INDIVIDUALS, GROUPS, AND AGENDA MELDING: A THEORY OF SOCIAL DISSONANCE |
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| Authors: | Shaw Donald L; McCombs Maxwell; Weaver David H; Hamm Bradley J |
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| Abstract: | Many studies have established that there is a degree of audiencelearning from the mass media, especially of new issues enteringthe news. But recent studies show an agenda-setting effect atdeeper levels beyond broad news categories. Audiences also absorbthe attributes of news—the frames and slants in the waynews is presented—and this suggests that while the massmedia do not tell us what to think, the mass media do have considerablepower to tell us how to think about topics, with implicationsfor social policy. Beyond these two levels of agenda setting,however, is something more significant—agenda melding.Agenda melding argues that individuals join groups, in a sense,by joining agendas. There is a powerful impulse to affiliatewith others in groups as one leaves the original family setting,and one joins these groups via media of connections, mostlyother people but also other media. This paper suggests a modelof agenda melding that accounts for the role of media (massor interpersonal) in helping individuals move toward or awayfrom groups. This attempts to build toward general social theoryby suggesting the role of media in how individuals functionwith others in a coherent social system. |
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