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CHAPTER 4
Media Influence
N ow that you have broadened your perspective on media effects, it is time to shift your attention to media influence. In this chapter we examine the four general patterns of media influence. Then we introduce the factors about the media messages that have been found responsible for that media influence. The chapter concludes with a detailed example that shows how various factors work together to bring about patterns of media influence.
PAUERNS OF INFLUENCE
At the most fundamental level, the media exert four patterns of influence: gradual long- term change, long-term non-change (reinforcement), immediate shift, and short-term fluctuation change (see Figure 4.1). All media effects follow one of these four patterns. I know these terms may at first seem very strange and complicated, but once you under stand what they are, you will see that these are simple patterns and the only patterns pos sible for media-influenced effects. To illustrate these patterns, I first clarify the distinction between baselines and fluctuations as well as between manifestations and processes.
Basetines and FLuctuations With a long-term change type of effect, the messages from the media gradually alter a per son’s baseline. Figure 4.1 a illustrates this pattern. To understand this pattern, first look at the axes in the figure. The horizontal axis represents time. The vertical axis represents the degree of an effect; this can be any effect—a cognition, a belief, an attitude, an affect, physiology, or a behavior. The line in the figure represents a person’s baseline on a particular effect. Notice that in this example, the line ascends as it moves from left to right; this means that as time goes by the person is experiencing a slightly higher degree of this effect—whatever the effect is. Let’s make this example a little more concrete by saying this is a cultivation effect. A culti vation effect is the gradual increase over time of a person’s belief about the real world, such as that the world is a mean and violent place. Cultivation theory predicts that people who watch a great deal of television will gradually over time come to believe the real world is like the television world. Because the television world is a violent one, people who watch a lot of television will come to believe the real world is also a violent one. This cultivation effect can
53
High Long-Term Alteration of Baseline
Medium
Low
None Time Line
Reinforcement Effect
t — — — —
________
Low
None Time Line
CHAPTER 4 Media Influence 55
be illustrated graphically in Figure 4.1 a by the very gradual upwardly sloping line. This line indicates that as time goes by, people show an increasing degree of cultivation; that is, they are more and more likely to believe the real world is like the television world. Now let’s consider a different type of effect: reinforcement. Let’s say that over time a
person’s attitude about a political candidate gets stronger and stronger; that is, with more media exposure to campaign ads, news coverage, and expert pundits talking about political candidates, the person’s existing attitude is reinforced. This is illustrated by Figure 4.1 b, where the person’s baseline stays flat over time; that is, it does not increase or decrease. However, the baseline grows thicker to indicate that it is weightier and thus harder to change over time. With an immediate shift type of effect, the media influence serves to alter something in
a person during an exposure or shortly after a particular exposure, and that alteration lasts for a long time (see Figure 4.lc). That alteration can be relatively minor or it can be large and dramatic. An example of a dramatic immediate change effect that lasts over the long term might be when a young person watches a movie about an attractive person in a par ticular career—say a heart surgeon—and the person decides she wants to be a heart sur geon, talks about this career choice continually, and alters her study habits to earn the grades necessary to go to college and medical school. With a short-term fluctuation change type of effect, the media trigger a fluctuation off
the baseline during the exposure or shortly after. The change is short lived and the person returns to the baseline level quickly (see Figure 4.ld). This is a fairly prevalent finding in a lot of studies of public information/attitude campaigns. Researchers find a spike up in knowledge, attitude change, or behavioral intention as a result of exposure to some media material, but this change is not observed in subsequent measurement periods beyond a few days after the exposure. The baseline is the best estimate of a person’s degree of effect at any given time. Baselines
differ from one another in terms of slope and elasticity. Slope refers to angle (an upward slope indicates a generally increasing level of an effect, while a downward slope indicates a generally decreasing level of an effect) and degree (a sharp angle reflects a relatively large degree of change in effects level, while a flat slope reflects a continuing level in the baseline). Elasticity reflects how entrenched the baseline is. Over time, a baseline that has been rein forced continually by the same kind of media messages will become highly entrenched, making it less and less likely that there will be fluctuations off the baseline, and when there are fluctuation spikes, those fluctuation spikes are smaller and smaller over time. Fluctuations have three characteristics: duration, magnitude, and direction. The dura
tion refers to how long the fluctuation lasts before returning to the baseline. Magnitude refers to how far the fluctuation spike deviates from the baseline. And direction refers to whether the fluctuation spike moves upward (thus representing an increase in the level of effect) or downward (thus representing a decrease in the level of effect).
Manifestation and Process Effects Notice the dotted line in all four graphs in Figure 4.1. These dotted lines represent the manifestation level. In the first graph (a), notice that the baseline stays below the manifes tation level. This indicates that the degree of the effect has not reached a level where there
IZINC THINNG ABOUT MEDIA EF
Types of Media InftueflCe PaernS
________________________
High
e Medium
ee Meum
immediate Shth - -
on Time Line
Iree
Short-Term Fluctuation High I
Medium
None eLifle
56 PART I ORGANIZING THINKING ABOUT M EDIA EFFECTS
are spontaneous observables. By observables I m ean that people exhibit something that
clearly indicates a change that can be attributed to media influence. In two of three graph
ics (4.1 c and 4.1 d), there are examples of the base line breaking above the manifestation
level; with those three patterns we can easily observ e something that clearly indicates a
media-influenced effect. If we limited our thinking about effects to only those f
luctuations that break through the
manifestation level, we miss a good deal about ho w the media continually influence
effects. We should also examine what occurs below t he manifestation level. Returning to
Figure 4.1 a, notice that the baseline has an upward sl ope, which indicates a gradual long-
term change. The line does not move above the man ifestation level, so it is not observed;
however, something is happening that indicates medi a influence. For example, let’s say a
young girl is exposed to lots of print messages on a pa rticular topic. Over time these expo
sures gradually increase her reading skills and inc rease her interest in that topic as her
knowledge base grows. Her baseline moves close to the manifestation level. Then one day
she picks up an article on the topic and begins te lling all her friends about what she has
just learned (this activity takes place above the ma nifestation level because it is spontane
ous and easy to observe her knowledge, attitudes, and emotions as she exhibits them to her
friends). However, is it accurate to conclude that this m anifestation was caused by the one
exposure to the article alone? No, of course not. We m ust account for the long-term media
influence that allowed her to practice her reading s kills and grow her interest in this topic.
The magnitude of the manifestation level is a comb ination of the initial level on the base
line and the magnitude of the fluctuation itself.
Contrast this with a young boy who did not have this pattern of practicing his reading
skills or growing his interest on this topic; his baselin e would be far below the manifesta
tion level, If he were to read the same article, he woul d not be likely to manifest the same
indicators as did the girl; however the boy could still h ave been influenced by his exposure
to the article (change in level), although he did not ma nifest that effect.
Shaping the Patterns What pushes baselines up or down, and what triggers fl
uctuations? The answer is that factors
of influence are responsible for the shape of these patte rns. The termfactors is plural because
almost never is there one factor that is responsible fo r an effect; instead, effects patterns are
shaped by the continual influence of multiple facto rs acting in interaction over time.
Also, the factors that lead to media effects are not ex clusively media factors. While char
acteristics in the media messages are of course imp ortant influencers of those effects, other
factors—about the audience members and the expo sure environment—are also important.
