Specific focus on creativity and curiosity

Walter Lippmann, prominent American journalist and later public relations guru, first muted the idea of agenda setting. Lippmann (1922) put forward the idea that people did not respond directly to events in the real world but lived in a pseudo-environment composed of “the pictures in our heads”. The media helps to create these pictures and also contribute to the shaping of the pseudo-environment

Agenda Setting falls in the realms of public opinion research focus. McCombs and Shaw (1972) stated that the general notion of the agenda-setting theory is the ability of the media to influence the salience of events in the public mind.

Thus, the agenda-setting function or effect of the mass media was first put to empirical verification by McCombs and Shaw during the 1968 United States Presidential election. They stated that among undecided voters in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, there were substantial correlations between the political issues emphasized in the news media and what the voters regarded as the key issues in that election. That the voters’ beliefs about what were the major issues facing the country reflected the composite of the press coverage, even though the three presidential contenders in the election placed widely divergent emphasis on the issues. This suggests that voters-at least undecided voters-pay some attention to all the political news in the press regardless of whether it is about or originated with a favoured candidate.

Core Assumptions of the Agenda-Setting Theory

Agenda-setting as a public opinion research focus is the building of public awareness on and around current issues in the news media. The key assumptions that inspire research on agenda setting are:

• The media do not create or reflect reality; they only shape it.

• Media focus on selected or few issues filtered through the gate-keeping process lead the public to identify and perceive those issues as more important than other issues.

The different media, say newspaper, magazine, radio, television, new media (social media), etc, all have different agenda-setting potentials. Weaver et al (1981) noted that there are media differences in agenda-setting. Television and newspaper both have an agenda-setting impact, but that impact is not identical. A television viewer is given a series of reports in rapid succession. The audience have no control over how long they are exposed to an issue. Newspaper readers, however, control their own time. They can re-read an article about an issue that interests them, search for only articles on a favourite issue, or completely skip an issue of which they have little interest. In the 1972 election in the United States, both media had a significant, but different effect. Thus, agenda-setting theory seems quite appropriate to help us understand the pervasive role of the media for example on political communication systems.

Cohen (1963) amply stated that: “The press may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about.”

Linsky (1986, p.87), noted that "the press has a huge and identifiable impact". Dearing and Rogers

(1996, p.14) drew attention to the fact that agenda-setting research investigates an indirect effect (“what to think about’) rather than a direct media effect (“what to think”).

According to the agenda-setting theory, mass media set the agenda for public opinion by highlighting certain issues. Studying the way political campaigns were covered in the media, Shaw and McCombs found the main effect of news media to be agenda-setting, telling people not what to think, but what to think about. Agenda setting is usually referred to as a function of framing.

The theory explains the correspondence between the rate at which media cover a story and the extent that people think that this story is important.

Agenda-setting occurs as a result of the media attention on few issues. In the news world, information is filtered to the public through the gate-keeping process. In the course of action, choices are made about what to feed the public and what not to give out to the public.

The agenda-setting role of the media has three main dimensions:

1. Media Agenda: Issues raised in the media

2. Public Agenda: Issues raised in the media that are of relevance to the public.

3. Policy Agenda - issues raised in the media that policy makers regard as matters of key concern.

The mass media generally exerts tremendous influence in human affairs. The ability of newspaper and a host of other communication technologies to mould the public mind and significantly influence the flow of history is a widely ascribed power.

White (1972) noted that, the power of the press in America is a primordial one. It sets the agenda of public discussion; and this sweeping political power is unrestrained by any law. It determines what people will talk and think about-an authority that in other nations is reserved by tyrants, priests, parties and mandarins.

With all the positive influence ascribed to the agenda setting theory, scholars in the field have identified factors that strengthen or weaken the influence of the media agenda on the public agenda.

According to McCombs (1976), agenda-setting influence does not operate at all time, in all places and in all people. That the potency of agenda-setting influence is found to vary dramatically depending on certain contingent conditions of receivers of that information and the issues themselves (Roberts, Wanta & Dzwo, 2002). Miller (2005) identified three contingent factors that enhance, modify and mitigate the influence of the agenda setting process. They are audience characteristics, media characteristics and issues characteristics.

The relevance of this theory to this study lies in the fact that journalists in giving out information on the anti-corruption crusade of the Buhari administration will influence the salience of events in the public mind.