Discuss the importance of Media

Media are important to agenda setting in two general ways: First by constructing and conveying simplified and often symbolic understandings of policy issues; and second as gatekeepers. Policy images are crucial to generating wider support for an issue among the previously uninterested and apathetic public. Media can play the key role in conveying simplified policy understandings and images to non-expert public. Policy images, particularly as worked up in the media, are always a mixture of empirical information and emotive appeals. The emotional components of policy images are critical to mobilizing support for (or against) a policy. Yet media, when left to their own devices, tend to have a difficult time reporting on complicated policy issues. They often prefer to take one side or another, framing the issues in terms of a struggle or competition. Public attention is a scarce resource, and the gate keeping functions of media are a key determinant of which issues will receive public attention and which will not.