They all work together. With suddenly occurring fluctuation effects, it is ea
sy to attribute these effects to the
particular message the person is exposed to immedia tely before the manifestation. While
that exposure is likely to be influential in creating th e fluctuation, it is usually not solely
responsible for that fluctuation. For example, let’s sa y Hannah is listening to her car radio
while driving home after work and she hears an ad fo r a fast food place. She decides to go
to that place and buy some food for her dinner. T he ad seemed to trigger a fluctuation
effect, that is, the behavior of driving to the adver tised restaurant and ordering the food
CHAPTER 4 Media Influence 57
featured in the ad. However, it is likely that factors about Hannah were also influential in triggering that fluctuation_factors such as Hannah’s hunger, her being too tired to cook something for herself, her past experience in eating food from that restaurant, her desire for something fast and inexpensive her proximity to the restaurant when she heard the ad, and so on. While factors in a media message are influential, they rarely act alone. Because media influence is both constant and pervasive, some of the factors of influence
come to us directly, but other factors work their influence indirectly. Indirect influence occurs when we interact with other people or with institutions, which are all themselves influenced by groups of media then pass that influence along to us. Also, once groups of media factors have exerted an influence on our algorithms, that influence continues when ever we access those algorithms, for example, when media factors shape our beliefs, they influence us later when we recall those beliefs. When media factors influence our standards, they influence our process of evaluation later when we use those standards, When media factors reinforce our behavior, they influence us each time we exhibit our habits. And when media factors shape how we think about things, they influence us each time we think.
FACTORS OF INFLUENCE
Now that you have seen what the patterns of media influence are, the next question is, What are the factors that are responsible for that influence? The answer to this question is that there are likely to be hundreds of factors, as you will see in upcoming chapters. For now, I simply introduce the idea of factors of influence by organizing them into three gen eral families of factors. Then I highlight what have been found to be the most important four factors.
Families of Factors Researchers have identified hundreds of factors that have been found to exert various degrees of influence on different kinds of media effects. To prepare you for all the detail on these factors that you will encounter in Chapter 6 through ii, i will focus your attention on three general families of factors. The first is an array of factors about the media mes sages. The second is a group of factors about the audience. And the third is a collection of factors about the exposure environment.
factors About the Media Messages. Researchers have examined a great many things about the media messages to determine which are associated with which effects. These factors include fairly general characteristics such as the medium (for example, print vs. broadcast) and genre (for example, news vs. comedy). When researchers use a general characteristic such as genre, they are assuming that all messages presented in that genre are similar and that each genre presents messages that are very different from one another. For example, researchers might ask people how much television they watch in the genres of news and comedy to test the assumption that news messages present more information about cur rent events than do comedy shows. The researchers then test audience members for their knowledge of current events to see if there is support for this assumption.
58 PART I ORGANIZING THINK ING ABOUT MEDIA EFFECTS
Other researchers are uncomfor table assuming that all messages w
ithin a genre are
similar, so they examine more spec ific characteristics within those me
ssages. Some of
these characteristics concern the typ es of portrayals, such as violence, sex
ual activity, ste
reotyped characters, and so on. O thers of these characteristics are more
concerned with
the context of portrayals, such as the motives characters attribute to
their actions, the
consequences of those actions, the use of humor, and so on.
Thus with media messages, there is a wide range of factors that differ prim
arily on their
level of generality. Some researchers prefer to examine differences across
broad classes of
messages, while other researchers p refer to analyze media messages in
more detail and
thus focus their attention on partic ular characteristics within messages.
Factors About the Audience. Researc hers have also examined factors abo
ut the audience.
These can be organized in three group s: demographics, traits, and states. D
emographicfac
tors are the relatively enduring surface characteristics about people, such as t
heir genders
ages, ethnic backgrounds, and the l ike. Demographics make general c
ategorical distinc
tions. By general, I mean that research ers assume all people in one categor
y (such as pre
schoolers) are the same. By categorica l, I mean that either you are a memb
er of one group
or you are not (for example, either you are female or you are not). Demograp
hics are useful
variables because they are easy to m easure and test, but some researche
rs find them too
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superficial For example, just because one male exhibits an effect does not mean that all males will exhibit the same effect. While biological sex is an important characteristic for medical doctors, media researchers are more interested in gender socialization which is a continuous variable and one that recognizes that biological females are not all alike in gender role socialization and that these differences in role socialization are more strongly related to media exposure preferences and media effects than is their biological sex. Researchers also like to measure audience traits and states, both of which are psycho
logical characteristics and then relate them to media effects. Traits are fairly stable psy chological characteristics of an individual. Examples of traits are IQ, extroversion, compulsiveness ambitiousness and the like. Traits are continuous rather than categorical. For example, we do not say that some people have IQ while others have none; instead we say that there is a wide range of IQ among people. States are temporary conditions that an individual experiences. These include drives for
food sex, information, entertainment and so on. Once a drive is satisfied, the person no longer finds him- or herself in that state and is likely to experience a different state. Emotions are states. A person can experience the state of fear while watching a horror show or the state of anxiety right before a big test. States can be either categorical (either you feel fear or you do not) or continuous (your degree of fear).
Factors About the Eosure Fnvironme7?t These are usually sociological factors that reveal things like whether people expose themselves to the media either alone or with others and whether they discuss their media experiences with others or not. Also, some researchers focus their examinations of influence on characteristics about the physical environment, such as how many TVs there are in a household, where those TVs are located, how far people sit from their TVs when viewing, and how many distractions occur during the exposures.
Most Influential Factors Given the hundreds of factors that have been found to be related to media influence on the many effects on individuals is there some way to whittle that list down to a small set of the factors that have been found to be most influential? In this section of the chapter, 1 direct your attention to four factors about media messages that have been found to be Particularly influential in bring about media effects. These factors are the message’s arousing nature, consequences of actions, point of view, and repetition. If you keep reminding yourself of these four factors, you will be better able to keep your focus on the big picture of media influence as you read through subsequent chapters.
Arousing Nature. Perhaps the most influential factor found in the media effects literature is the degree of arousal in audience members. Designers of media messages of all kinds know they must build elements into their messages to achieve this audience arousal. If a message is not arousing, it has little chance ofattracting and/or holding audience attention. Media messages must first arouse us Physiologically in order to trigger an orienting reflex that is needed to get our attention. Second, they must arouse our interest cognitively through suspense and curiosity to get us to keep paying attention to a message to find out what will happen next.
a)
a) a) C
e are tWO arousal systems. One generates in a person
s limbic system; this is autonomic
t is hard wir ed to respond to threats and get us ready to f
ight or flee. The other
that1 system is cortical and energizes attention, alertness, and vigilanc
e; thus it is more
ar0’ ed with inform aniOThPToCeSsmg tasks of acquisition, pr
ocessing, and retrieval. As for
arousal, media messages exploit the orienting reflex, that is,
the capturing attention
co1t° ercept. elements such as loud and unusual noises as well as fas
tpaceä action, color
due to and the like. Media messages can capture our attention thr
ough what has been called
response; this is short-term attention. Stimuli that are novel, surprising, intense,
the lex trigger the orienting response. The orienting response slow
s the heart rate down.
or CO1TW anges in attention are called tonic attentio n. Tonic attention speeds up the heart
are indications of co ncentration, vigilance, and thinking (Lang, 1 994
b).
rate e media
are expert at generating arousal. Pr oducers know how to trigger our innate
logical responses with the use of motion, sound, and images. S
uccessful producers
phY°0 experts at pulling our interest in to a story and taking us step by step through
the
a way that make s us feel we must continue. This is suspense.
