Essay: Media's Positive and Negative Influence on Public Opinion

This essay delves into the multifaceted influence of media on public opinion, particularly within a democratic framework. It begins by outlining the agenda-setting theory, tracing its origins and key assumptions, and explaining how media outlets shape public perceptions. The essay then explores the ...Read More

Journalism, Government and The People
JOURNALISM, GOVERNMENT AND THE PEOPLE
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31-Aug-24

Journalism, Government and The People 1
Introduction
The society considers media as a prominent tool for the formulation of public opinion.
The way media fulfils this role is through different influential avenues such as the press,
television, radio, social media sites and printed media such as magazines. As these avenues are
the same ones used in communication, they are at a better position of interaction with a large
population. Despite that, it is worth considering that there can be positive and negative impacts
of this agenda-setting role. This paper intends to provide a discussion of the positive and
negative influence of media in the shaping of public opinion in the context of a democratic
country.
How Media Shape Public Opinion
The Agenda-setting theory originated from Walter Lippman in 1922 as he tried to
understand how the news content released from the media end up shaping public's beliefs on an
important issue in the society (Potter, 2012). As quoted in by Stacks and Salwen (2014), Walter
Lippmann noted that "The world that we have to deal with politically is out of reach, out of sight,
out of mind." Lippmann had an idea of how people deal with the reality created and shaped by
media organizations. After Lippman observation, Bernard Cohen as reported by Stacks and
Salwen (2014), predicted that media is stunningly successful in giving public ideas of that they
should think about (Cohen, 1963, p. 13). Cohen’s and Lippmann’s opinions were later developed
by Donald Shaw Maxwell McCombs in an analysis conducted during the presidential election
contested by Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon. The results of their study showed that the
voters’ agenda has high correlations with the agenda provided by the media (McCombs and
Shaw, 1972).

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There are two basic assumptions of the agenda-setting theory. The first one is that the
media and the press do not necessarily provide the reality but they shape it (Stacks and Salwen,
2014). The second assumption is that media concentrates on a few issues that cause the public to
think that those are the important issues of the moment (Stacks and Salwen, 2014). To
understand the Agenda-setting theory, one needs to understand that the theory deals with the
concept of “accessibility” which is a cognitive process. The media uses the concept of
accessibility which implies that as more and frequent information covers one issue, it sticks to
the memory of an audience, hence becoming accessible (Stacks and Salwen, 2014). In general, it
is easier for any person to state that one of the mediated issues as one of the issues that the nation
is facing. While considering the agenda-setting theory, researchers have focused on three main
types of agenda settings. These agenda settings are the public, policy and media agenda settings.
The public agenda settings focus on the audience or the consumer’s agenda. The policy agenda
settings focus on influencing policy makers and decision-making process of a nation. Lastly, the
media agenda settings focus on how the media influence its audience.
A closely related term is priming. Priming by itself is a cognitive effect where one idea
activates other interrelated ideas on a person’s mind. Priming takes a human mind as an
associative network of nodes with each node storing a bit of information. Once this node is
activated by a piece of news, it activates other inter-related nodes (Potter, 2012). With this
concept, media can easily alter the audience way of thoughts by taking one issue and focusing on
it to activate the audience’s part of their memory that has for the past stored information relating
to the issue. In this way, what media needs to do is just to stimulate the public thoughts with
images or information that they need them to focus on. In other words, to develop beliefs,

