Earthquake Media Agenda-setting Effect Study

The mechanism construction of emergency management and the media development with speed along the five years have been presented in the process faced and handled in the most severe public crisis events of the Wenchuan earthquake since the foundation of China. The effective communication of crisis in the earthquake leads to the transition from"brake"for catastrophe to"outbreak"for the remodeling state image and reversing our disadvantage in the international view market. The concept and mechanism crisis of media operation has altered the regular running approach of media and reflected certain features. Being as crucial means of news report and pubic opinion guidance carried by media in the earthquake, the way of influences caused by media agenda-setting regarding pubic information receiving, comprehending and then instructing decision and action in person serves as a highly focused issue.This paper takes the effects of the media report of Wenchuan Earthquake as the starting point for the problem thinking, looks for the intended communication effects of the intentional or unintentional "agenda-setting" that primarily approach to complete through the report, and has an impact on the media,the public behavior and the government decision-making. So the focus of this study is, how the media brings the influence on in the Wenchuan earthquake on the media,the public behavior and the government decision-making through the media agenda-setting, and what kind of communication effects have been achieved.The research in the paper seeks to use communication, journalism, public relations and other basic theories. Under nowadays social and the new media environment, taking"Wenchuan earthquake"as the example of particular public emergencies and using the agenda-setting theory , the press frame theory and the behavioral decision-making theory as support, through a large number of original first-hand information of the report from both traditional and new media during the period of the earthquake, bring out the main point in the news reports in the earthquake, and extract the media agenda-setting contents. According to previous theory and analysis, the research recommends that take "the media agenda-setting content - factors that affect in achieve the agenda-setting effect - system analysis of the actual effect" as the research order, and demonstrate and analyze how the media agenda-setting affects on "the media behavior, the public opinion, and the government decision-making"in this crisis event. Finally it will sum up the media agenda-setting effect from these three parts in Wenchuan earthquake. Through the research on the Wenchuan earthquake event as the text of historical significances, the paper will provide the creative results in research of conveying information effects between the media, government and the audience whether under the normal or crisis environment; This research will have an important theoretical and practical significance on enhancing the spread of the media in a crisis management in the future, and promote the interaction between the media, the public and the government.