Zillmann (1991a)
aCtt° suspense as “an experienc e of uncertainty whose hedonic properties ca
n vary from
def50 pleasant” (p. 281). A udiences enjoy suspense to the extent that the
y have empa
110 ith characters and that this em pathy distress is relieved. The more suspense
distress,
thYw ore relief, an
d therefore the more enjoyment of the s uspenseful story. In books,
th called a “page turne r,” meaning the reader could not put the b
ook down until
tory was c ompleted. In film, producers must grab
attention early and hold it for almost
thC 5urs—a major c
hallenge. And television presents the greates t challenge to storytellers
hOuse those stories need to be interrupted every 10 minutes or so for commer
cial breaks;
beca.500 producers must make the stories so c ompelling that viewers will not tune out
tel the relatively lon g breaks that repeatedly interrupt their stories
.
dutmnb
sequences of Actions. By the way the media tell their stor
ies, they signal to us what is
CO table behavior a
nd what is not. These social lessons are reve aled to us by the way the
aCCe1elIers treat the characters who perform ac tions as well as the characters who receive
StOfction. As for the performers of the action, we can watch to see if they are rewarde
d or
the shed Also, w
hat do the performers feel about their acti ons, that is, are they portrayed
Peing happy or proud? Or a re those performers portrayed as being sad an
d remorseful?
sfor the receivers of the action, we need to watch to see if they
are harmed by actions
ot If we exp ect characters to be harmed by certain
actions but then they are portrayed
Of ° being harmed, we ten
d to adjust our expectations of harm. Over tim e, we are desen
zed to the suffering of others in the real world, beca
use we do not expect them to be
periencmuch harm .
etitiofl Repetition is a powerful force of influence for two reason
s. First, the sheer vol
RI’ of essage5
repeated over time is a constant reminder of ce rtain things. Repetition
fines the status quo. It is easier to go along with the mainstrea
m flow of ideas and behav
s When the media present the same messag
es over and over again, it wears down oppo
and reinforces compl iance.
secon’1 reason for why repetition of media messages is such a p
owerful force is that
11e repetitiO’ is like a m etronome that hypnotizes us into routines. W
e fall into rituals that
zrereinf0rl continually by the media, and these habitual
patterns are performed without
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thinking, thus making them harder to alter. The longer we mindlessly follow a habit, the more it defines us, and the harder it is to perceive it—much less change it. Repetition rein forces our existing thoughts and behaviors.
Point of View. When the media tell their stories, they must present the action from a par ticular point of view. This is the case whether the story is a fictional one designed to enter tain, a vignette designed to advertise a product, or a news story designed to inform. The point of view puts the audience member into the story by seeing the action through the eyes of one character The audience members identify with that one character and tend tofeel what that character feels. Fictional stories are often told in the first person. This iS especially the case with music. A
singer tells a story aboutwhat happened to him or her and how that felt. The listener is meantto identify with the singer and experience the same feelings. With the visual media of film and television the camera becomes the eyes of the audience member. As the camera moves through the action, the audience is shown certain things, while other things are left out. Thus there is a selection process that producers use to put the audience in a certain Position, usu ally identiingwith a particular character who is regarded as the protagonist. We as audience members come to care about what happens to this protagonist. When this character is happy, we feel joy; when this character is in danger, we feel the threat; when this character is unfairly harmed, we feel anger. This is the “good” character, because even when the character makes mistakes, we canjusti that character’s actions. That is, we do not hate the protagonist when she makes a mistake; instead we still like the character but feel sad that she made a mistake and root for her to overcome the situation that results from the mistake. Advertising messages are told from the point of view of the target audience. Designersof these messages are saying that they know a need you have and they have just the prod
uct that would satisfy that need. The typical television ad presents a person with a need or problem; thus the point of view is you, the target audience member. The story then unfoldsto show that you are bothered by this need or problem; then quickly there is a solution News messages are also told from a particular point ofview. in their quest for objectivity,
journaIist try to present facts in a neutral manner. Also, when they cover Controversiesjournalists try to present at least two sides. However, journalists can never present all the facts about an event, nor can they cover all sides of complex issues. They must be selectiveand what they select privileges one point ofview over others Also, journalists do not coverall Possible stories; they make judgments about which events and people are worthy ofbeing covered. This selection process is itself a point of view on the society So in a givenstory, when journali try to avoid slanting the coverage to show the event through onlyone participant’s point of view, the journalists themselves bring a point of view to the taskof selecting and writing their stories.
To illustrate these patterns, let’s consider a disinhibition effect, which is a lowering of people’s inhibitions that prevent them from behaving aggressively. Let’s say Leo is a 12-year-old boy who has been raised to be highly aggressive and who has low degree of
THINKtNG ABOUT MEDIA EFFECTS
AN ILLUSTRATION OF MEDIA INFLUENCE
ORGANIZING THINKING ABOUT MEDIA EFFECTS
hy for other people, while Julie is a 35-year-old mother who was raised b
y the golden
rid who has a high degree of empa thy. Leo’s disinhibition effect baselin
e is likely to
her thanJulie’s. Let’s say that Leo is continually exposed to many medi
a messages of
ce (in movies, television shows, and video games) that are high in arous
al. Also, these
t stories are usually told through th e hero’s point of view, and heroes a
re likely to be
lent as the villains. But the heroes are rewarded for their violent action
s while the
is are punished. Given the repeated viewing, the arousing nature of the m
essages with
positive consequence for violent ac tion from the hero’s point of view,
Leo is likely to
an increasing baseline that is now close to the manifestation level, tha
t is, likely to
fest a disinhibition effect. In contr ast, Julie avoids violent messages as
much as she
snd therefore her baseline is likely to be much lower and far below the
manifestation
Furthermore, over time Leo’s base line is likely to continue with an
upward slope
]uIie’s baseline is likely to be flat or even have a downward slope.
w let’s say that Leo and Julie watc h a Dirty Harry movie in which a g
reat deal of vio
is perpetrated by a rogue police off icer who is glamorous, humorous, an
d successful
5 use of violence. The movie is pr esented from Harry’s point of view,
wherein he
atedly exhibits acts of aggression an d feels rewarded for these actions. L
eo is likely to
v a sharp fluctuation increasing his level on a disinhibition effect; that is
, during or after
exposure to this movie, Leo is likely to exhibit his own aggressive behavio
r. In contrast,
is horrified by Harry and finds his actions reprehensible and insultin
g to her. Julie is
y to show a sharp fluctuation d ecreasing her level on a disinhibiti
on effect. Although
media message presented is the sam e for both Leo and Julie, the experi
ence for each is
i different because of what the two people bring to the exposure situatio
n as reflected
heir different baselines.
et’s say that later on Julie watches a lot of crime drama but with a very dif
ferent point of
v and very different consequences o f the violent action. She watches sho
ws such as the
& Order TV series, in which crimi nals’ violent acts are not glamoriz
ed or sanitized.
:ead, the story is told from the poin t of view of law enforcement officia
ls who usually
id aggressive behavior, and when the y do find themselves behaving aggre
ssively, they are
ished for it. Even though Julie cont inues to watch crime drama, the poin
t of view of the
ry and the way the consequences a re portrayed would tend to push Jul
ie’s disinhibition
eline even lower and serve to keep it far away from the manifestation le
vel. If she were to
a violent portrayal in which the per petrator was glamorized and the vi
olence was sani
d, she would likely not experience much of a fluctuation effect, because
her baseline has
en so strongly reinforced. A reinforc ement pattern is one where the posit
ion of the baseline
entrenched; that is, the baseline co ntinues at its current level, and its el
asticity is reduced,
idering fluctuations more rare. If the elasticity of the baseline is narrow, the
n the long-term
thle factors (traits and typical story fo rmula) are dominant: but if the elast
icity is wide, then
e immediate factors (dispositions an d idiosyncratic factors in the portray
als) are dominant.
inforcement narrows the elasticity a nd thus makes fluctuations smaller a
nd rarer.
As you can see from this example, two people can be exposed to the sa
me media mes
ge but have two very different reac tions. This difference can be explaine
d by a history of
fferent factors that have been acting on both people. Not only do we need to
take a broad
rspective on media effects; we also n eed a broad perspective on factors
of influence that
dude characteristics about the audi ence members as well as characte
ristics about the
edia messages themselves.
TER4 Media
Infl6
Structured Glossary ofTerms About Media Influence
Media influence The many ways the media work in a contjn5ongoing manner within a consteljation ofmany factors to shape micro and macro effects on baselines and fluctuations.
• Baseline pattern effect: The best estimate of a person’s degree ofeffect at any given time. It is formed over the long term by the continual interaction of three types of factors: psychologicaj traits ofthe person, sociological experiences ofthe person, and media exposure patterns
• Reinforcement pattern effect: Through repeated exposures of the same type ofmes sages, a person’s baseline Position is made more weighty; that is, it becomes over time much more resistant to change and it loses its elasticity, thus rendering fluctua tions more minor and rarer.
