The Role Of The Media Agenda-setting In Crisis Communication

In recent years, various crises are always coming unexpectedly, so the German sociologist Ulrich Beck proposed the "risk society"concept. How to use the means of news to report the crisis is the urgent research topic. How to prevent and abate the crisises and in due course to put the "crisis" into a "chance" is worthy of our study. The Wenchuan earthquake crisis communication has gained valuable experience. Through the Wenchuan earthquake crisis communication and crisis management, it greatly enhances the national image and media image, and also re-establish the nation's belief system. The paper studied with the agenda-settings of Wenchuan earthquake reports in China Youth Daily, analysing the characteristics of the agenda-settings and how to transform the crisis to a chance, and from the government, the media, the public aspects to excavate deeply what the reason, condition and starting point of the media information disclosure are. On this basis the the paper puts forward some constructive suggestions to optimize the agenda-settings in crisis communication.This article includes four parts. The first part analyses what the role of the media in crisis communication is and the strategy that how it plays the role. The second and third part analyse the characteristics,the function and the shortage of the agenda-setting in China Youth Daily's Wenchuan earthquake reports. The last part is the enlightenment of our crisis communication, which are from the analysing of how the "China Youth Daily" agenda-setting play their role effectively.The global economic crisis caused by the United States financial crisis, will certainly affect China in 2009. Some experts think that in 2009 China's social group case will be increased. In this paper, lessons learned and recommendations for a variety of crisis' prevention and management, especially for how to set up a new concept of crisis communication have important significance.