Media Effects

Socialization

Media Socialization Theories

• Strong media theories

• Weak media theories

• Purposive Audience Theories

• Active Audience Theories

• Processing Media Content

Culture

• Components of culture:– symbols– beliefs– values– norms

• Socialization– process by which components of culture are

transmitted from one generation to the next

Strong Media Theories

• Hypodermic Theory– Media is sufficiently insiduous and powerful to inject

whatever message it wants into the “body politic”

– Women, children, and other “vulnerable” populations may need special protection

– Particularly common to see versions of this whenever new media are introduced (e.g., movies, television, rock/rap music, internet)

– Tends to lead to calls for government regulation/intervention

Strong Media Theories

• Cultivation Theory– Exposure to particular media forms is positively

correlated with influence of those forms

– That is, the more television viewed, the greater the likelihood that the viewer will come to accept that the televised world is a representation of the real world

– People who inhabit an environment that mimicks or conforms to the dominant medium of choice are more susceptible to messages and more easily influenced

Weak Media Theory

• Other approaches argue that the Strong Media theories overstate the influence and power of media

• In particular, these studies emphasize factors that help “mediate” the relationship between the media and the people

Media People

Government

These mediating factors include:

Weak Media Theory

• Importance of Preexisting Conditions– Selective Exposure

• people choose media that already conform with or confirm preexisting views, opinions, or inclinations

– Selective Perception• people perceive media information according to preexisting

beliefs, opinions, inclination

– Selective Retention• people recall content that that is consonant with views and

preferences

Weak Media Theory

• Interpersonal Dissemination– Content of communication is disseminated and

influenced by:• friends, family, shared interests, and opinions

• Group Membership– Understanding and perception of media content is

influenced by prior group conditioning that provide context for that understanding and perception

• e.g., religious, racial, political, geographic, age, gender

Weak Media Theory

• Opinion Leaders– People often do not digest information directly, but

have it processed by “opinion leaders” who provide context, cues, and meaning for audience

• Economics– Due to economic constraints, media tend not to

broadcast, publish, or disseminate views that are likely to be rejected or questioned by large segments of the population

Purposive Audience Theories

• Uses and Gratification Approach– People turn to media for a variety of reasons

beyond information gathering (uses)– People choose media, then, based on needs of

the moment (gratification)• e.g. emotional release (diversion)

stay informed (surveillance) reinforce personal identity

Purposive Audience Theories

• For example, studies of televsion viewing show that television serves a variety of uses and satisfies a range or gratifications:– environmental (background noise, companionship, entertainment)

– regulative (punctuates time, activity, talk patterns)

– communication facilitation (illustrate experience, enter conversations, reduce anxiety, set agenda for talk, clarify values)

– affiliation/avoidance (family solidarity, relaxation, conflict)

– social learning (decision-making, value transmission, information

dissemination, substitute schooling)

Purposive Audience Theories

• Attention to television, then, will vary on the context in which it is being viewed and the specific needs/intentions of the viewers attending to it

• The “message” of any programming, is just as likely to be distorted, changed, ignored as much as it is to be absorbed

Purposive Audience

• Media Systems Dependency– To understand media influence, we need to understand

the divergent “needs” of people to fulfill their lives (beyond basic biological necessities):

• understanding

• orientation

• play

– Given these needs, we can identify six “dependency relations” between people and the media

Purposive Audience Theories

• Media Systems Dependency– self understanding – social understanding– action orientation (what to buy, how to dress, etc.)

– interaction orientation (how to handle social situations)

– solitary play– social play

Purposive Audience Theories

• In both U&G and MSD, people use the media to fulfill certain needs and goals

• Both are socio-psychological approaches in which studying individuals (in the aggregate) is viewed as the best way to study broad social processes

Active Audience

• Response Approach– Focus is on how people comprehend and

interpret media conent– Comprehension may differ sharply from the

intentions (stated or implied) of the media• Referential - relate program/content to reality

• Metalinguistic/critical - recognize program/content as media construct and examine these various components in addition to the “message”

Processing Media Content

• Attempts have been made to explain the differences observed in these theories by focusing on how people process the content they experience

Processing Media Content

• Schematic Thinking– A “schema” - cognitive structure consisting of organized

knowlege about situations and individuals that has been abstracted from prior experience

• e.g., negative views on government, big business as corrupt, democracy is great

– These schema enable people to extract and incorporate the information they consider imiportant

– Note, then, without schema, people are less likely or even unlikely to absorb the information that will allow them to understand these areas; and in these situations, they are more likely simply to reflect media content directly

Processing Media Content

• Constructionist Approach– People operate from a core of “common

knowledge” that guides interest in, and attention to, media fare

– This core consists of “frames” which people use to convey, interpret, and evaluate, information

Processing Media Content

• Constructionist Approach– This sets up possibility (probability) that

individual frames will differ from media framing of an event

• e.g., personal interest and morality

• political vs. apolitical framing

Processing Media Content

• All of these theories depend, at least in part, on recall, that is, the ability for people to remember what information they just received

• Factors influencing recall:– demographics (education/income)– motivation– background knowledge– visual vs. textual– compilation pace and presentation– detail vs. general patterns

Learning Theories

• Given this importance, we need to understand or at least have a theory for understanding, how learning takes place

• One sense of learning would be the acquisition and retention of new knowledge

• But how does that take place?• To what extent is learning “stimulus determined”

and what extent is it “perceiver determined”?

Learning Theories

• Stimulus Determined– mental image reflects the actual stimulus senses

have absorbed

• Perceiver Determined– mental image is shaped by what the individual

already know/believe

Learning Theories

• On the other hand, information about aspects/events that are not widely known (and thus individuals are unlikely to have any preconceived content) are open to stimulus-determined images

• Media framing then becomes crucial to how the images are going to be perceived, and thus stored for future use

Learning Theories

• But keep in mind that all these studies are laboratory based and we need to bear in mind the transitory influences of actual media consumption

• That is:– attention

– context (social setting)

– quality/content of story (style impacts learning)

– credibility

Learning Theories

• In political studies of attitudes towards candidates/parties in an election, we find that most people are largely “perceiver” determined– that is, they absorb the events of the campaign

(e.g., the candidates, the issues, the race) through a filter of predetermined dispositions