Media and Policy Agenda

2009-4 A policy agenda is a set of issues, problems or subjects in which people inside and out of the government are paying serious attention to. The media is an important part of policy agenda because it raises awareness of issues to citizens and policy makers. The media also provides information and explains issues with policies, and consequences for policies not made or changed, to people. The president gets more media attention then congress because the president is one person where as congress is composed of many members. Also the president is the face of our country, he has greater power, and represents all people where each person in congress represents an area. Citizens who pay most attention to national news are older. Young people are less interested in government issues and policy agenda. There are implications for the president using the media to promote their agenda however. Some of these issues include the age of the audience of nightly news and decreased news viewing. The lack of young people watching the news means less awareness of what is going on from the generation that needs to hear it.