Mass Communication Effects

1. Mass Communication Effects How Society and Media Interact

2. History of Media Effects Research Rise of Mass Society Industrial revolution in the nineteenth century: • people moved from rural to urban areas • shift from self-sufficiency to wage-earning jobs • comfortable local community was being replaced by a impersonal mass society

3. Propaganda and the Direct Effects Model • The fear that media would replace influential institutions. • Direct effects—message effects would be widespread; affect many people in the same way • researchers found little effect from media messages • Indirect-effects approach • people’s perceptions are selective • responses to messages vary as well

4. Voter Studies and the Limited Effects Model • 1920s and 1930s: • media may have powerful, direct effects on the public • political messages of special concern • People’s Choice study of the 1940: • Roosevelt–Wilkie Presidential election • Paul Lazarsfeld examined how voters in Erie County, Ohio, decided which candidate to vote for

5. Lazarsfeld’s results: • People highly interested in the campaign were least likely to be influenced. • Voters who decided at the last minute usually turned to friends or neighbors, rather than the media: • opinion leaders—influential community members who spend significant time with the media • Campaigns reinforced existing political attitudes.

6. The Importance of Meaning and the Critical/Cultural Model • qualitative examination of the social structure • looks at how people use and construct messages: • people were limited in their ability for feedback • mass media controls flow of information • subjects covered are those that best represent advertisers

7. Effects of the Media in our Lives • Message Effects: • cognitive effects—most common and observable, short-term learning of information • attitudinal effects—feelings about a product, individual, or idea on the basis of media content • behavioral effects—clipping a coupon, buying a product, or voting for a candidate • psychological effects—media content can inspire feelings of fear, joy, happiness, or amusement

8. Medium Effects • Marshall McLuhan: • “The medium is the message” • Joshua Meyrowitz: • development of media can lead to radical changes in society • major effect of print as a medium is to segregate audiences according to education, age, class, and gender • electronic media cross demographic boundaries

9. Ownership Effects: • concern over owner’s control of ideas • long-tail media are providing alternative channels

10. Active Audience Effects: • important to know who the audience is comprised of: • geographics—where people live • demographics—gender race, ethnic background, income education, age, educational attainment, etc. • psychographics—a combination of demographics, lifestyle characteristics, and product usage • James Potter: • media audience can be seen as a pyramid

11. Theories of Media and Society Functional Analysis • Harold Lasswell—Three major social functions of the media • Surveillance of the environment • Media allows us to survey our surroundings. • Status conferral—Media coverage exposes individuals to large audiences, so they seem important.

12. Functional Analysis (cont.) • Correlation of different elements of society: • selection, evaluation, and interpretation of events • through correlation, we make sense out of what we learn through surveillance • Transmission of culture from one generation to the next: • learning the values of our society • Entertainment (an additional function, Charles Wright): • communication designed primarily to amuse • may serve other functions as well

13. Agenda-setting theory • issues portrayed as important in the media become important to the public. • Donald Shaw and Maxwell McCombs • studied voters in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1968 • strong relationship between issues the press considered important and issues that voters considered important • story must resonate with the public

14. Uses and Gratifications • views audience members as active receivers of information of their own choosing • gratifications audiences members may seek include: • to be amused • to experience the beautiful • to have shared experiences with others • to find models to imitate • to believe in romantic love

15. Social Learning Theory • Albert Bandura: We are able to learn by observing what others do and the consequences they face. • Humans go through three steps to engage in social learning: • We extract key information from situations we observe. • We integrate these observations to create rules about how the world operates. • We put these rules into practice to regulate our own behavior and predict the behaviors of others.

16. Symbolic Interactionism • common creation of society through our interactions based on language: • mass media are biggest source of shared meanings Spiral of Silence • why people become unwilling to express what they perceive to be a minority opinion: • becomes a death spiral of diversity of ideas

17. Media Logic • dominant cultural forms are those defined by the media: • example, an organization’s media planning Cultivation Analysis • watching large amounts of television cultivates a distinct view of the world that is sharply at odds with reality • cultivates a response known as mean world syndrome

18. Media, Politics and Society How do Political Campaigns Affect Voters? • Resonance model—the candidate’s success depends in part on how well his or her basic message resonates with voters’ preexisting political feelings • Competitive model—campaigns seen as a competition for the hearts and minds of voters: • A candidate’s response to an attack critical as the attack itself

19. Media and Political Bias • more opinionated form of reporting that takes on an explicit point of view Liberal versus Conservative Bias • liberal reporters, conservative media owners • 1985 study—journalists were more likely to hold a range of liberal views than the public at large

20. Herbert Gans’ Basic Journalistic Values • Gans identified the actual values exhibited within news stories: • ethnocentrism—your own country and culture is better than all others • altruistic democracy—politicians should serve the public good, not their own interests • responsible capitalism—open competition among businesses will create a better, more prosperous world for everyone

21. small-town pastoralism—nostalgia for the old-fashioned rural community • individualism—the constant quest to identify the one person who makes a difference • moderatism—the value of moderation in all things • social order—is seen primarily in the coverage of disorder • leadership—media tend to look at the actions of leaders while the actions of lower-level bureaucrats are ignored