Agenda Cutting

Agenda cutting is the process by which deserving news topics are neglected. The phenomenon of agenda setting is well established and refers to processes by which topics get preferred attention in news provision. A natural corollary of this is that other topics will receive less attention than they may “deserve” (a topic or story can be said to deserve attention if it deeply affects the lives or interests of a substantial segment of the population or could do so). This process of agenda cutting differs from censorship, in which an administration or authority uses punitive sanctions to block coverage of matters that it desires or is required to keep from public knowledge or attention.

Agenda cutting can be found not only in print media but in the data elicited by Internet searches. For example, Bradley S. Greenberg of Michigan State University notes that a Google search on Sullivan's Island, South Carolina, provides evidence for and even quantification of the phenomenon. He found that a Google search using the keyword “Sullivan's Island” brought up about 100 websites describing Sullivan's Island's vacation amenities, history involving Edgar Allan Poe, and a stirring fight against the British in 1776. But one has to enter a further search descriptor, “slavery,” before it then becomes clear that Sullivan's Island, near Charleston, was the first stop for many Africans who were brought to the New World as slaves. Between 1700 and 1775, 49% of all enslaved blacks came to America through South Carolina. This part of Sullivan's Island's past warrants attention and could make it an important tourist destination for those interested in the history of slavery.

An article by Roy Greenslade (2004) in the Guardian newspaper described an example of agenda cutting in the British press. The article noted that, for many years, newspapers treated the topic of child abuse as taboo, barely reporting on cases unless the assaults were carried out by strangers. Editors thought abuse within the family was too rare to warrant coverage and that intimate details of such crimes should remain private. The author argues that, even in the 21st century, coverage of child abuse is erratic and often inaccurate.

Another part of the reason the agenda is narrowed lies in our own preferences and behavior as viewers and readers. Teenagers more often watch music and entertainment on television, rather than news. Viewers who create the swelling market for systematically misnamed “reality programs” prefer to engage with [Page 76]human relations trivia rather than with problems of profound substance and impact on society. They may correctly identify the reported romances of movie and music stars, while remaining (relatively) unaware of the composition of the U.S. Supreme Court or the location of Guantanamo and the controversies concerning suspected terrorists held there by the United States. Thus, viewer preferences can provide commercialized mass message systems with a rationale for agenda cutting and for a focus on entertainment instead of news and investigative reports.