Agenda Setting and the Future

This is a compilation of excerpts (as well as my own commentary) from the exceptionally interesting journal article "Agenda Setting and Agenda Melding in an Age of Horizontal and Vertical Media: A New Theoretical Lens for Virtual Brand Communities" by Matthew Ragas and Marylin Roberts, on the future of agenda setting in our increasingly media-saturated world.


As a result in the changes in technology, there have been major changes in the ways in which people receive their news. Newspapers, broadcast television, and terrestrial radio are all examples of “vertical media” which is rapidly declining. Now the more common form of media is “horizontal media.” The main differences are that it is more specialized and people pay premiums for this type of media. Horizontal media includes cable television and satellite radio as well as other media that is paid for. Horizontal and vertical media intersect in virtual brand communities, or the Internet. This is because the Internet is free like vertical media but serves specialized interest groups like horizontal media. Now people seek news in different ways, the media and its agenda have had to adapt. Although the major tenets of agenda setting theory have maintained their importance with the changes of new media, an aspect of agenda setting theory has changed. This change is known as Agenda Melding which focuses “on the personal agendas of individuals vis-à-vis their community and group affiliations". This means that individuals join groups and blend their agendas with the agendas of the group. Then groups and communities represent a “collected agenda of issues” and “one joins a group by adopting an agenda.” On the other hand, agenda setting defines groups as “collections of people based on some shared values, attitudes, or opinions” that individuals join. This is different from traditional agenda setting because according to Shaw et al. individuals join groups in order to avoid social dissonance and isolation that is also known as “need for orientation". Therefore in the past in order to belong people would learn and adopt the agenda of the group. Now with the ease of access to media, people form their own agendas and then find groups that have similar agendas that they agree with. The advances in technology have made agenda melding easy for people to develop because there is a wide range of groups and individual agendas. The Internet makes it possible for people all around the globe to find others with similar agendas and collaborate with them. In the past agenda setting was limited to general topics and it was geographically bound because travel was limited.

Ragas, Matthew; Marilyn Roberts (2009). "Agenda Setting and Agenda Melding in an Age of Horizontal and Vertical Media: A New Theoretical Lens for Virtual Brand Communities". Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 86 (1): 45–64.