The media is not able to tell us what to think, but very effective at telling us what to think about. Picture: iStock
Seeing as we find each other here on this august platform, I think it’s fair to say that we both have an interest in news.
There is certainly no shortage of news stories around the internet and on traditional media, matters that are brought to our attention by news organisations which then gradually roll out over weeks, months and years. Sometimes there are events-based stories – disasters, accidents, crimes and the like. But quite often news concerns issues.
When we think of news issues, we might think of matters such as government corruption, the US elections, gender-based violence or service delivery protests.
How have these issues come to dominate our news cycles?
It’s possible that these stories are framed in ways that keep us focused on effects without considering the broader causes. These broader causes play out over decades and centuries, and are often the province of academia. However, these geopolitical and social causes behind the news are no less important to our lives.
The study of what is deemed an important news story is called Agenda-setting theory and it describes the manner in which news media influences what topics are deemed important to the public agenda.
Sometimes this happens by “zooming in” on outcomes, without focusing on broader social causes. At other times agenda setting means setting up a debate around a particular topic – conflict, terrorism, crime, drugs, corruption etc.
These issues tell people what to think about and become particularly important around election periods when a party or candidate’s stance on an issue can affect their success.
Who remembers “policy certainty” and its importance at the last ANC electoral conference? The fact it became such a critical issue is thanks to news organisations as well as PR and advocacy groups attached to business, civil society and political factions.
In 1963, American political scientist Bernard Cohen wrote 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”.
Most of us have opinions on what we believe are the salient issues of the day. But often that’s only because they have been presented to us as pertinent issues. There is a world of deeply critical social concerns that is not presented to us as news or topical content which we remain unaware of.
For instance, business news may be framed through stories of GDP trends, unemployment figures, job-creating investments, corporate news and stock market trends. However, it frames the capitalist economic system as a given.
Trickle-down economics is assumed to be the mechanism whereby business success will eventually uplift poor people by creating jobs.
A completely different perspective might question market economics and consider alternative routes to social upliftment through socialist or social-democratic economics, a state-driven social programme or mechanisms such as basic-income grants, which don’t see labour and jobs as fundamental.
Another example would be news framed along an Anglo-Saxon, USA-UK cultural axis. During colonialism, apartheid and the Cold War, we inherited a Western political perspective to our news. To this day, Russian and Chinese economic and social perspectives are marginalised in our news discourse.
I’m not saying these are the systems we should be following, but we should certainly be hearing about their successes, not to mention the failings of capitalism and Western imperialism if we are to have better-informed opinions.
I mention this because when a socio-political system comes under strain, it needs ideas from outside that system if is to invigorate itself. Simply revisiting the same set of ideas that brought the system into difficulty will not fix the problem.
As the pandemic lays bare the social inequality of our current economic system, we may need some fresh ideas.
Unfortunately, our media is set up to cover issues that support the status quo. The status quo is harder to change when that’s all you know.
As America teeters its way to the polls, with trade wars afoot, a pandemic on the go and inequality rampant, society is polarised and there is a shortage of ideas all of us can believe in.
The problem might not just be that the issues need solving.
We might need new issues.
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