The content and character of news programming can have far-reaching political consequences.Discuss three kinds of media effects and give a detailed example of each.Is there any bias in the kind of issues media chooses to report? Explain.

There are four components to this question.
a.Agenda-setting: Agenda-setting involves identifying the issues to which politicians and the public will pay attention; some things are deemed important while others are not.For example,by providing a great deal of coverage about terrorism,the media can make the public think that this issue is more important.
b.Framing: Framing is the power of the media to influence how events and issues are interpreted.For example,the Obama administration labeled the 2010 health care bill the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," thus framing the proposal as a matter of compassionate responsibility and good economics.Sensing that Americans approved of this,Republicans chose different language.The law's provisions for limiting excessive medical testing were labeled as "health care rationing" and proposals to create committees to advise patients about end-of-life care were called "death panels."
c.Priming: Priming involves "calling attention to some matters while ignoring others" when evaluating political officials.As a result,the public will be primed to use certain criteria when evaluating a politician or an issue,and ignore other criteria.For example,the media's intensive focus on terrorism and security in the wake of the September 11,2001,terrorist attacks primed the public to evaluate President George W.Bush's performance in office based on his ability to defend the nation from terrorism,and not on,say,his ability to manage the economy at the time.
d.Selection bias: Because the media are businesses,and because the media seek to attract the largest possible audiences,they tend to cover stories with dramatic or entertainment value,giving less attention to important stories that they deem less compelling.Partisanship and ideology notwithstanding,the journalistic instinct for sensational stories often trumps both the media's responsibility to inform the public about what really matters and the public's responsibility to demand that from the media.