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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
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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
Government People Media 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
