Another Journalism Week, staged by a revitalised Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ), has come and gone [November 30-December 6]. We who operate in the media occupy strategic positions of power and responsibility.

To a significant degree, we determine what people think, how they will think about these things, and how they perceive and interact with the world in which they live. Media have become primary agencies through which social reality is constructed. They have powerful agenda-setting and framing roles which are hardly ever examined closely enough within media themselves or by audiences.

Years ago, I bought British media scholars James Curran and Jean Seaton's book, Power Without Responsibility: The Press and Broadcasting in Britain. In it the authors argue that "the influence of the media has been immense - on institutions, the conduct of affairs, and the way in which people think and act politically".

The book further argues that "the mass media and mass politics have inspired, reflected and shaped each other more than has been commonly realised". Take that very interesting relationship between Jamaican media and politics. One the one hand, media to a large extent sell the idea that Jamaican politics and politicians are inherently corrupt. And a great deal of political reportage and analysis is dedicated to scandal hunting. On the other hand, many media workers enjoy a warm first-name relationship with political leaders and media appreciation and Christmas parties have become must-attend events for some media people.

Power of the press

Power without Responsibility says: "The power of the press and broadcasting has often been obscured." The view that the press is one of the great instruments of liberty, an independent fourth estate, the vital defender of public interests, is a central part of our culture, the authors say. [The theme of Journalism Week was "Fanning the Flames of Democracy"]. "Yet this is a very modern theory which has more than an element of special pleading. The theory was produced," they propose, "to justify those who created the press and whose interests it largely served. [But] this does not mean that newspapers, television and radio have generally been instruments of crude propaganda; rather that the media are political actors in their own right." The media, as the mirror theory would have us believe, do not simply reflect contemporary political forces, or anything else for that matter. But as the primary source of information and of views of the world, the media do play a very important role in the maintenance of democracy.

A much-studied media effect is agenda-setting. Simply put: The degree of emphasis placed on issues in the mass media influences the priority given to these issues by the public. Let us look at a couple of cases. It is highly unlikely that corruption is any more rampant in Jamaica now than in the past. Indeed, when one considers the bad old days of distributing houses, contracts and jobs blatantly along party lines, corruption is probably much less now than then. But there is now a powerful media spotlight on corruption. Contractor General Greg Christie has quickly learned how to use an accommodating media and has become something of a media celebrity. Corruption is now high on the list of public concerns.

A tiny organisation like Jamaicans For Justice could hardly have achieved the national prominence that it has without being 'puffed' by a media pushing human rights and pushing against state abuse of human rights. And over the last few weeks, the media have determined that capital punishment was the thing that we should think about most.

Public concern

True, Parliament took the first conscience vote on the issue since 1979, but in the broad scheme of crime concerns and other major issues, it is doubtful if capital punishment would have seized public concern to the extent it did without that big media push.

What else has Parliament debated in the last month? The average Jamaican could hardly say.

And what is off the media agenda which might be of large public concern? Religion, for example, is very important to the average Jamaican. But here, as is the case in the secularised West generally, religion is seriously underreported and underdiscussed. It is remarkable how much socially significant religious news is carried by the dedicated religious radio station, Love 101, which never appears in secular media.

While agenda-setting sets up what we consider important and think about, framing in media shapes how we think about the issues. Framing is really just that: Seeing the world outside through a particular window frame which allows a particular view and at the same time denies others. As explained in the collection of papers, Framing Public Life: Perspectives on Media and our Understanding of the Social World, "A frame is a central organising idea for news content that supplies a context and suggests what the issue is through the use of selection, emphasis, exclusion and elaboration."

The politics and corruption frame, for example, is a powerful Jamaican media frame. There is very little space for the real sacrifices made by politicians or for any personal stand they might take against corruption. Contrary to the view sold of the neutral, objective media pursuing the truth, media use framing to play advocacy roles, often without saying so. I am, for instance, watching with keen interest an advocacy role being surreptitiously played out in powerful elements of our media regarding public opposition to same-sex relationships.

The media are the most powerful and pervasive mediator of social reality today. As Timothy Cook, professor of mass communications and political science at Louisiana State University before his death, asserts in his provocative book Governing with the News, media are in fact institutions - a 'political institution' even. James Curran and Jean Seaton, in Power Without Responsibility, assert that "something [the media], which daily intrudes into our lives in ever-more sophisticated ways, needs to be, itself, the subject of continual public surveillance". And, since the media interfere with us, they argue, we have a right and a duty to interfere with the media, which exercises a "massive power".

Martin Henry is a communications consultant who may be reached at medhen@gmail.com or columns@gleanerjm.com.