We often hear the phrase bandied about to ‘set the agenda’ for certain issues. These are usually issues that you what you want to be debated, a debate which, as an authority figure, you can lead!

If you can be seen as an authority figure on certain issues, then the ability to set an agenda can be a powerful business tool.

The term ‘agenda-setting’ was first used in a study by Maxwell E. McCombs and Donald L. Shaw published in 1972. In the study, the researchers interviewed 100 undecided voters in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and asked them what issues they were most concerned about in the coming (1968) election.

After determining the five issues the voters deemed most important, the researchers evaluated the media serving Chapel Hill (both print and broadcast) for the content of their stories. McCombs and Shaw found an almost perfect correlation between the types of stories that were covered most often and the voters’ concern for the same issues.

McCombs and Shaw’s research into agenda-setting was not the first foray into the subject (although it was the first to coin the term ‘agenda setting’), and it would not be the last. Several studies are done each year within the various disciplines of agenda-setting research.

Generally, the studies seem mostly to confirm that agenda-setting does in fact take place, and that media attention toward stories is the most important factor involved in shaping the public’s view of the stories’ relative importance.

In fact, studies have shown that the mere number of times a story is repeated in the news will affect peoples’ perception of the story’s importance, regardless of what is said about the topic.

There are three types of agenda: the media agenda (print and broadcast), the public agenda (what the ‘word on the street’ is), and the policy agenda (usually to do with government policies). Each one tends to affect the other, but the media agenda undoubtedly wields the most power when trying to drum up a debate.

But if you think agenda-setting is achieved simply by getting stories in the media, then, I’m afraid, you’ll have to think again, and this is due in no small part to the US Presidential Election of 1940. This is when the academics Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet conducted the first full-scale investigation of the effects of political mass communication.

Their research was originally based on the simplistic ‘hypodermic needle’ model of media influence, where it was assumed that a message would be transmitted from the mass media to a ‘mass audience’, who would absorb the message, like an arm would absorb whatever was pumped into it by a hypodermic needle.

However, their investigations suggested that media effects were minimal, that the idea of a ‘mass audience’ was inadequate and misguided because social influences had a major effect on the process of opinion formation and sharply limited the media’s effect.

The study concluded that only 5% of people changed their voting behaviour as a result of media messages! Their exposure to election broadcasts turned out to be a relatively poor predictor of their voting behaviour, particularly when compared with other factors such as their communication with friends, union members, business colleagues and the political tradition they had grown up in.

No ‘opinion leader’ is an opinion leader in all aspects of life. For example, the car mechanic in your local pub may not use the media much at all because he’s always working late. Nevertheless, he knows a lot about cars and so what the rest of those in the pub ‘know’ from the media about different makes of car will be influenced by his views.

This was recognized by the Nazi party in its gradual rise to power during the 1920s and 1930s. Nazi agitation and propaganda became increasingly successful at forcing themselves onto the front pages of newspapers, thus becoming an everyday topic of conversation. They were particularly keen to capitalise on that attention, directing it in the right direction through influencing the leading members of the various small associations which were spread throughout German communities.

Where local leaders, enjoying respectability and influence, were won over, further converts often rapidly followed. In the relatively homogeneous villages in Schleswig-Holstein, where feelings about the ‘Weimar system’ were running high on account of the agrarian crisis, the push from one or two farmers’ leaders could result in a local landslide to the Nazi Party.

You should never underestimate the importance of gaining credible, heavyweight endorsement from opinion leaders, and getting them to add their weight to media agenda-setting.

The debate on obesity amongst the population and the importance of a balanced diet continues to rumble on as healthy eating remains high on the government’s agenda. As it does so, the humble vending machine is being singled out and attacked.

In 2009 the Minister of Health for Wales, Edwina Hart, imposed restrictions on the products that could be sold through vending machines in Welsh Hospitals. These restrictions meant that hospital vending machines significantly reduced the range of products on sale to staff, visitors and patients. (Interestingly the busiest times that the machines are used are at 8pm and 2am by hospital staff, who understand the importance of diet and who surely do not need any guidance from the Minister on what to eat?)