• Fluctuation pattern effect: Observed in research studies in which there is a change between a person’s pre-exposure and Post-exposure effect level Scores. The larger the difference, the larger the influence of the media exposure on the effect level. Fluctuation changes can be in the direction of increasing the level of an effect or decreasing the level. ln either case, fluctuation changes are usually temporary. They are typically traceable to particular interpretations that the person made about the message.
Manifest effects Spontaneous observable5, evidence ofan effect is easy to observe andto link to media exposures.
Process effects Changes in the level of elasticity of a person’s baseline; because thesethings occur below the manifestation level, they cannot be directly observed.
SUMMARY
This chapter focused on increasing your understanding of how the media exert their influence on you by making a distinction beeen baselines and fluctuations as well as a distinction beeen manifestation and process effects. Fluctuations are changes that occur duringa media exposure or immediately afterward while baselines take a long time to build. Baselines can indicate change, where that change can be a decrement to the baseline (suchas with a gradual loss in intensity of emotional reactions to horror films over time), an increase in the baseline (such as gradually and constantly rewarding a person’s exposure toa particular program thus increasing their habitual viewing of that program over time), or a reinforcement of the baseline (such as a steady stream ofa particular kind of media messagecontributing greater and greater weight to a person’s attitude about a Political issue, thusmaking it much more difficult over time to convert that attitude to a different one).
ivienia trniuence is ongoing ann constan
t. OIIIeciit
influence as with manifestation effect
s. Other times thei r influence is very
difficult or
impossible to observ e, but this does not m
ean the media are no t exerting an influenc
e, only
that their influence is shaping a process
that cannot yet be o bserved.
The media exert th eir influence both di
rectly on people as well as indirectly. A
lso, the
media exert their in fluence through a c
onstellation of facto rs. Some of these fa
ctors come
from the media in the form of how they tel
l their stories, while other factors come f
rom the
person and the perso n’s environment.
It is important to ke ep these ideas in mi
nd when reading th rough the next 10 c
hapters
as I lay out the man y different media eff
ects on individuals a s well as on the mo
re macro
units. Think about w here you are on the
se effects and see if you can answer the
Further
Thinking Questions a t the end of this cha
pter.
(ReviewQuestion s
1. What is the differ ence between a bas
eline and a fluctuati on?
2. What is the diffe rence between a ma
nifestation and a pro cess effect?
3. What are the thr ee families of factors
that researchers typ ically examine with
media effects?
4. What are the four most influential fac
tors?
(FurtherThinkin gQuestions
1. Can you think of a ny effect that sudden
ly showed up as a f luctuation from you
r normal behav
ior and really surpris ed you?
• For this effect, ca n you attribute it to
media exposures?
• What other facto rs about yourself a
nd your environme nt were also likely
to have been
influential in bringi ng about this effect?
2. Think about the d isinhibition effect il
lustrated in this cha pter.
• In what ways are you more like Leo a
nd thus have a simi lar disinhibition bas
eline?
• In what ways are you more like Julie
and thus have a sim ilar baseline?
• Which effects ha ve manifested and w
hich have not been manifested in your
life? Among
the nonmanifested effects, where do yo
u think your baseli ne is? Is your basel
ine close to
the manifestation l evel or not? And wh
at are the factors in your life that are su
ppressing the
manifestation of som e of these effects a
nd which factors are pushing your baselin
e up to a
manifestation level?
Source: ©iStockphoto Com/Jamessrey
Beginning With Theories What Are the Most Prevalent Media Effects Theories? Profiling Most Salient Media Effects Theories
1. Cultivation 2. Third Person 3. Agenda Setting 4. Uses and Gratifications 5. Priming 6. CognitjV Capacity 7. Framing 8. Feminism 9. Social Learning 70. Elaboration Likelihood 77. Schema 72. Diffusion of Innovations
The Big Picture With Media Effects Theories
SUmmary
65
CHAPTER 5
Media Theories
S cholars have created a large number of theories to identify many effects of the mediaand to explain the processes behind those effects. Any book that deals with media effectsmust necessarily highlight the scholarly work that is encapsulated in theories. So this chapter begins with a briefanalysis of the importance of theories, then poses the question: Whatare the most salient media effects theories? The chapter profiles the most salient dozentheories of media effects, then concludes with an argument for why it is so important tomove beyond theories when examining the full range ofwhatwe know about media effects. BEGINNING WITH THEORIES
Theories are essential tools for scholars. Theories help organize thinking about a phenomenon by highlighting key ideas and by providing carefully crafted definitions that can beshared by all scholars as they build knowledge about their phenomenon of interest.Theories can predict which effects will occur under certain situations. Theories can explaineffects by revealing the factors that lead to those effects and showing how those factors worktogether. And theories can provide critiques of scholarly practices by pointing out shortcomings and suggesting alternative explanations, predictions, definitions, and structures.Without theories, scholarly fields grow slowly and in a haphazard way. Scholars have fewcommon sets of ideas or definitions for those ideas, so they spend a lot of time “reinventingthe wheel,” so to speak, as they waste their precious few resources struggling to construct adefinition of a concept that someone else has already defined well. Scholars have few predictive statements to focus their work so they intuitively select factors that might or mightnot predict an effect. Scholars have few explanations for the “how” or “why” questions, andthose explanations that do exist are shallow and not well developed. And with few critiquesof their practices, they have little vision to correct faulty practices and make better use oftheir resources. Therefore theories are needed to help scholars develop understandings oftheir phenomena of interest in an efficient and effective manner. When a scholarly field hasa few good theories, there is great efficiency because all scholars can share a common visionof which concepts are most important, how those concepts should be defined, how thoseconcepts predict one another, and how those concepts work together in an effective systemof explaining the phenomenon of interest to the field.
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68 PART I ORGANIZING THINKI NG ABOUT MEDIA EFFECTS
With the phenomenon of media eff ects, scholars have created a great ma
ny theories
over the years. for a partial list of th e more popular of these media effec
ts theories, see
Exhibit 5.1. While some of these are labeled as models, some as hypothese
s, and some as
effects, they all can be regarded as th eories, because each one provides som
e sort of orga
nization, prediction, explanation, or c ritique of some facet of the media e
ffects phenom
enon. Notice also that this list looks similar to Exhibit 3.1 in Chapter 3. You
shóuld not be
surprised that the lists are similar, b ecause the theories in Exhibit 5.1 are
effects theories
and they focus on organizing think ing, making predictions, and offerin
g explanations
about media effects as listed in Ex hibit 3.1. However, the lists are not id
entical because
some effects have stimulated the cr eation of more than one theory. Also,
there are other
effects that have been identified throu gh exploratory research, and schola
rs have not yet
presented conceptualizations to organ ize, predict, explain, or critique that
effect.
The large number of theories is an in dication of the vitality of the research
field; that is,
the topic of media effects has attract ed a large number of scholars, each of
whom has gen
erated explanations about how the m edia effect people and society. Howev
er, the large
number of theories is also an indicatio n that scholars have not converged on a
small set of
theories that they agree are the best a nd most useful explanations of med
ia effects. With
such a large number of theories, it is difficult to see the big picture of me
dia effects. We
need to do something to sift through all these theories, some of which ha
ve accounted for
only a study or two and which may d eal with only a tiny fraction of the o
verall phenom
enon of media effects. In order to keep the focus on the big picture in this ch
apter on theo
ries, I highlight only those theories th at have received the most attention by
media effects
scholars. These are the theories that have generated the most research act
ivity and have
been found to receive the strongest empirical support for their prediction
s and explana
tions. First, I identify these popular t heories. Second, I offer a brief profile
of each. Then I
use the Media Effects Template (MET ) to plot the theories and show wher
e their attention
has been directed and which parts of the overall media effects phenom
enon have been
relatively ignored.
WHAT ARE THE MOST PREVALENT MEDI A EFFECTS THEORIES?
