mass communication - personal.

I have never sat down to watch an entire news segment on television. Since I am not a regular news watcher, especially at school, I usually just tune in to the beginning segment where the key stories are highlighted and mentioned. This is a perfect example of how the mass media sets an agenda for the public. They decide what stories are important, how to present them, and how long to keep them in the news. Since these stories are highlighted, these are the stories we view as most important. Once the story is no longer presented on the news, we lose interest in it and move on to the next big thing. This is exactly what I do because I only watch the key segments. 

I remember being in sixth grade, at which point I did not watch any news. It was a regular day at school until we got to lunch time. There was all this buzz in the cafeteria. Rumors were flying around everywhere. I did not really know what was going on, but no one really knew. All I knew was something big happened and my neighbor's mom was taking me home instead of taking the bus. When Joey and I got into the car, the first thing we did was ask his mom what was going on. She told us that someone had crashed two planes into the Twin Towers. I had no idea what she meant by that. It was unimaginable. 

Once I got home I asked my mom, and she told me to turn on the television in order to understand. When I finally turned the t.v. on, almost every station was broadcasting the coverage of the crash. I remember sitting their and just continuously watching the planes fly into the buildings. I was in shock. I was in awe. I could not believe it. But honestly, who could? For several weeks, even months, this was one of the main stories on the news. Even though this was a very serious event and the news stations had every right to continuously show the crash and cover the story, they were still setting the agenda for the public. In this case, this was definitely the top story. But after several weeks, life continued and other things in the world happened. I was very young then, but I imagine that the 9/11 story took the place of other stories. Therefore, as an audience we were watching this story, even though other events were occurring. In this case, the news picked for us which story was most important.