The Minister for Health has undertaken a review of vending in Welsh hospitals and this has a number of far-reaching implications.  As an example, sugar will not be allowed in vended tea and coffee; sweeteners must be used, all of which impacts on people’s right to choose.

When guidance was introduced over a year ago to discourage hospitals from vending so-called unhealthy foods, it was based on a nutritional profiling model developed by the Food Standards Agency for the purposes of providing guidelines to OFCOM on the advertising of food on television. Even the FSA told the Welsh Minister that it was inappropriate for the purpose.

Ironically, based on the nutritional profiling model used in the guidelines, many healthier varieties of sandwich would be banned while some with less healthy fillings would be acceptable.

Despite a promised review of the guidance at the end of the year, when promises were made that the industry would be consulted, the Automatic Vending Association (AVA) says that it has still not been invited to get involved, despite repeatedly asking to meet the Minister. The FSB has also received no invitation to get involved.

In response to the restrictions, the AVA formed the Vending Choice Coalition (VCC), which is a group comprising of key food and beverage associations, major brand manufacturers and operator companies. Their goal is to ensure that vending has its say and consumers have freedom of choice to purchase a wide range of food and beverages through the vending channel in order to achieve a balanced diet.

At the same time it is clear that there is no foundation for singling out vending: the nonsense about this ban is that the shops and cafes in the concourse areas of hospitals face no such restrictions. And astonishingly there are no clear guidelines on what constitutes a healthy item.

Statistics show that the UK snack and confectionary market is worth £39bn, £7.8bn of which is chocolate and snacks. However, just 5% of this snack intake is sold through the vending channel. Only 1% of calories consumed by the nation come from snacks, and vending machines make up 1% of the snack sector. So we’re talking about 5% of 1%.

Vending is one sales channel and as only 5% of the snack intake goes through the vending channel, to try to ban the vending machine will do little to affect the health of the nation.

Vending machines do not make people fat. Vending machines are only as bad as the food people put inside of them. We have a number of members who have totally healthy vending machines in terms of products, which are low in fat, sugar and salt.

The fact is that the nation has been eating snacks and confectionery for many years without issue and rather than being the cause, the vending machine offers a solution. Vending machines provide choice and the items on sale reflect consumer tastes and demand, including fresh fruit, low fat and low sugar products as well as a range of drinks to rival the high street coffee shops.

The WAG policy, which will cost the vending machine industry around £15m, is the wrong approach to a larger problem and vending is an easy target that will not achieve the stated aims of the Health Minister. All it will do is remove consumer choice and make going to hospital more stressful. You do not make lifestyle choices in a hospital A&E – you need comfort and support from missed meals and your distress.

The vending machine came under more fire recently by the British Heart Foundation who has targeted the vending machine in its campaign to encourage healthy eating. But there is no evidence to support the view that vending causes obesity or an unhealthy lifestyle.

The BHF argued that obesity rates were soaring, however recent studies by the National Heart Forum found evidence that the rate of childhood obesity may be starting to slow and the reported projections had been greatly exaggerated. Its figures suggest that by 2020 the proportion of boys aged 2–11 who will be overweight or obese will be 30% – not the 42% that was predicted. For girls the same age the revised prediction is now 27%, down from 48%.

Scotland’s largest teaching union has recently thrown its weight behind a campaign to amend the law to allow Aberdeen pupils to sell chocolate in their school after new healthy eating guidelines forced Dyce Academy to close their Fairtrade confectionary stall.

They added that any legislation which denies pupils the opportunity to make balanced decisions “negates” what educationalists are trying to achieve. Indeed, pupils told MSPs that healthy lifestyles cannot be “forced” on youngsters, and a balance must be struck because they would only go to nearby shops to buy chocolate and sweets that are not available in school.

Chocolate will be part of their lives forever and they need to be educated to be able to properly make choices, a view supported by the FSA.

It remains clear that that a lifestyle that combines regular physical activity with consumption of a wide range of food choices is the key to a healthy lifestyle. It is vital that consumers, whether they be in hospitals or the workplace, are able to make that choice for themselves.