Media Effects Theories

Question 1

What are media effects?

Answer 1

Changes that happen in people as a result of exposure to media
- Behavioral: someone performs an action
- Attitudinal: change’s someone’s attitudes, beliefs, & opinions
- Cognitive: changes someone’s knowledge
- Emotional: changes someone’s feelings (fear, anxiety)
- Physiological: changes someone’s physical body reactions

Question 2

Features of Media Effects Theories: Selectivity of media use

Answer 2

Selective exposure:
we seek out information that confirms our beliefs and avoid information that contradicts our beliefs

Selective perception:
If people are faced with media that contradicts their beliefs, they choose to ignore it or twist it to fit their existing beliefs.

Selective retention:
People retain only part of what they’re exposed to and conveniently forget contradicting things

Question 3

Features of Media Effects Theories: Media properties

Answer 3

Modality: how an audience receives media messages
ex. text, auditory, visual

Content: what is in the media someone consumes
ex. violence, humor, fear appeals, types of characters

Structure: how media messages are put together
ex. specifical effects, pace, order of events

Question 4

Features of Media Effects Theories: Media effects are indirect

Answer 4

One’s personality and situational factors affect how one interprets a message.

Question 5

Mass Society Theory

Answer 5

• Late 1800s-1940s
• Belief that media is very influential, all-powerful (magic bullet = media –> our heads)
• Audiences are passive and unable to resist
• Developed while mass media was still new, no one had much knowledge
• Negative view of media

Question 6

Two-Step Flow Theory

Answer 6

• Emerged from scientific research
• Defeats magic bullet theory
• Indirect influence goes to opinion leaders and then the individual who contacts them
• Media reinforces existing social trends and doesn’t challenge the status quo
• Issue-specific

Question 7

Cultivation Theory

Answer 7

• 1980s-present
• Applied to TV, movies, & video games
• Heavy viewers of TV are likely to believe that the world on TV is very similar to the real world; overlap
• It happens over a long time = viewers are “cultivated”
• Our knowledge of the world is indirect, we get it through the TV

Question 8

Cultivation Theory: Heavy TV viewers

Answer 8

• Heavy viewers think violence is more common than it is (10-1)
• Heavy viewers believe in gender/racial stereotypes because they’re shown on TV
• Heavy political viewers = cynical view of the world
• Heavy med show viewers: overestimate the rate of dying in a hospital & underestimate mundane conditions and overestimate rare ones

They can also be impacted by:
- Mainstreaming: cultural beliefs replaced by the ones shown on TV
- Disinhibitory effect: desensitization to violence
- Mean World Syndrome: world is violent & scary

Question 9

Agenda-Setting Theory

Answer 9

• 1960s-present
• Applied to news
• Media doesn’t tell what to think but they do tell what to think ABOUT
• More coverage = more importance

Question 10

Types of Agenda-Setting

Answer 10

• Public agenda setting: media audiences
• Media agenda setting: media sources, the same issues are discussed across media to stay relevant
• Policy agenda setting: public officials/lawmakers, they are a part of media audiences and likely create laws based on what they see in the news

Question 11

Agenda setting and issue obtrusiveness

Answer 11

• Obtrusive issues: issues that most people have personal experience with (agenda setting effects aren’t strong with these)
• Unobtrusive issues: issues that most people don’t have direct experience with (agenda setting effects are stronger with these)

Question 12

Agenda setting and individuals’ need for orientation

Answer 12

• If someone thinks an issue is very relevant but doesn’t know much about it = strong agenda setting
• If someone thinks an issue is not relevant and they know enough about it = weaker agenda setting

Question 13

Media Framing

Answer 13

• Applied to news
• The way an issue is framed in news reports influences how it’s understood by the audience

Question 14

Media Framing: Emphasis approach

Answer 14

• Media selects and emphasizes certain parts of an issue while downplaying or ignoring other parts
• News article emphasizes severity of skin cancer but doesn’t mention who’s susceptible
• Subconscious or strategic

Question 15

Media Framing: Equivalency approach

Answer 15

Gain frames
- the benefits of doing a recommended behavior
Loss frames
- the costs of not doing a recommended behavior