3Mass

Communication Effects

How Society and Media Interact

History of Media Effects Research

Rise of Mass SocietyIndustrial 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

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

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

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.

• 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

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

• 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

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

• 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

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.

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

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

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

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.

o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdh7MngntnI

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

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

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PHxTr-59hE&feature=related

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

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

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

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