be the largest search and rescue in history. The last known location was somewhere along the Gulf of Thailand. That's where the research began. Eventually the search was concentrated in the southern Indian Ocean. There was much speculation about what had happened to the plane. And the investigation and research of what happened and where the plane is still going. I will examine this event through agenda setting theory. Max McCombs and Donald Shaw officially created this theory in 1972. However, this theory can be traced back much earlier than that. It was first noted in Walter Lippman's 1922 novel, Public Opinion. In the book Lippman states that mass media are the connection between world events and public thinking (Agenda Setting Theory). Then later in 1963, Bernard Cohen said, “The press may not be as successful most of the time in telling readers what to think, but it is very successful in telling readers what to think.” These thoughts eventually led McCombs and Shaw to create the theory of agenda setting. It took the 1968 presidential election for McCombs and Shaw to begin the creation of the official theory of agenda setting. During the campaign McCombs and Shaw surveyed public opinions on the proposals. In particular they observed how the public was mainly focused on the proposals that were widely televised and talked about.... middle of paper... people in both countries must have ambitions. Both also have a low level of uncertainty avoidance. The people of the United Kingdom, with a score of 35, agree they have no clear picture of what the day will bring. The Chinese people, with a score of 30, are adaptable to what is to come. What differentiates the two countries is in their individualism and power distance. China is a very collectivist country, it scored a 20 in its individualism. They think more about “we” than “I”. They like to think of groups rather than individuals. The United Kingdom, on the other hand, is an individualistic country. They got one of the highest individualistic scores, an 89. It means thinking about individuals instead of the group. The final difference between the two is power distance. The UK has one of the lowest scores in terms of power distance.