Journalism, Government and The People 3
sentiments or ideologies, the media just need to take an issue and decide on the level of intensity
in which they would want to present it.
As discussed, the entire process of forming opinions depends on the mediated
information because the public would understand it according to the way it was presented. For
example, media presenters organise information in the form of news headlines and breaking
news and place them a particular interpretative. In giving the topics the desired effects, Ford and
King (2015) state that the news presenters use an identified tone, language, emphasis, norms or
placement of particular arguments and facts. Either, the work of Borah (2011) states that they
may use persistent and frequent patterns of interpretation, selection, and presentation. Beattie and
Milojevich (2017) further state that by omitting or excluding some information, the presenters
tend to create some ideological boundaries meant for public discourse. All these methods allow
the media to define and frame an issue in a way it becomes an agenda for the public (Coman and
Cmeciu, 2014).
Positive and Negative Influence of Media in Shaping of Public Opinion in The Context of a
Democratic Country
As seen above, the media has a great impact in shaping public opinion. Considering its
significance in setting the public agenda, the media can also have the power of shaping public
opinion on matters relating to democracy. The society regard media as a fourth pillar in the
promotion of democracy. The importance of the media in democracy is not only to present facts
but also to provide an interpretation of facts to eliminate ambiguities. Formulation of public
opinions works through the interpretation of these ideas and the propagation of new ones.
To understand how media can affect democracy, it is important to understand the
formation of democracy. Generally, democratic process works in two ways, which is input from

Journalism, Government and The People 4
the public, and output from the government. The former works through constitutional
representation in government while the latter works through policy making (Bühlmann and
Kriesi, 2013). On the input process, there must be citizens’ opinions and preferences which are
gathered and articulated by the selected intermediaries such as the NGOs, Political Parties and
sometimes media representatives. On the other hand, the output process involves the
representatives who discuss and enact laws on behalf of the citizens. Again, these laws are
communicated back to the citizens through the same intermediaries used to provide opinions and
citizen’s preferences.
However, for both processes to work effectively, every democratic regime must fulfil
nine requirements as mentioned which are necessary for the optimization and guarantee of
democracy (Bühlmann et al., 2012). These requirements are individual liberties, public sphere,
rule of law, participation, representation, competition, transparency, mutual constraints and
governmental capability (Bühlmann et al., 2012). Considering that democracy is a
multidimensional concept, both positive and negative effects can only be felt through the nine
areas. Again, as the nine requirements fall within the two input and output process, media effects
work through the same means. For instance, promoting access to information by the public is one
of the key methods for the promotion of peace. The information flowing to the public can be
either one related to policy process or the coverage of an issue affecting the society. Either, by
allowing information to pass to the public, the public can then take action such as voting for
removal of corrupt officials as seen in Latin America. This one way where media affect the
output process.

Journalism, Government and The People 5
Positive Influence of Media in Shaping of Public Opinion
There are different areas where media has positive effects in shaping public opinion in a
democratic country.
Voting Process
Media is considered as one of the major reporters of the issues that highly influence the
public voting opinion and decision. A good scenario for this case is both the 13th and 14th general
election in Malaysia. In an analysis conducted by Hamid and Rahman (2018), the study focused
mainly on assessing the impact of social media on the recent 2018 Malaysia’s Election. In the
research, the authors intended to find how the dissemination of information through social media
platform affected the results of the election. On analysis, the researchers found four main ways in
which social media affected the election results. The first one was that the politicians could use
social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp to engage voters directly
without much spending (Hamid and Rahman, 2018). Secondly, politicians could give updates
and share videos to influence voters’ decisions like on YouTube (Hamid and Rahman, 2018).
Thirdly, politicians could use social media platforms to share updates about their political
progress with their supporters (Hamid and Rahman, 2018). Here, the platforms offered a channel
for strengthening ties. Lastly, considering that half of the voters were youngsters who are
accustomed to social media, the platforms offered a better place where politicians could meet
with the voters (Hamid and Rahman, 2018).
Peace Campaigns
Democracy thrives only in those countries without violence. Ideally, where there are
warring groups, democracy needs to provide those groups with mechanisms for negotiation and
mediation. The World Bank regards media as one of the pillars of democracy (Betz and World

