Chapter 2Mass Communication Effects:How Society & Media Interact

Rise of Mass Society

• Pre 1800s: People in the United States lived in rural communities with people of similar ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds.

• 1800s: Industrial revolution – People move into cities, work for wages, interact with people of diverse backgrounds.

• Fears: Media would replace church, family, and community in shaping public opinion.

Direct Effects Model

• People feared strong, direct effects of World War I and World War II propaganda.

• Direct effects—presume media messages are a stimulus that leads to consistent, predictable attitudinal or behavioral effects.

• Indirect effects—recognize that people have different backgrounds, needs, values and so respond differently.

People’s Choice Studyand the Limited Effects Model

• Lazarsfeld study of voter decision making in 1940 presidential election.

• Found importance of opinion leaders (friends and neighbors) over mass media and campaigns.

• Media content and campaigns had indirect effects; interpersonal influence was stronger.

People’s Choice Findings

• Voters with strong opinions are unlikely to change them.

• Voters who pay most attention to campaigns are those who start with strongest views.

• The most persuadable voters are least likely to pay attention to campaigns.

Critical Cultural Model

• Focus is on how people use media to construct view of the world; not effect of media on people’s behavior.

• Examines creation of meaning and how communication takes place; not survey or experimental results.

• Who controls the creation and flow of information?

Types of Media Effects

• Message Effects• Medium Effects• Ownership Effects• Active Audience Effects

Message Effects

How are people affected by the content of messages?

• Cognitive EffectsShort-term learning of information.

• Attitudinal EffectsChanging people’s attitudes about a person, product, institution, or idea.

Message Effects

• Behavioral EffectsInducing people to adopt new behaviors or change existing ones. Much harder than changing attitudes.

• Psychological EffectsInspiring strong feelings or arousal in audience members. People often seek feelings such as fear, joy, revulsion, happiness, or amusement.

Medium Effects

• How does the medium used change the nature of the message and the receiver’s response to the message?

• What are the social effects of each medium?• “The medium is the message”—Marshall

McLuhan

Ownership Effects

• How does ownership affect the media?• Do we get different messages from different

owners?• How important are the six largest media

companies?

Active Audience Effects

• Audience members seek out and respond to media for a variety of reasons.

• People can be segmented by geographics, demographics, or psychographics.

• Looks at audience members as selective consumers rather than naïve victims of the media.

Theories of Media and Society

• Functional Analysis• Agenda Setting• Uses and Gratifications• Social Learning

• Spiral of Silence• Media Logic• Cultivation Analysis

Functional Analysis

• Surveillance of the environment• Correlation of different elements of society• Transmission of culture from one generation

to the next• Entertainment

Agenda Setting

• The media don’t tell the public what to think, but rather what to think about.

• Media sets the terms of public discourse.• But can media determine what people will

care about?

Uses and Gratifications

• What do audience members attempt to get out of their media use?

• And do they receive it?

Uses and Gratifications

Possible gratifications • 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

Albert Bandura—We are able to learn by observing others and the consequences they face.

Social Learning

Steps of 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 behavior of others.

Symbolic Interactionism

• The process by which individuals produce meaning through interaction based on socially agreed-upon symbols.

• “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.”—W.I. Thomas

Spiral of Silence

• People want to see themselves as part of a majority.

• They will remain silent if they perceive themselves as being in a minority.

• This tends to make minority opinions appear less prevalent than they are.

• But some people like having contrary opinions; others speak out because they care.

Media Logic

• The forms the media use to present the world become the forms we use to perceive the world.

• People use media formats to describe the world.

• People use media formats to prepare for events so that they will be portrayed better through the media.

Cultivation Analysis

• Watching significant amounts of television alters the way an individual views the nature of the surrounding world.

• Can cultivate a response known as the “Mean World Syndrome.”

Mean World Syndrome

Heavy television viewers are more likely to:• Overestimate chance of experiencing violence• Believe their neighborhood is unsafe• Say fear of crime is a serious personal problem• Assume the crime rate is rising.

How Do Campaigns Affect Voters?

• Resonance ModelA candidate’s success depends on how well his or her basic message resonates with and reinforces voters’ preexisting political feelings.

• Competitive ModelViews the political campaign as a competition for the hearts and minds of voters. A candidate’s response to an attack is as important as the attack itself.

Media and Political Bias

• News with an explicit point of view is popular on cable television.

• Audience members tend to view news as biased if it does not actively match their own point of view.

Liberal vs. Conservative Bias

• Conservatives point out reporters tend to be more liberal than public at large.“The duty of the press is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”

• Liberals point out that media are owned by large corporations that tend to be more conservative than the public at large.“Freedom of the press belongs to those who own a press.”

Herbert Gans:Basic Journalistic Values

• EthnocentrismThe belief that your own country and culture are better than all others.

• Altruistic democracyThe idea that politicians should serve the public good, not their own interests.

Herbert Gans:Basic Journalistic Values

• Responsible capitalismThe idea that open competition among businesses will create a better, more prosperous world. But must be responsible.

• Small-town pastoralismNostalgia for the old-fashioned rural community.

Herbert Gans:Basic Journalistic Values

• IndividualismThe quest to identify the one person who makes a difference.

• ModeratismThe value of moderation in all things. Extremists on left and right are viewed with suspicion.

Herbert Gans:Basic Journalistic Values

• Social orderWhen journalists cover disorder they tend to focus on the restoration of order.

• LeadershipMedia look at the actions of leaders, whereas the actions of lower-level bureaucrats are ignored.