The theories listed in Table 5.1 were gathered in a study I did with Karyn R
iddle (Potter &
Riddle, 2007). We analyzed a good de al of the media effects literature pu
blished in the
major scholarly journals, and those theories were what we found. We als
o counted how
often each theory appeared promine ntly in different articles. We reasoned th
at if our schol
arly field had a dominant theory or two, those dominant theories would e
ach appear in a
relatively large percentage of article s. We found no such dominant theory. A
mong the 336
articles that we identified as theory d riven, cultivation theory was mentione
d in 27 articles,
or about 8% of that literature. The t op dozen mentioned theories are liste
d in Table 5.1.
These 12 theories accounted for a bout half of all theory-driven articles
. The rest of the
theories on the list in Thble 5.1 were m entioned only once or twice, so it is
reasonable to
conclude that they are not having m uch of an impact on the research field.
Therefore the
top 12 of these theories can be reg arded as the most salient, that is, they h
ave been found
to be the most visible in the literatur e. They are profiled in the next section o
f the chapter.
Exhibit 5.1 Theoes Explaining Some Aspect of the Media Effects Phenomenon
ABX balance model (Newcornb, 1953) Advertising and social change (Berman, 2981) Affective aggression model (Anderson, Collins, Schmitt, & Jacobvitz, 1996) Affluent society (Galbraith, 1976) Agenda building (Lang & Lang, 1981, 1991) Agenda setting (McCombs & Shaw, 1972, 1993) Associative network model (John Anderson, 1983) Attitude construct approach (Fazio, 1990) Audience as commodity (Jhally & Livant, 1986) Audience flow (Eastman, 1993) Audience polarization (Webster & Phalen, 1997) Alitomatic activation Model (Fazio, 1990) Availability heuristic (Iversky & Kahneman, 1973) Availability_valence model (Kisietius & Sterntha[, 1984)
Buffering Hypothesis (Davis & Kraus, 1989)
Capacity model (Fisch, 2000) Catharsis (Feshbach, 1961) Channel repertoire (Ferguson & Perse, 1993) Channel theory of publication (Coser, Kadushin, & Powell, 1982) Character affiliation theory (Raney, 2004) Civic engagement (Putnam, 2000) Coalition model of agenda building (Protess et al., 1991) Cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957) Cognitive flexibility theory (Lowrey & Kim, 2009) Cognitive response theory (Greenwald, 1968) Communication/persuasion matrix model (McGuire, 1985) Consumer culture theory (Ewen, 1976) Cue theory (Berkowitz, 1965) Cultivation (Gerbner, 1969; Gerbner & Gross, 1976) Cultural imperialism (Boyd-Barrett, 1977; Schiller, 2969) Culture of narcissism (Lasch, 1973)
Decision-making models (Ryan & Peterson, 1982) Diffusion of innovations (Rogers, 1995; Rogers & Shoemaker, 1971) Direct effects model (Lasswell, 1927) Disinhibition effect (Bandura, 1994) Disposition theory (Zillmann & Cantor, 2976) Distribution of knowledge (Mcfluail & Windaht, 1993)
TER5MediaTheorieS6 g
(Continued) I
70 PART I ORGANIZING THINKING AB OUT MEDIA EFFECTS
Double action model of gatekeeping (Bass, 196 9)
Drench hypothesis (Greenberg, 1988)
Elaboration likelihood model (Petty & Cacioppo , 1981)
Elite pluralism theory (Berelson, Lazarsfeld, & Mc Phee, 1954; Key, 1961)
Empathy theory (Zillmann, 1996)
Encoding-decoding model (HatI, 1980)
Exchange model of news (Sigal, 1973)
Exchange theory (Solomon, 1989)
Excitation transfer theory (Zillmann, 1983)
Exemplification theory (Zillmann, 1999; Zillma nn & Brosius, 2000)
Expectancy value model (Palmgreen & Rayburn , 1982)
Fraction of selection (Schramm, 1954)
Frame analysis (Ervng Goffman, 1974, 1979)
Framing (Cappella & Jamieson, 1997; Scheufel e, 1999)
Free market modet of media (DeFteur, 1970)
Gatekeeping (White, 1950) Genre theory (Kaminsky, 1974) Global village (McLuhan, 1964; Mctuhan & Fi
ore, 1967)
Gratification seeking and audience activity mod el (Rubin & Perse, 1987)
Hegemony theory (Gramsci, 1971)
Heuristic processing model of cultivation effec ts (Shrum, 2002)
Hidden persuaders (Packard, 1957)
Homogenization hypothesis (Bagdikian, 1997)
Hostile media perception (Hwang, Pan, & Sun, 2 008)
Imitation (Millet & Dollard, 1941)
Indirect effects model (Caftwright, 1949; Hyman & Sheatsley, 1947)
Information flow theory (Davis, 1990; Greenber g & Parker, 1965)
Information model of advertising (cited in Jeff res, 1994, pp. 279—281)
Information seeking (Donohew & Tipton, 1973)
Tntegrated model of media enjoyment (Vorderer, K limmt, & Ritterfeld, 2004)
Integrated response model (Smith & Swinyard, 1 982, 1988)
Interpretation by social class (Morley, 1980)
Interpretive resistance theory (Carragee, 1990)
Knowledge gap theory (Tichenor, Donohue, & O tien, 1970)
Law of double jeopardy (McPhee, 1963)
Least objectionable programming (Klein, 1971)
PTER5M edaTheoe
s7;
Levels of processing theory (Craik & Lockhart, 1972) Limited_capacity model of mediated message processing (Lang, 2000)
Market power model of advertising (cited in Jeffres, 1994, pp. 219—281) Marketplace model (Webster & Phalen, 1994) Marxist theory (McQuai[, 1987) Mass audience (Blumer, 1946) Media access (Westley & MacLean, 1957) Media as culture industries (Jhal[y, 1987; Hay, 1989) Media culture (A[theide & Snow, 1979, 1991) Media enjoyment as attitude (Nabi & Krcmar, 2004) Media entertainment theory (Mendelsohn, 2965) Media flow theory (Csikszentmihalyi, 1988; Sherry, 2004) Media-public relationships (McQuail & Windahl, 2981) Media system dependency (DeFleur & Baft-Rokeach, 1975) Medium is the message (McLuhan, 1962, 1964) Medium theory (Meyrowitz, 2994) Message construction (Shoemaker & Reese, 1991) Mood management (ZiHmann, 1988; Zillmann & Bryant, 1994) Motivated attention and motivated processing (Nabi, 1999)
Neo-assocjationjstjc model (Berkowitz, 1984) Neo-mass audience (Webster & Phalen, 1997) Network model of political priming (Price & Tewksbury, 1997) News content theory (Shoemaker & Reese, 1996) News diffusion (Greenberg, 1964) News factory (Bantz, McCorkle, & Baade, 1980) News frame Theory (Iuchman, 1978)
One-dimensional man (Marcuse, 1964)
Parasocjat interaction (Horton & WohI, 1956; Rosengren & Windahl, 1989; Rubin, Perse, & Powetl, 1990)
Play theory (Stephenson, 2957) Pluralistic ignorance (Allport, 1924) Political socialization theory (Graber, 1980) Politics of signification (Hall, 1982) Polysemy theory (Fiske, 2986) Power elite theory (Mills, 1957) Priming (Berkowitz, 1955; Roskos-Ewoldsen Raskos-Ewoldsen, & Carpentier, 2002) Principled reasoning theory (McLeod, Sotirovic, Voakes, Guo, & Huang, 1998) Profit_driven logic of safety theory (Gittin, 1985) Program choice theory (Steiner, 1952) Proteus effect (Peña, Hancock, & Merola, 2009) Pseudo-events blur reality (Boorstin, 1951)
Exhibit 5.1 (Continued)
(Continued)
Psychodynamic model (DeFleur, 1970) Psychological conditioning (Ktapper, 1960; Skinner, 1974)
Rally effect (Coser, 1956) Reasoned action theory (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) Reception paradigm (Katz, 1987) Reinforcing spirals model (Zhao, 2009) Resource dependency theory (lurow, 1984) Revealed preferences (Mansfield, 1970) Riley & Ritey sociological model of mass communication (Riley & Riley, 1959)
Ritual model of communication (Turner, 1977)
Exhibit 5.1 (Continued)
Selective exposure (Freedman & Sears, 1966; Lazarsfeld, Berelson, & Gaudet, 1944)
Self-perception theory (Bem, 1972) Semiotic theory (Baudrillard, 1983) Social cognitive theory of mass communication (Bandura, 2001)
Social construction of meaning (Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Lippmann, 1922; Mead, 1934)
Social identity (Meyrowitz, 1985) Social learning theory (Bandura, 1977) Social norms theory of enjoyment (Denham, 2004) Social responses to computer technologies model (Nowak, Hamilton, &
Hammond, 2009)
Sociology of news theory (Schudson, 2003) Spiral of silence (Noelle_Neumann 1974, 1991) Star theory (Croteau & Hoynes, 2001) Storage battery model (Fiske & Taylor, 1991) Storage bin model (Fiske & Taylor, 1991) Suspense theory (Knobloch_WeSterWicl< Hastall, & Rossmann, 2009)
Synapse model of priming (Fiske & Taylor, 1991)