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Bank, 2018). By allowing free flow of information, the World Bank states that media can be an
effective tool for promoting peace (Betz and World Bank, 2018). This can also happen through
the rapid provision of evidence to prevent escalation of disputes. With its influence, providing
evidence in media would help the warring groups to have concrete facts for annulling their
differences. For instance, In Colombia, SIPAZ is a community radio station which operates in
areas with violence (Castellanos, 2011). SIPAZ producer does not cover news of violence but
reports on their aftermath. It also tries to communicate the communities’ intention for peace to
the members as a way of setting them in the direction for peace development (Castellanos, 2011).
Another example is the conflict situation that has been in Northeast India region
particularly in Nagaland. Among other interventions that media can take, the free flow of
information and evidence is considered as one of the key preconditions in any conflict resolution
process. According to Pegu (2014), with the media’s capacity to mould public belief and
opinion, such power can enable it to negotiate with factors that are the main cause of the
conflict. Also, its powers can allow it to make contributions to the mitigation of conflicts and
foster peace between the warring regions (Pegu, 2014). While considering the role of the media
in conflict resolution, the Head, Policy Planning Staff at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign
Affairs stated that in the modern society, there is a general acceptance that media has a
significant role to play in conflict resolution (Aguirre et al., 2003).
Policy Making
Media also serves as a channel where the governed and their governors can meet and
discuss issues that affect the public. Other than that, China is a good example where “Citizen
journalism” sets the public agenda on policy making. In a research conducted by Luo and

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Harrison, (2019) that used different online platforms in China, the study found that opinions
gather from online public social media platforms influenced government policies.
Health Promotion
As media offers the most effective means of disseminating information, the work of
Albalawi and Sixsmith (2015), advises that health promotion agenda-setting aims to shift the
focus from the usual health education to another model that focuses on the adoption of
innovative health policies. The structures of this new model involve a combination of the
interconnected concepts of health promotion policies, media, and public agendas (Albalawi and
Sixsmith, 2015). The model also integrates the seven key roles of health educators which include
assessing, planning, implementing, coordinating, acting as the resource person, and being an
advocate for health (Albalawi and Sixsmith, 2015).
Investigative Reporting
Perhaps the best example is the situation of Latin America. According to Beittel et al.
(2019), the greater media scrutiny in Latin America has for the past years been providing
investigative reports on corruption done by public officials. Some of the achievements of these
reports are that they have caused the public to remove from the office 11 presidents. Media has
also helped foster transparency in the government and creating heightened awareness regarding
issues of corruption.
Negative Shape Public Opinion
Claims on negative effects of media in setting public opinion have mainly been directed
towards providing false information or preventing the public from getting certain key
information.

Journalism, Government and The People 8
Stirring Wars
In some instances, media has been accused of taking sides in rival groups instead of
bringing consensus. For instance, in a study conducted by Milioni et al.(2015), the authors found
that some media presenters and journalists heavily present conflict-related news thus ignoring the
practices of peace journalism. When news focuses on such directly, they instead cause the
conflicts to escalate as opposed to finding ways of solving them. Another is where instead of
media focusing on resolving conflicts, they focus on reporting the violence (Baden and
Tenenboim-Weinblatt, 2018). There are also incidences where social media has been used to
gather support for the war. For instance, during the conflict between Israel and Hamas, both
nations used Twitter to rally their supporters with Israel using @IDFSpokesperson and Hamas
using (@AlQassamBrigade (Zeitzoff, 2018).
Peddling Half-Truths and Jumbling the Facts
Sometimes media has been caught reinforcing prejudices and distorting facts. Also, this is
closely related to a situation where journalists lie or deny access to information thus causing
politicians to start reacting on them. According to (Van Aelst et al., 2013), this practice is also
called ‘agenda-constraining’ which is also referred to as a gatekeeping process. The process also
involves communicating just a part of the entire issues. From the perspectives of policy
formation, this practice contributes to limiting the policymakers scope of making the right
decisions (Van Aelst et al., 2013).
Conclusion
This paper intended to discuss the medias’ role in agenda-setting in a democratic country.
In particular, the paper intended to look at the positive and negative effect of media in shaping
public opinion. While there is a general consensus of the importance of media in this role, the

Journalism, Government and The People 9
paper has also found that at some point, media can get mixed up in siding with a particular group
or overconcentrate on violence and forget to foster peace. However, the new peace journalism is
intended to ensure that media remains a positive resource within the society.

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10
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