Exam II Flashcards
1
Q
Theory
A
a set of logically interrelated propositions and the implications that follow from them, which is used to explain some phenomenon
2
Q
What are the values of theories?
A
- Organizes our thinking about the world
- Predict
- Explaining
- Critique
3
Q
Characteristics of theories
A
- multiple statements
- identify key concepts and their relationships
- logical coherence
- yield hypotheses that can be verified/falsified
- general
- parsimonious - simple and tight as possible
- open to modification
4
Q
Uses and gratifications: Two broad assumptions about audiences
A
- Individuals actively select media and messages
2. Individuals are aware of their motives and use these to seek out media to satisfy their needs
5
Q
Uses and Gratifications: Central claims
A
- media behavior is goal directed
- people initiate the selection and use of media
- social and psychological factors guide/filter media behavior
- media compete with other factors to gratify needs and wants
- people are influential in the effects processes
6
Q
The Medium is the Massage
A
- Technological determinism - the type of media available is fundamentally important and media evolves
- Eras of communication history (tribal state- ear, print age- eye, electronic age)
- McLuhan is probably not science - not falsifiable
7
Q
Children’s educational programming
A
- children can learn pos and neg messages
- acts as a supplement to formal education (topic exposure, positive attitudes, and encouraging active engagement)
8
Q
How does educational programming effect children?
A
- better academic and interpersonal skills, and attitudes towards learning
- persistent effects
9
Q
How do children learn best through educational TV?
A
With their parents - as an agent of socialization
10
Q
Public Communication Campaigns
A
purposive use of mass media to inform, persuade, or motivate behavior changes in a large audience for noncommercial benefits
11
Q
What are the intended outcomes of public communication campaigns?
A
- Prevention (gun violence)
- Cessation (food waste)
- Adoption (voting)
(aligns with societal values)
12
Q
How effective are public communication campaigns?
A
- behavior change occurs in 7-10% of pop
- 12% adoption > 5% cessation
- effect size depends on scope of exposure
13
Q
What are the types of Campaign Messages?
A
- Awareness
- Instruction
- Persuasion
14
Q
Awareness Public Communication Campaigns
A
Recognition Importance Information Stimulate interpersonal communication Encourage further info seeking Sensitization (i.e. "It gets better project")
15
Q
Instruction Public Communication Campaigns
A
Acquiring skills (learn your heroin needles) - not as widely used
16
Q
Persuasion Public Communication Campaigns
A
- Attitude creation or change
- Behavioral creation or change
17
Q
What effects the effectiveness of Public Communication Campaigns?
A
- Form
- Incentives
- Messangers
18
Q
Forms of Public Communication Campaigns
A
Credible
Engaging styles and ideas
Understandability
Personal Relevance
19
Q
Incentives of Public Communication Campaigns
A
Social
Psychological
Economic
Penalties for violations
20
Q
Messengers of Public Communication Campaigns
A
Celebrity Public official Expert/specialist Organizational leader Ordinary real person Specially experienced person Unique character
21
Q
Social Learning Theory
A
people learn behaviors by observing others. Includes techniques, motives, rationalizations, etc. Different variables effect social learning
22
Q
Variables that effect social learning
A
- identification - how do you identify with the teacher (race, gender, age group)
- sanctions - response to behavior (pos/neg, formal/informal)
- receiver characteristics - attention/motivation
23
Q
Reasoned action theory
A
beliefs about the likelihood of consequences and the evaluation of those consequences
- the optimal formula for unhealthy behaviors is emphasizing a high likelihood of suffering a very painful consequence
- prime strategy - change beliefs about probability (it WILL happen to you)
24
Q
Self-efficacy theory
A
Extent to which one believes they have control over actions/outcomes
- fear appeals are most effective when coupled with self efficacy [may highlight response-efficacy (If people believe the recommended change will actually make a difference)]
25
Why do public communication campaigns fail?
