Introduction

This chapter discusses that how media organizations contribute to polarization in public opinion about policy issues. It also discusses that how the public's consumption of media transitions into private discussions about policy issues, thus facilitating media organization's policy agenda-setting or refereeing. It then explores case studies that illustrate these processes at work: the Case of the Mental Health Bill and the case of UK national health policy. Finally, it looks at some working practices which contribute to faulty decision-making among media staff, such as poor information sampling practices and simplistic representations of outgroup's policy needs. One of the consequences of belonging to a social category is that one possesses feelings of identification with that category (self-categorization theory). The feeling of identifying with a particular social category is known as a social identity or a group identity. If the social category is a profession, then the group identity can be called a professional identity.