Technological determinism (Fischer, 1992) Technological drivers (Neuman, 1991) Television trivialization of public life (Postman, 1985) Third-person theory (Perloff, 2002) Transactional model (Graber, 1988; McLeod & Becker, 1974) Transmission model (Shannon & Weaver, 1949) Transportation model (Carey, 1975) Transportation theory (Green & Brock, 2000) Two-step flow (Katz & Cazarsfeld, 1955)
Uses and dependency model (Rubin & Windahl, 1986) Uses and gratifications (Katz, Blumler, & Gurevitch, 1974; Lasswell,
1948; Rosengren, 1974; Rosengren,
Wenner, & Palmgreen, 1985; Wright, 1960)
Videomalaise (Robinson, 1976)
CHAPTER 5 Media Theories 73
Tabte 5.1 Twetve Most Salient Theories
Theory n Cultivation 27 8.0 Third person 25 7.4 Agenda setting 24 7.1 Uses and gratifications 19 5.7 Priming 16 4.8 Cognitive capacity 14 4.2 Framing 12 3.6 Feminism 11 3.3 Social learning 7 2.1 Elaboration likelihood 7 2.1 Schema 6 1.8 Diffusion of innovations 4 1.2
Note: Percentages are based on 336 articles that mentioned a theory.
PROFILING MOST SALIENT MEDIA EFFECTS THEORIES Each of the top dozen media effects theories is briefly profiled in this section. If you are interested in learning more about any one of these theories beyond the short descriptions provided here, you can read the citations that are provided.
1. CuLtivation Cultivation theory was created by George Gerbner in 1969 as a response to his criticism that media effects research had been focusing only on short-term laboratory effects and ignoring the long-term effects that were gradually taking place over the course of a person’s everyday life. He argued that television, which lie called the dominant storytelling of the time, presented messages with consistent themes and that people who were exposed to these stories over time came to believe that the themes and patterns in these television stories applied to the real world. Gerbner (1969) argued that the media cultivate a “collective consciousness about ele
ments of existence” (p. 138) and explained:
I use the term [cultivation] to indicate that my primary concern in this discussion is not with information, education, persuasion, etc., or with any kind of direct communication “effects.” I am concerned with the collective context within
72 PART I ORGANIZING THINKING ABOUT MEDIA EFFECTS
74 PART I ORGANIZING THINKING ABOUT MEDIA EFFECT S
which, and in response to which, different individual and group selections and
interpretations of messages take place. (p. 139)
Key to cultivation is the focus on public information with an
awareness that a certain item of knowledge is publicly held ( i.e., not only known
to many, but commonly known that it is known to many) makes collective thought
and action possible. Such knowledge gives individuals their a wareness of
collective strength (or weakness), and a feeling of social iden tification or
alienation. (pp. 139—140)
The media have the ability to construct publics by making certa in information available
that shapes “collective thought and action quickly, continuous ly, and pervasively across
previous boundaries of time, space, and culture” (p. 140). In creating cultivation theory,
Gerbner was not interested in particular messages but broad pat terns. Also he was not inter
ested in individual interpretations of receivers but instead the b eliefs that they shared.
2. Third Person The third-person effect (TPE) was first observed in 1983 by W
. Phillips Davison, a sociolo
gist, who was examining patterns across the results ofpublic opi nion polls and noticed that
typically people felt that the media exerted a strong effect on othe r people (third persons)
but not on themselves (first person). He found consistent pattern s that people overestimate
the effect of media messages on other people and underestimate the effect of media mes
sages on themselves. This effect has been explained as a “self-serving” perception w
hereby people think
the media exert powerful influences, but only on other peopl e, not on themselves. This
allows people to complain about the media and call for regu lation of harmful content
so as to control the media exposures of other people. At the sam e time, it excuses them
from having to take responsibility for possible negative co nsequences of their own
exposures as long as people tell themselves that the media have n o influence on them
personally. This effect has been widely cited in the research lite rature (Tal-Or, Tsfati, &
Gunther, 2009), and it has been found to have strong empirical support (Paul, Salwen, &
Dupagne, 2000).
3. Agenda Setting Agenda-setting theory focuses its explanation on how news cont
ent in the media shapes
the public’s beliefs about what is important in society. The f irst clear empirical support
of this agenda-setting effect was provided by McCombs and Shaw (1972) in their analysis
of the 1968 campaign for president. They found that when th e media presented certain
issues more saliently than others, those salient issues became the focus of the campaign.
Over time, this agenda-setting research has included findings th at the media also tell us
what to think about; this is called second-level agenda setting. This second-level agenda-
setting research has found that media messages do not just em phasize issues but they
present informational elements about those issues, and those informational elements tell us what to think about the issue Closely related to the agenda-setting theory is the spiral of silence theory, which also
focuses on how the media influence public beliefs. However, the spiral of silence theory also moves into explaining how public beliefs influence public discourse. Noelle-Neumann (1974) created this theory after observing patterns of news coverage in Western Europe. In her theory, she explained that when the media avoid covering an issue, people typically will not express their beliefs on that issue even if those beliefs are very important to them. They will remain silent. Thinking that they are in the minority, they refrain from expressing their beliefs for fear of being ostracized. Then silence begets more silence, and the belief that the issue is not important gets reinforced over time.
4. Uses and Gratifications Uses and gratifications is a very broad theory that is based on two assumptions about media audiences. One of these assumptions is that individuals are active in making choices about selecting media and messages. The other assumption is that individuals are aware of their motives for information and entertainment; people use these motives as guides as they actively seek out media messages to satisfy their needs. The explanatory system of uses and gratifications theory makes five claims:
1. Communication behavior is goal directed, purposive and motivated. 2. People initiate the selection and use of communication vehicles. 3. A host of social and psychological factors guide, filter, or mediate communication behavior.
4. The media compete with other forms of communication in the gratification of needs or wants.
5. People are typically more influential than the media in the effects process (Rubin, 2002).
Because uses and gratifications theory regards audience members as active, the effects of the media are not viewed as particularly powerful; that is, people can control the effects to a large extent. Rosengren (1974) argued that the key idea of uses and gratificatfons was that individual differences among audience members intervene between the media and any effects. This means that media effects are explained not just by the media content but also by audience characteristics, such as their motivations and involvement with the content. These ideas can be traced back to Wilbur Schramm (1954), who argued that people
make their selection of media exposures by comparing expectation of a reward with effort required. This idea was later elaborated by Palmgreen and Rayburn (1985), who contended that people compared gratifications sought (GS) with gratification5 obtained (GO). Because media exposure is a process repeated over the course of a person’s life, each person has a lot of experience with GOs from past exposures, and this helps in forming expectations for each decision in the present.
