SHORTFALLS OF THE AGENDA SETTING THEORY

The Agenda Setting Theory,was propounded by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shawin in 1972,in their study of the role of the media in a presidential campaign. This theory asserts that, the media has a great influence over the masses,by the choice of what stories to consider newsworthy and how much prominence and space to give them. However this theory comes with some weaknesses.

To start with, the issues highlighted by the media under this theory are sometimes inaccurate and untrue. Eventhough, the media does not think about the issues for the audience, the public tend to think about and discuss some of these issues. After making their judgments on these issues, it sometimes turns out to be false. For instance, the ‘Ghanaian Lens’ newspaper in 2008 reported that, the government had sold, all Ghana’s gold reserves which later turned out not to be true. The ‘New Punch’ newspaper also carried a story that «President Mills was dead,”which also turned out to be false.When the media disseminate such information,they tend to mislead the pubic.

Another defect of the Agenda Setting Theory is the fact that,it gives prominence to certain socio-political isssues to the neglect of other important issues.The media under this theory gather their information from the public through their own discretion and turn these issues into salient ones,but to the neglect of other important issues.For instance,the media has turned the decision by the University of Ghana authorities, to turn the Common Wealth Hall into a mixed hall a salient one.This issue,has being in the media for more than two weeks to neglect of issues on health,good drinking water,and the current power outages.