Question

If a cable news channel decides to report on a senator's financial indiscretions rather than report on a piece of congressional legislation that failed to pass, that news channel is practicing which of the following? a. Blogosphere politics b. Net neutrality c. Hard news d. Gerrymandering e. Agenda setting

Answer 1

Answer:

e. Agenda Setting

Explanation:

Agenda setting refers to a practice adopted by news channels to place higher emphasis on a news, and making it appear important by consistently and repetitively covering such news.

Such a practice influences an individual's thoughts not with what he/she thinks, but what he/she should think about and consider important.

Through such a practice, the news channels underline the extent to which an issue is important i.e assign significance and importance to an issue by affecting the perceptive mindset of the viewer.

So if a political issue gets covered and getting telecast too frequently, it affects the viewers interpretation regarding the sensitivity or significance of the issue.

Many a times, through agenda setting, the media indirectly feeds it's own biased views in the thought process of the viewers. So rather than making the viewer think on his own and assign weight-age, the media itself assigns importance to an issue.

In the given case, the cable news channel preferred the topic of senator's financial indiscretion over a congressional legislation which wasn't passed. So the channel emphasized upon one issue which as per it was more important than the other and thus follows agenda setting.