Media Effects and Cultural Approaches to Research

1. Media Effects and Cultural Approaches to Research

2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTFO-xZ7pyc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTFO-xZ7pyc

3. Media Effects Research • “attempts to understand, explain, and predict the effects of mass media on individuals and society,” • “focuses on how people make meaning, apprehend reality, articulate values, and order experience through their use of cultural symbols. Cultural Studies

4. Propaganda Analysis • Media Researchers studied how governments use propaganda to advance the war efforts • Propaganda Divisions “partisan appeal based on half-truths and devious manipulation of communication channels,” *Walter Lippmann* “distrusted the public’s ability to function as knowledgeable citizens as well as journalism’s ability to help the public separate truth from lies,”

5. Public opinion • Increasingly dependant on polls • Which leads to pseudo-polls • Call in • Online • Person-in-the-street polls

6. Research on Media Effects • Hypodermic-Needle Model • The evil media shoots their potent effects directly into unsuspecting victims (Orsen Wells “War of the Worlds”) (Natural Born Killers) • Minimal-Effects Model • The media alone can’t cause people to change their attitudes and behaviors Selective exposure and retention *We view things in the media that closely represent or reinforce the beliefs we already have.

7. Genius Quote of the Day!!! • “For some children, under some conditions, some television is harmful. For other children under the same conditions, or for the same children under other conditions, it may be beneficial. For most children under most conditions, most television is probably neither particularly harmful nor particularly beneficial,”

8. Uses and Gratifications Model • Why do we use the media? • Satisfying various emotions or intellectual needs *Experiments in media research* • Experimental group • Control group *Isolate some aspect of content* *Understand impact on attitude, emotion, or behavior*

9. Content Analysis • Issues with correlation vs. causation • Correlation-shows a link between to variables • Causation-explains the relationship *CORRELATION DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION*

10. Social Learning Theory • Attention • Retention • Motor Reproduction • Motivation *Cultivation Theory* “suggests that heavy viewing of television leads individuals to perceive the world in ways that are consistent with television portrayals,”

11. Social Isolation • Spiral of Silence • Views which are considered the minority won’t get brought up for fear of isolation

12. Audience Studies • Or Reader-Response research- focuses on how people use and interpret cultural content • German Philosopher JürgenHabermas focused on the Public Sphere which is the relationship between communication and democracy. • James Carey (media historian) • Communication/Culture • *More of a cultural ritual* “A symbolic process whereby reality is produced, maintained, repaired, and transformed,”

13. Intellectual Dichotomy • Issues with academic research on media effects • Academics speaking too fast and using too big of words. • Fails to address everyday problems • Begins to alienate “nonacademics” • Alan Sokal’s famous hoax • 1996 “Transgressing the boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity” • (Designed to point out how dense academic jargon can be)

14. Quote of the day • “Anything is possible…. When you don’t know what you’re talking about….,”