CHAPTERS MediaTheories 75
Priming theory focuses on how one set of informatiOn or stimuli can affect the interpre
tation of a subsequent set in a person’s memory. This theory conceptualizes the human
mind as being organized in associative networks where each node in the nenNork is a bit
of information. When people think about a particular bit of information, that node is
activated and the thinking proceeds from that node outward through associative net
works to other nodes that are most closely related to the activated node. Thus when a
node is activated, the next closest nodes in the associative network are primed; that is,
they are most likely to be activated next (Jo & Berkowitz, 1994). The primed node is
important because it sets up our expectations for our thought paths. ROSkosEWO1d5en,
RoskosEWOldsefl, and Carpentier (2002) say, “As applied to the media, priming refers to
the effects of the content of the media on people’s later behavior or judgments related tO
the content” (p. 97).
CHAPTER 5 Media Theories 77
Originally referred to as cue theory, Leonard Berkowitz (1965) conducted early testing that showed that media portrayals contain particular symbols and when these symbols appear in a person’s real life, those symbols cue the person to remember the media por trayal. Berkowitz conducted empirical research in the area of violent media content and how it affected viewers’ behaviors. He found that when violent portrayals contained weap ons, these weapons were powerful cues to people in real life. So when people saw a par ticular kind of weapon in real life, this real-life weapon triggered memories of the media portrayal and these memories were likely to lead to aggressive behavior. Priming theory has undergone a good deal of testing with the topic of media violence.
People shown a violent message in which characters are wronged will have the idea that violence is a good tool to use in getting revenge against one’s aggressors. Later, in real life, when these people are victims of aggression, they will recall the use of violence as a successful tool to use in gaining vengeance and be more likely to behave in a vengeful manner.
6. Cognitive Capacity Lang (2000) developed the cognitive capacity theory to provide a cognitive explanatory system for how people screen information then process it. She said that this process is structured by three tasks of encoding information, storage, and retrieval. The process begins with a person’s sensory organs being stimulated; information then automati cally enters a person’s brain, where it spends up to a few seconds in a sensory storage area where most of it is wiped out, and only a small fraction moves on to short-term working memory. The person then selects certain bits of information to use in con structing what she called a “mental representation” of the outside event that stimulated the person’s sensory organs. This selection is guided by a person’s goals, existing knowl edge, and the environment. Thus what is encoded is not an identical replica of the event; instead it is composed of a small fraction of the stimulus and is a highly idiosyncratic representation of the event. These representations are then stored in associative net works where ideas are linked together, making later retrieval possible. People undertake this processing in a parallel fashion; that is, there is more than one line of information being processed at the same time. Because processing resources are limited, people divide these resources across tasks at any given time. Those information-processing tasks that are given the most resources get processed in more detail and are therefore more likely to be remembered.
7. Framing Framing regards meaning as residing primarily in the message, particularly news messages. The frame of news stories is constructed by journalists in the way they select certain bits of information while ignoring others and by how they structure their stories to direct atten tion toward certain facts. The frame is the way the story is presented; that is, it is the point of view from which the story is told. The frame is the news angle or the context for the story (Tuchman, 1978).
76PARTIORGANIZING THINKING ABOUT MEDIA EFF
5. Priming
CHAPTER 5 Media Theories 79
audiences use and interpret gendered media texts?, and How does audienc
e reception con
tribute to the construction ofgender at the level of individual identity? So
me feminist schol
ars also contend that women can us e the media to empower themselve
s by forming groups
and creating their own meanings th at reject the paternalistic themes (
Radway, 1984).
9. Sociat Learning
This theory has its origin in the ide as of Miller and Dollard (1941), who
found that people
learned behaviors by observing the actions of others; they did not nee
d to perform the
behaviors themselves in order to lea rn those behaviors. Bandura (1977)
took this idea and
elaborated on it with the concepts of identification, vicarious reinfo
rcement, and self
efficacy. Bandura showed that this o bservational-type learning was enha
nced to the extent
that observers identified with peopl e who performed the behaviors (ro
le models) as well as
when those behaviors were rewarde d or at least not punished. He also sh
owed that the role
models need not be people in real lif e but can be characters in fictiona
l stories presented
through the media. Bandura (1986) continued to elaborate this explana
tion by adding cog
nitive components. Bandura argued that is was not only characteristics a
bout the environ
ment that accounted for social lear ning but also characteristics about
the person; that is,
people think about what they expe rience and transform their experien
ces into cognitive
models. This transformation is gui ded by four types of processes:
attention, retention,
production, and motivation.
10. ELaboration LikeLihood
The elaboration likelihood mode l (ELM) was developed by Petty and
Cacioppo (1981) to
move scholarly thinking beyond the limited approach to opinion forma
tion that assumed
people paid attention to arguments a nd logically weighed the merits o
f those arguments
when making up their own minds. Although the ELM is typically regar
ded as a theory of
persuasion—not learning—fundam entally it is focused on how peop
le encounter and
process information. ELM acknow ledges that there are times when
people do carefully
attend to information—what they c all the “central route of information
processing”—but
that there are also times when peop le encounter information and argum
ents in an uncon
scious state or when they are not lo gical in their handling of the inform
ation—what they
call the “peripheral route.” The cen tral route involves effortful cognitiv
e activity whereby
the person draws on prior experien ce and knowledge in order to scru
tinize carefully all
of the information relevant to det ermine the central merits of the p
osition advocated
(Petty, Priester, & Brinol, 2002, p. 1 65). Using this route, people active
ly think about the
importance of claims, saliency of information, and the consequence
s of accepting the
message claims. In contrast, the per ipheral route requires low-effort proc
essing of persua
sive information; people react to sim ple cues in messages and act as co
gnitive misers, that
is, allocate very little mental effort. W ith little mental effort, people are lik
ely to select a
peripheral reason and ignore more im portant reasons. Which route a pers
on uses is really
a decision about how much effort he or she is willing to expend in proces
sing the informa
tion in a message. The key factors that affect the amount of thinking a perso
n is willing to
78 PART I ORGANIZING THIN
KING ABOUT MEDIA EFFECTS
The frame of a ne ws story tells the
audience members what the theme or
meaning of
the event is and therefore constrains
and shapes the m eaning of the event
for the audience.
The frame provides context in the way
it defines a problem diagnoses causes,
makes moral
judgments and sug gests remedies.
framing theory is related to both the
agenda5etting and primin g theories. framing
explains
how the agenda is set by the way the
media frame their stories. Once a per
son is exposed to a
media message. it is the fradilng of the
message that determ ines which nodes
get primed.
8. Feminism Feminist theory c
ontends that there is a sexist ideology
permeating the media . This ideol
ogy presents a patriarchal world
where there is a ma1edominated social
order that is
assumed to be natura l and just. In thi
s ideology, wome n are weaker and
less capable than
are men, so women gain their identity
through their asso ciation with male
characters.
Under feminist the ory, the media
continually present messages with p
aternalistic themes
that foster a false belief system in t
heir audiences (R akow, 1992).