- Inadequate exposure
- Message qualities (offensive, burning, unbelievable)
- Audience resistance
- Boomerang effect
- Deflecting attention from social determinants to individual determinants
26
Why does audience resistance occur?
- misperceptions of probability/consequences
- denial of applicability
- rejection of unpalatable recommendations
- inertia
27
Boomerang Effect
- inadvertent social learning - "oh everyone drinks and drives"
- unhealthy role models
- forbidden fruit
- desensitization
- problem shifting - scare from one behavior to another
28
When are most PSA's run?
In donated time - most are between midnight to 5am, so are people even seeing them?
29
Social construction of Reality
accepted knowledge does not need to mirror objective reality
30
what are the fundamental assumptions of the social construction of reality
1. we learn through our interactions
2. groups of people agree on ideas, interpretations, and knowledge about the world
3. knowledge is socially created by people (experienced reality and vicarious reality)
31
Experienced reality
Part of the social construction of reality. i.e. touching a stove. Powerful but limited
32
Vicarious reality
Part of the social construction of reality. Most of what you know (less powerful)
33
Primary functions of the press in a democracy
1. informing people about public affairs
2. watchdog scrutinizing power (supposed to protect citizens i.e. "4th branch of government")
3. Sphere for debating issues
4. Representing the voice of the people
34
Auxiliary press functions
- Interpretation of events
- Socialization
- Deliberate manipulation of politics (i.e. Muckraking)
35
Muckraking
the practice of uncovering and publicizing evidence of corruption and scandal, especially among powerful or well-known people or institutions
36
What types of Media Ownership is there?
It exists on a scale. Purely public, mixed, and purely commercial. The U.S. has mostly commercial media.
37
Patterns of Private Ownership of Press
- Independent owner (one radio station or one newspaper) not really a thing anymore
- Chains - own several stations, or papers, etc
- Cross-media - own paper AND staton AND network
- Conglomerates - own media and other things too
38
Hard news vs soft news
Hard news - what you need to know
| Soft news - celebrities
39
Global Press Freedom rating
about 1/3rd free, 1/3rd partly free, and 1/3rd not free
| - Based on legal, political, and economic environment
40
The ability to learn is contingent on...
- attention
- format (sight and sound is best)
- source credibility and appeal
- partisanship
41
Explanations for publics lack of political knowledge
- rational ignorance
- on-line processing - things you hear are added to your attitude but the specifics go away
- media performance
- miscellaneous deterrents (public confidence, attention span)
42
Agenda setting
a process through which the mass media communicates the relative importance of various issues and events to the public
- to press editors - what is the most important story?
- to the public - what is the most important issue?
43
Ability to agenda set depends on... and is shaped by...
```
importance
speed (fast, easier to set on agenda)
```
experienced reality
conversations with others
44
Priming
the way in which the media affect the criteria by which political leaders are judged
- using juxtaposition to transfer cognition from one domain to another
- i.e. political ads for Republicans might focus on the economy, while for Democrats they might focus on the Environment
45
Framing
Emphasizing or de-emphasizing particular facets of an issue. Involves selection and salience.
46
Functions of frames
- define problems
- make moral judgements
- diagnose causes
- suggest remedies
47
Sources of frames
- culture
| - elites
48
What are the two types of framing?
Equivalency framing and Emphasis framing
49
Equivalency framing
the use of different but logically equivalent words or phrases to describe the same possible event or issue
i.e Kahneman and Tversky - dying vs saving
50
Emphasis framing
highlighting different subsets of potentially relevant considerations of an issue
51
Common media emphasis frames
- attribution of responsibility
- human interest (big Pharma vs Sally with a peanut allergy)
- conflict
- morality
- economic
52
Who are the players in the media market?
- consumers
- advertisers
- media companies
- media employees
Audience gives money to products, then manufacturers, then advertisers, then media, which delivers content to audiences
53
What is the goal of the media market?
