Agenda-setting is the creation of public awareness and concern of salient issues by the news media. Two basic assumptions underlie most research on agenda-setting: (1) the press and the media do not reflect reality; they filter and shape it; (2) media concentration on a few issues and subjects leads the public to perceive those issues as more important than other issues.
This can applied to social work and community development when thinking about how we engage community member in change. Are we sending them a press release with updates or are engaging them to come up with their own plan? I see in Detroit a lot of good intent that is based on what people see in the media, but they do not connect with Detroiters who have lived there for years.
This can be applied to the whole world right now with what is going on with Paris, Beirut and Baghdad. The characterization of Islam being a violent religion and not just ISIS itself as an organization is creating Islamaphobia across the globe at the moment. The media plays a huge part in this.
Kleinnijenhuis, J. & Rietberg, E.M. (1995). Parties, media, the public and the economy: Patterns of societal agenda-setting. European journal of political research: official journal of the European Consortium for Political Research, 28(1),95-118
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