Chapter 2 Mass Communication Effects How Society and Media Interact PDF

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Online - Dr. Vivian Medina-Messner...

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Rise of Mass Society: ○ Pre-1800s: People in U.S. lived in rural communities with people of similar ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds ○ 1800s: Industrial Revolution- people move into cities, work for wages with people of diverse backgrounds ○ Fears: media would replace the church, family, and community in shaping public opinion Direct Effects Model: ○ People feared strong, direct effects of WWI and WWII propaganda ○ Presumes media messages are a stimulus that leads to consistent, predictable attitudinal or behavioral effects ○ Indirect effects recognizes that people have different backgrounds, needs, values, and so respond differently People’s Choice Study & the Limited Effects Model: ○ Lazarsfeld study of voter decision making in 1940s presidential election ○ Found importance of opinion leaders (friends & neighbors) over mass media and campaign efforts ○ Media content and campaign had indirect effect; interpersonal influence was stronger ○ Findings: ■ Voters with strong opinions are unlikely to change them ■ Voters who pay the most attention to the campaign are those who begin with the strongest views ■ The most persuadable voters are least likely to pay attention to the campaign Critical Cultural Model: ○ Focus is on how people use media to construct their 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: how are people affected by the content of messages? ■ Cognitive effects: short-term learning of information ■ Attitudinal effects: changing people’s attitudes about a person, product, institution, or idea ■ Behavioral effects: Inducing people to adopt new behaviors or change existing ones; much harder than changing attitudes ■ Psychological effects: inspiring strong feelings or arousal in audience members ● People often seek feelings such as joy, fear, revulsion, happiness, or amusement ○ Medium Effects: how does the medium change the nature of the message and the receiver’s response to the message?

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■ 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 ● Ex. Disney Channel, Fox News, etc. 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 naive victims of the media

■ Theories of Media and Society: ○ 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 doesn’t tell the public what to think, but rather what to think about ■ Media set the terms of public discourse ■ Can media determine what people care about? ○ Uses and 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 ■ 1. We extract key information from situations we observe

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2. We integrate these observations to create rules about how the world operates ■ 3. We put these rules into practice to regulate our own behavior and predict the behavior of others How do campaigns affect voters? ○ Resonance Model: a candidate’s success depends on how well his or her basic message resonates with and reinforces voters’ pre-existing political feelings ○ Competitive Model: views 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 Herbert Gans: Basic Journalistic Values: ○ Ethnocentrism: the belief that your own country and culture are better than all others ○ Altruistic Democracy: the idea that politicians should serve the public good, not their own interests ○ Responsible Capitalism: the idea that open competition among businesses will create a better, more prosperous world; must be responsible ○ Small-Town Pastoralism: nostalgia for the old-fashioned rural community ○ Social Order: when journalists cover disorder they tend to focus on the restoration of order ○ Leadership: media look at the actions of leaders whereas the actions of lowerlevel bureaucrats are ignored ○ Individualism: the quest to identify the one person who makes a difference ○ Moderatism: the value of moderation in all things; extremists on left and right are viewed with suspicion...