MEDIA EFFECTS THEORIES

1.0 INTRODUCTION

This unit examines different traditions/paradigms that explain the effects of the media on people and the society. The unit is subdivided as follows:

1. Media Effect Debate/issues 
2. Limited effects tradition 
3. Powerful Effect tradition 
4. Uses and gratification concept 
5. Cultural effects tradition 

2.0 OBJECTIVES

At the end of this unit, you should be able to:

1. explain media effects issues and debate 
2. explain the various paradigms and traditions in the mass media effects studies. 

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 The Mass Media Effect Debate

Despite the obvious impactful nature of the mass media, at least to a lay man, there exist sharp arguments and counter arguments about the presence, strength and operation of effects. In other words, school of thoughts exist as regard to the limited or minimal effects of the mass media. The arguments and their counter arguments are presented below as organized by Stanley Baran, associate professor of communication (in Baran 2004: 416 – 417).

1.  Media content has limited impact on audiences because it is only make- believe people; it isn’t real. Counter-arguments: News is not make-believe (at least it’s not supposed to be) and as such people are supposed to take it seriously. Most film and television dramas are intentionally produced to seem real to viewers, with documentary-like production techniques such as hand held cameras and uneven lighting. Much contemporary television programmes like talkshow and reality shows are expressly real. E.g Gulder Ultimate Search. Advertising is supposed to tell the truthBefore they develop the intellectual and critical capacity to know what is not real, children confront the world in all its splendor and vulgarity through television and what television effects researchers call the early winded. To kids, what they see is real. To enjoy what we consume, we willingly suspend disbelief that is, we willingly accept as real what is put before us.
2.  Media content has limited impact on audiences because it is only play or just entertainment. Counter-arguments News is not play or entertainment Even if media content is only play, play is very important to the way we develop our knowledge of ourselves and our world.
3. If media have any effects at all they are not the media’s fault; media simply hold a mirror to society and reflect the status quo, showing us and our world as they already are.Counter-arguments: Media hold a very selective mirror. The whole world in all its vastness and complexity cannot possibly be represented, so media practitioners must make choices. In other words, some things are over-represented in the media, others under-represented and still others disappear altogether. 
4. If media have any effect at all it is only to reinforce pre-existing values and benefits. Family, church, school, and other socializing agents are much better.Counte-rarguments: The traditional socializing agents have lost much of their power to influence in our complicated and fast-paced world. Moreover, reinforcing effects are not the same as having no effect. If the media can reinforce the good in our culture, media can just as easily reinforce the bad.

If media have any effects at all they are only on the unimportant things in our lives, such as fads and fashion.

Counter-argumentFads and fashion are not unimportant to us. The car we drive, the clothes we wear, and the ways we look help define us; they characterize us to others. Infact, it is central to our self definition and happiness. If media influence only the unimportant things in our lives, why are billions of dollars spent on media efforts to sway opinion about social issues such as universal health care, nuclear power and global warming.

3.1.1 The Mass Media Effect Issues

There is no way one can make a comprehensive study of media effects without channeling one’s discussion towards salient issues that border on media effects. The issues are:

1. Violence 
2. Drugs and alcohol 
3. Political campaign and rating 

Violence
The main issue here is that media, especially TV, exposes people to violent acts which make them behave violently. In other words, there is a causal relationship between televised violence and anti social behaviors. Baran asserts: “The prevailing view during the 1960s was that some media violence affected some people in some ways some of the time… for normal people, that is, those who were not predisposed to violence – little media violence affected few people in few ways little of the time.
Compelling arguments had however, been marshaled to exonerate the press from receiving all the blame for anti social behaviours of television viewers. In the words of Klapper (1960) “mass communication does not ordinarily serve as a necessary and sufficient cause of audience effect but rather, functions through a nexus of mediating factor.

Drugs and AlcoholThe issue of drugs and alcohol is closely related to that of violence in that both blame the media for exposing people unnecessarily to drugs and alcohol. The U.S department of Health and Human services and National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism report that “the preponderance of evidence indicates that alcohol advertising stimulates higher consumption of alcohol by both adults and adolescents” and that “there is sufficient evidence to say that alcohol advertising is likely to be a contributing factor to overall consumption and other alcohol related problems in the long term”.

In the same vein, the (American) National Institute on Media and the Family (2002) reports that:

1. By the time teenagers reach driving age, they will have seen 75000 alcohol ads 
2. Beers ads are a strong predictor of adolescents’ knowledge, preference and loyalty to beer and of their intention to drink. 
3. Young people report more positive feelings about drinking and their own likelihood to drink after watching alcohol commercials. 
4. 56% of children in grades 5 through12 say that alcohol advertising encourages them to drink 
5. 10 million people ages 12 to 20 report drinking “in the last month” 
6. 7 million are classified as “binge drinkers” 
7. The average age of first alcohol use is 13.1 yrs old. 