- maximize the value of the exchange in which the nature of competition involves Monopolies and content homogeneity
- media companies want to construct audiences that are desirable to advertisers (quantity and quality) - the audience is a commodity
54
Who tracks the audience and how do they sample?
- Nielson (TV) and Arbitron (Radio)
| - Multi-stage cluster sampling in specific regions and stratified sampling
55
What methods are used to track the audience?
diaries
household meters
people meters
portable people meters
56
How is the audience quantified?
- Ratings: ratio of households watching out of all TV households
- Shares: ration of households watching out of all households watching TV
57
What is audience fragmentation?
Looking at the different groups watching (i.e. Black, Latino, etc.)
58
What are the functions of advertising
1. Persuasion - attitude creation or change
2. Establishing awareness
3. Creating emotions
4. Reinforcement
5. Inoculating against competitors
59
Does advertising exploit real human desires?
Yes. Yes it does.
60
Product Claims of Advertising
Physical features
Functional features
Characterization features
61
What are the elements of ads?
1. Frame
2. Sounds
3. Editing
62
Frame
everything you can see
- visual images and text (more effective when you combine)
- color
63
Sounds
- music
- other sounds
- voiceovers
64
Editing
- sequencing
| - pacing
65
Subliminal advertising
Not real - Vicary experiment was FAKE NEWS. Unconscious advertising effects are real though
66
Message characteristics of advertising
- simplicity
- repetition
- emotions
- deception (but not too much, b/c blatant falsehoods result in fines)
- puffery
67
Puffery
Making untestable, implicit claims about products
- pseudo-claims
- comparison w/ an unidentified other
- comparison of a product to its earlier form
- irrelevant comparisons
- pseudo survey
- juxtaposition
68
Ad Techniques
- Reciprocity
- Commitment and consistency
- Scarcity
- Stereotyping
- Social Proof
- Liking
- Authority
69
Negative Political Advertising
- Most political ads are negative
| - Across party and demographic lines
70
What are the types of negative political ads?
Character and record attacks
71
Techniques of negative political advertising
Guild by association
Flip-flops
Surrogates
72
Dog Whistling
A metaphor that pushes us to recognize that modern racial pandering always operates on two levels:
- inaudible and easily denied in one range
- stimulating strong reactions in another
73
Example of Dog Whistling
1988 Bush vs Dukakis
- Bush trails
- Sets crime on the agenda
- Runs racist ads to invoke fear
- Bush wins
74
Commonsense racism
the belief that racial injustices are normal features of society
75
Strategic racism
purposeful efforts to use racial animosity to gain resources
76
Dog Whistle Jujitsu
- punch racism into the conversation through reference to culture, behavior, and class
- parry claims of race-baiting by insisting that absent a direct reference to biology or the use of a racial epithet, there can be no racism
- kick up the racial attack by calling any critics the real racists
77
Centrality of colorblindness
- references to culture and behavior can't be about race
| - racism only exists when someone says obviously racist things
78
Interests involved in white racial solidarity
- racial status
- class status
- economic losses (actual)
- imagined losses
79
Effects of media violence
- copycat phenomenon
| - aggression
80
How large is the research base on the effect of media violence?
large, diverse in methods, samples, media genres AND is consistent in overall findings
81
Caveats to Media Violence Findings
- Causality does NOT equal singularity (other things cause violence
- Statistical significance does NOT equal Statistical importance - media violence accounts for 2% of variance in aggressive behavior
- Statistical Importance does NOT equal Social importance (in a large audience some things are unpreventable)
- Lab vs real world
82
What are the theories of media violence and aggression?
catharsis hypothesis
social learning
excitation transfer
desensitization
83
Catharsis
the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions
84
Social Learning
A theory of media violence. People learn behaviors by observing others (variables: identification, sanctions, receiver characteristics)
85
Excitation transfer
arousal spreads from media exposure to unrelated tasks
86
Desensitization
long-term alterations in emotions due to media exposure