According to van Z oonefl (1994), the
focus of feminist theory is to provide
answers to
questions such as, H ow are discourses
about gender enco ded into media
texts?, How do
GANIZING THINKING ABOU T MEDIA EFFECTS
are a person’s cognitive trait of the general motivation to think
, as well as a
action to characteristics in the m essage—such as the perceived
personal rele
message, trustworthiness of so urce, whether source is stigmatiz
ed or not, key
presented as questions or assert ions, number of message sources
, and expect-
the position being argued.
teory has attracted a wide range of scholars. George Herbert Mead
(1934) is often
iith originating the idea of schema in his book Mind, Self, and Society
in which he
at symbols mediate and structu re all our experience. Sets of s
ymbols, called
te the templates that help us mak e sense of all the sensory stimuli w
e are exposed
itly. ive psychologists built on this id
ea by conceptualizing schemas as associative
that reside in a person’s mind. A schema is “a cognitive structure t
hat represents
e about a concept or type of s timulus, including its attributes a
nd the relations
iose attributes” (Fiske & Taylor, 1 991, p. 98). Ideas are orga
nized as nodes in asso
tworks. When we activate one i dea, other ideas that are most c
losely related to
ated idea are also activated. Thus thinking proceeds from idea to i
dea according to
‘ are related together in t hese associative networks.
schemas serve to organize an ind ividual’s memory for people and
events. They are
d of linguistic and nonlinguistic information, images, words, sound
s, and sequences
iences (Graesser & Nakamura, 19 82). Some schemas are sequences
of events and
referred to as scripts. They are c ulture specific, so they contain
prejudices and
mbedded in the culture.
mas are used by individuals to he lp them comprehend events. Th
us schemas are
es of expectations for people and events that have been develope
d and modified
course of a person’s lifetime. Wh en we meet a new person, we
read the salient
out that person (for example, bod y type, obvious personality cha
racteristics, and
and match these cues to our sche ma about people. When we fin
d a schema that
Ltches the cues, we use that schem a to set our expectations for tha
t new person.
rn of Innovations
Everett Rogers conducted a major review and synthesis of the literatu
re on how infor
gets disseminated in societies. He came up with the diffusion of in
formation theory,
cli he built on the ideas of Laza rsfeld and extended those ideas
beyond the realm
tical information and paid special attention to how information ab
out innovations—
ally about agriculture and health —was disseminated. Rogers argu
ed that information
innovations was disseminated in a step-by-step fashion to different
groups of people
ciety. The first group to receive a nd use the information were pe
ople he labeled as
adopters.” These are people who liked to try new things and were
continually moni
the media to find out what those new things were. Rogers said that
these early adopt
;sed their information along to t he opinion leaders (a Ia Lazarsfeld), who then
tested
TER5M ediaTh
eQries8 ;
out the idea or innovation. If the opinion leaders found they liked the innovation, they passed it along to other people in their interpersonal networks (the opinion followers). Finally the information spread out to the “laggards” or later adopters.
THE BIG PICTURE WITH MEDIA EFfECTS THEORIES
The salient media theories are a good place to begin when learning about media effects. However, as you will Soon see, they do not cover the entire phenomenon. Take a look at figure 5.1, which is a minor modification of the indivjduallevel MET with
its six types on the lines and the four functions in the columns. The three columns from the macro-level MET have been collapsed into one column at the right. This modified matrix has 30 cells. Onto this matrix, i have plotted the dozen most salient theories profiled in the previous
section of this chapter. Notice that there are theories plotted in only 10 of these 30 cells, which indicates that while these 12 theories are salient in the sense that they are the most tested theories, as a set they cover only about one third of the full media effects phenomenon. We of course need to remember that there are many more theories than the 12 salient
ones plotted on the MET in Figure 5.1, so this argument is not made to convince you that there is no theoretical activity in many cells. Instead, my argument is that the most well- known theories of media effects are concentrated into a few cells. first, learning a lot about what these 12 theories have to say about media effects is a good beginning, but this strategy will deliver only partial understanding of the full phenomenon of media effects. In order
Figure 5.1 P[ofting Theoes Onto the Media Effects lemptate
fri Note; Percentages are based on 336 afticles that mentioned a theo. “Grats’ is shoft tot Gratiflcatjons”
to get a more complete picture of the overall media effects phenomeflOn we would have
to learn about several hundred theories, and this makes for a rather inefficient approach.
There is also a second reason for why a theoretical approach is not a good strategy for
learning about the big picture of media effects. This argument is based on the finding that
much of the large literature concerned with media effects is not generated by theory. To
illustrate this point, let’s return to the content analysis study I mentione’d earlier in this
chapter (Potter & Riddle, 2007). This was a content analysis of the media effects literature
published in the major scholarly journals. Recall that we found that 336 articles that were
theory driven and that 144 theories were mentioned, with the top 12 most mentioned
theories accounting for 168 of those articles or about 50% of the set of theory-driven
articles. However, what I did not mention yet is that the total sample we analyzed was 962
media effects studies. Thus only about 35% (336 articles out of 962) of the total media
effects literature featured a theory. The other 65% of the media effects literature was gen
erated by no theory at all. Other studies of the media literature also reported
similar findings. This pattern of a low
percentage of theory-driven studies has been found in the larger media literature percent
ages run as low as 8.1% (Potter, Cooper, & Dupagne, 1993) and as high as 27.6% (Riffe &
Freitag, 1997) and 30.5% (Kamhawi & Weaver, 2003). In an analysis of published literature
on mass communication from 1965 to 1989 in eight journals, Potter et al. (2003) found that
only 8.1 % of 1,326 articles were guided by a theory and provided a test of that theory;
another 19 5% were tests of hypotheses but these hypotheses were not derived from a
theory Kamhawi and Weaver (2003) reported that only 30.5% of all articles published in
10 ommunicatiofl journals from 1980 to 1999 specifically mentioned a theory, which led
them to argue that
theoretical development is probably the main consideration in evaluating the
disciplinary status of the field. As our field grows in scope and complexity the
pressure for theoretical integration increases. It seems that scholars in the field
should be developing and testing theories to explain the process and effects of
mass communication. However, that was not widely evident in our sample. (p. 20)
While theories have been important to the development of the media effects scholarly
field, we cannot conclude that our understanding of media effects is predominantly theory
driven. Instead theory development is sporadic and thin. This clearly indicates that our
research is not organized efficiently by a handful of theories that present scholars with a
parsimonious set of conceptualizations and that direct long paths of programmatic
research, much like what is done in other scholarly fields, particularly in the physical sci
ences. Returning to the Potter and Riddle (2006) analysis, there seem to be few examples
of programmatic research guided by theory; among the 336 articles we found that did
feature a theory, 144 theories were mentioned, and only 12 of those theories were men
tioned in more than five studies. The remaining 132 theories were spread out over the
remaining 16$ articles that were theory driven. This indicates a pattern of rather thin
theory development. This finding was also in evidence in the study by KamhaWi and
Weaver (2003), who found that only three theories (information processing, uses and
CHAPTER 5 Media Theories 83
gratifications, and media construction of social reality) were mentioned in as many as 10% of their analyzed articles. Less than one third of the very large media effects literature is guided by a theory of any
kind. Therefore, in order to understand more than a relatively small segment of knowledge about media effects and how they work, we need to move beyond the theory-driven por tion of the literature. That is the purpose of the next nine chapters.
Theories are important to the development of any scholarly field. With the scholarly field of media effects, many theories have been developed. However, few of those theories account for more than a handful of research studies. And the most salient dozen theories as a set has generated only a small fraction (about 17%) of the total media effects research literature. When trying to build your own understanding of media effects, the study of theories is a
good place to begin. The most salient media effects theories orient us to the most popular effects. However, there is much more wisdom about media effects that is not conveyed by theories; that is, much of the vast literature of 10,000 research studies is not theory driven. In Part II of this book, I take you through that literature. Of course, we will not visit each
of the 10,000 studies—that would be too much detail! Just to list the citations of those stud ies would consume 650 typed pages. Instead of focusing on all the detail, I will try to direct your attention to the big picture patterns so that you develop an understanding of the overall phenomenon of media effects.
(ReviewQuestions
1. What is the purpose of theories?
2. List the most prevalent dozen media effects theories. What is the main idea of each one?
3. Why is it insufficient to limit our study of media effects to effects theories?
(FurtherThinking Questions
1. Figure 5.1 shows the most salient media effects theories mapped onto the Media Effects Template. Can you think of any reasons why certain areas of the map have multiple theories while other areas have none?
2. Pick an area on the Media Effects Template where there are no theories plotted. Can you create a theory to fill that gap?
MEDIA EFFECTS82 PART I ORGANIZING THINKING ABOUT
SUMMARY