Political Campaign and RatingOne major issue under effects of political exercise is the fact that media have the power to influence the electorate on who to vote and not to vote for. In other words, the media can set agenda for the public as regards political directions.

The popular presidential debate on NTA and AIT, especially during the 2007 general elections in Nigeria was the one in agreement with the notion that the candidates, through the media can be heard and listened to thereby underscoring the power of the media during electioneering campaigns.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1

To what extent do media influence or mould your opinions on issues of public importance?

3.2 Limited Effects Paradigm

Limited effects theories are of the view that the effects of media on the people are not total or too much but limited in proportion and weight. Paul Lazarsfeld was a very important researcher who contributed much to the development of Limited effects studies during his work at the Columbia Bureau of Applied Social Research. The most famous of the studies he conducted was that into voting behaviour carried out in the 1940s and which led him to develop the highly influential Two Step Flow Model of mass communication. As a result of his research, Lazarsfeld concluded that the media actually have quite limited effects on their audiences. This view of the media is common to many of the researchers in the US. Hovland, for example, whilst showing what variables can be altered to make a communication more or less effective, also places considerable emphasis on those factors, especially social factors such as group membership, which limit the persuasiveness of the message. Consequently, this view of the media is often referred to as the 'limited effects' paradigm or tradition.

In Towards a Sociology of Mass Communication (1971), McQuail summarises some of the main findings of the research which confirms this 'limited effects' view:

3. 'persuasive mass communication is in general more likely to reinforce the existing opinions of its audience than it is to change its opinion' (from Klapper (1960))

4. 'people tend to see and hear communications that are favourable or congenial to their predispositions' (from Berelson & Steiner (1964))

5.'people respond to persuasive communication in line with their predispositions and change or resist change accordingly' (from Berelson & Steiner (1964))

Consequently:

1. 'political campaigns tend to reach the politically interested and converted', as shown for example in Lazarsfeld's research. 
2. 'mass media campaigns against racial prejudice tend to be unsuccessful', as demonstrated in Kendall and Woolf's analysis of reactions to anti-racist cartoons. The cartoons featured Mr Biggott whose absurdly racist ideas were intended to discredit bigotry. In fact 31% failed to recognise that Mr Biggott was racially prejudiced or that the cartoons were intended to be anti-racist (Kendall & Wolff (1949) in Curran (1990)). 
3. 'effects vary according to the prestige or evaluations attaching to the communication source', as demonstrated by Hovland. 
4. 'the more complete the monopoly of mass communication, the more likely it is that opinion change in the desired direction will be achieved' - as in totalitarian societies, such as Nazi Germany, for example. 
5. 'the salience to the audience of the issues or subject matter will affect the likelihood of influence: "mass communication can be effective in producing a shift on unfamiliar, lightly felt, peripheral issues - those that do not much or are not tied to audience predispositions"' (from Berelson and Steiner (1964)). This is also supported by the recent research of Hügel et al, who confirm other studies' findings that media agenda-setting effects are limited to unobtrusive issues. (Hügel et al (1989)). 
6. 'the selection and interpretation of content by the audience is influenced by existing opinions and interests and by group norms', as suggested by Hovland's research. 
7. 'the structure of interpersonal relations in the audience mediates the flow of communication content and limits and determines whatever effects occur', as suggested by Katz and Lazarsfeld's research. 
8. (For more comment on limited effects, see the conclusions of the more recent research conducted on behalf of the BBFC) 

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 2

'People respond to persuasive communication in line with their predispositions and change or resist change accordingly'. Discuss.

3.3 Powerful Effects Paradigm

Schramm (1982) points to three powerful effects which the media can exert:

7. the media can confer status on organisations, persons and policies. As Schramm suggests, we probably work on the assumption that if something really matters then it will be featured in the media; so, if it is featured in the media, it must really matter;

8.the media can enforce social norms to an extent. The media can reaffirm social norms by exposing deviation from the norms to public view - this connects with British research by Cohen into folk devils and moral panics;

9. the media can act as social narcotics; sometimes known as the narcotising dysfunction, this means that because of the enormous amount of information in the media, media consumers tend not to be energised into social action, but rather drugged or narcotised into inaction.

