Going beyond agenda-setting : the effect of newspaper reading on attitudes towards a local organisation

Abstract

Public opinion is a major force in a democratic society. With an increasingly sophisticated public, private organisations are realising the need to address the public and gain support. Modern public relations techniques talk about developing a corporate image into a corporate asset. In order to develop this asset, organisations need to understand the machinations of how the images form in our society. The media are central to the formation of these images, since they represent one of the strongest forms of communication in society and are a gateway to information beyond the individual's everyday experience. They form the backdrop against which any important confrontation, over an issue, takes place. The study of the formation of public opinion is directly linked to the study of mass media effects since the media have a central role in the formation of public opinion. We have to ask how public opinion is formed through interaction with the media, in other words do the media have any effect and if so what. Cohen's (1963) famous dictum formed the study of agenda-setting effects - that the media does not tell us what to think, only what to think about. However some researchers go a step beyond this theory.