3.3.1 Media’s Harmful Effects: Violence and Delinquency

The empiricist vein of effect research was funded to a large extent by major corporations concerned to investigate the influence of their advertising and public relations and by political parties which wished to devise the most effective campaigns. Another important impetus came from the government which responded to widespread public concern about media (especially film and then, later, television) portrayals of violence and their possible link with juvenile delinquency. The nature of the assumed links was then and continues to be unclear and confused. Klapper (1960) reduced the assumptions to six basic forms: mass media messages containing the portrayal of crimes and acts of violence can:

1. be generally damaging 
2. be directly imitated 
3. serve as a school of crime 
4. in specific circumstances cause otherwise normal people to engage in criminal acts 
5. devalue human life 
6. serve as a safety valve for aggressive impulses 

In essence, it is these assumptions which continue to underlie public concern over the media's possible harmful effects, notably on children. This concern has been reflected in the government funding of research into media violence and delinquency, both here and abroad. It is also reflected in the very extensive legislation in the UK and in frequently stated media assumptions that violent media messages cause violence. Because it is a matter of such widespread concern, there is a separate section on research into violence.

SELF ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 3

Do you agree with the tradition that media message make people behave violently? Give reasons for your answer.

3.4 Uses and Gratifications Concept

This concept believes that people don’t just expose themselves to media messages, they do that based on certain benefits they would derive. The theory was founded by Blumler and Katz’s. According to the duo, media users play an active role in choosing and using the media. Users take an active part in the communication process and are goal oriented in their media use. The theorists say that a media user seeks out a media source that best fulfills the needs of the user. Uses and gratifications assume that the user has alternate choices to satisfy their need.

Blumler and Katz believe that there is not merely one way that the populace uses media. Instead, they believe there are as many reasons for using the media, as there are media users. According to the theory, media consumers have a free will to decide how they will use the media and how it will affect them. Blumler and Katz values are clearly seen by the fact that they believe that media consumers can choose the influence media has on them as well as the idea that users choose media alternatives merely as a means to and end. Uses and gratification is the optimist’s view of the media. The theory takes out the possibility that the media can have an unconscience influence over our lives and how we view the world. The idea that we simply use the media to satisfy a given need does not seem to fully recognize the power of the media in today’s society.

Uses and gratification theory can be seen in cases such as personal music selection. We select music not only to fit a particular mood but also in attempts to show empowerment or other socially conscious motives. There are many different types of music and we choose from them to fulfill a particular need.

In the fairly early days of effects research, it became apparent that the assumed 'hypodermic' effect was not borne out by detailed investigation. A number of factors appeared to operate to limit the effects of the mass media. Katz and Lazarsfeld, for example, pointed to the influence of group membership (see Two-step flow) and Hovland identified a variety of factors ranging from group membership to the audience's interest in the subject of the message As a result of this evidence, attention began to turn from the question of 'what the media do to the audience' to 'what the audience do with the media'. Herta Herzog was one of the earliest researchers in this area. She undertook (as part of Paul Lazarsfeld's massive programme of research) to investigate what gratifications radio listeners derived from daytime serials, quizzes and so on. Katz summarises the starting point of this kind of research quite neatly:

... even the most potent of the mass media content cannot ordinarily influence an individual who has 'no use' for it  in the social and psychological context in which he lives. The 'uses' approach assumes that people's values, their interests, their associations, their social rôles, are pre-potent, and that people selectively 'fashion' what they see and hear to these interests (Katz (1959) in McQuail (1971))
Researchers on the uses and gratifications vein therefore see the audience as active. It is part of the received wisdom of media studies that audience members do indeed actively make conscious and motivated choices amongst the various media messages available. This is called the active audience concept.

3.4.1 Benefits/Gratifications People Derive From the Media

Katz, Gurevitch and Haas (1973) developed 35 needs taken from the social and psychological functions of the mass media and put them into five categories:

1. Cognitive needs, including acquiring information, knowledge and understanding; 
2. Affective needs, including emotion, pleasure, feelings; 
3. Personal integrative needs, including credibility, stability, status; 
4. Social integrative needs, including interacting with family and friends; and 
5. Tension release needs, including escape and diversion. 

5.0 SUMMARY

This unit has been able to explain various media effect theories. It looked at those theories like Cultivation Theory as developed by George Gerbner; Social Action Theory ; Agenda-Setting Theory; Media Dependency Theory. Others include the Limited effects; Powerful Effect; Uses and Gratification; and the Cultural effects tradition. Uses and gratifications theory was discussed as subset of the active-audience perspectives. One major criticism of the theory as popularized by McQuail (1994) is that the approach has not provided much successful prediction or causal explanation of media choice and use.

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

Give your understanding of the following media effects theories: 

Cultivation Theory; Social Action Theory; Agenda-Setting Theory and; Media Dependency Theory.