Political Effects of Mass Communications

Question 1

Political communications triangle
- McNair

Answer 1

Political actors / Organizations
Citizens / Audience
Journalists / Media
* see interaction in notes

Question 2

Media effects: the hypodermic needle
- Early 20th century

Answer 2

• strong and immediate effects
• associated with totalitarianism
  E.g school shootings are an effect of violent computer games (however, not that simple)

Question 3

Limited media effects
‘Minimal effects theory’
- 1950’s

Answer 3

Media has limited effects on its audience:
1. people are selective in their media (active audience theory)
2. beliefs & attitudes are based on social and environmental factors
3. pre-existing experiences & knowledge limits effects by the media

Question 4

Limited media effects
‘Two-step flow model’
- 1950 Lazarfeld

Answer 4

• less direct effect from the media
• media effect/influence is filtered through opinion leaders
• model posits that people are more likely to be influenced by social groups and influential people than by mass media directly
• the power of the media is reinforcement

Question 5

Media effects: active audience

Answer 5

Cultural studies: semiotic understanding of media effects
- audience are not passive receivers on the media but actively engage in interpreting their messages
- audience chooses the media to consume: escape, leisure
- audience select what they want to interpret based on individual needs/interest

Question 6

Active audience: Dominant / oppositional

Answer 6

Cultural approach: semiotic understanding of media effects
- everybody decodes differently
- dominant vs. oppositional
E.g a conservative ideology in the news media
Republicans - dominant decoding
Democrats - oppositional decoding

Question 7

Media effects: cultivation theory
- end of 20th century

Answer 7

• media affects peoples perception of reality E.g someone who watches a lot of crime takes crime in the world more seriously in politics
• specific to long-term exposure
• focuses on nuanced ‘gradual’ effects rather than immediate
• criticised for oversimplifying / ignoring the environmental and external factors

Question 8

Current state of media effects

Answer 8

• platform power
• alternative/ partisan news platforms
• fringe platforms (niched audience promoting alternative and controversial views), memes

Question 9

Measuring media effects and public opinion:
- Focus groups

Answer 9

(Micro level)
- common before a survey to test survey Q’s
- in depth
- why people think the way they do
- what are people’s values: thereafter shape campaigns to respond to values of groups (4-8 people)

Question 10

Measuring media effects and public opinion:
- Experiments

Answer 10

(Micro approach)
- ‘more rare’
- problem: they’re artificial
- controlled
- less context
- lab based
- expensive (fewer participants?)

Question 11

Measuring media effects and public opinion:
- Surveys / polls

Answer 11

• questionnaire off representing samples of citizens

Question 12

Measuring media effects and public opinion:
- Measuring voting data

Answer 12

• analysing actual voting data
• analyse voting behaviour (combined with polls data): looking at the motives behind voting for a candidate

Question 13

Effects of Political advertising

Answer 13

Mainly reinforces political attitudes opposed to changing opinion

Question 14

Effects of the press

Answer 14

Weak long-term effects, targets certain groups
E.g bad frames can have the opposite effect on audience

Question 15

Effects of television

Answer 15

More informative rather than persuasive

Question 16

Agenda setting (+ priming)

Answer 16

Agenda setting:
- The media doesn’t tell people what to think, but what to think about - Cohen
- process of determining what issues/events get attention in the media
- based on the idea that media shapes public opinion by prioritising certain issues, shaping public discourse (through framing)
- setting agenda: salience, not persuasion often unnoticed by audience
- selection criteria: news values, editorial policy, inter-media agenda setting (one media source influences another)
- agenda setting devices: headlines, images, placements E.g page #

Question 17

Agenda setting (+ priming)

Answer 17

(Priming)
- an extension of agenda-setting “2nd part”
- exposure to certain media influences the way people think about/respond to subsequent media content or event
- ethical questions regarding media manipulation in shaping public opinion/promoting agendas
regarding E.g political matters

Question 18

Agenda setting (+ priming)
- Scheufele & Tewksbury summary:

Answer 18

”By making some issues more salient in people’s mind (agenda setting), mass media can also shape the considerations that people take into account when making judgments about political candidates or issues (priming)”

Question 19

Framing

Answer 19

• organises an experience: E.g emphasising or omitting certain aspects of an issue
• can have multiple frames, one primary
• framing vs. frame - framing is the use of frames
• positive or negative
  framing (journalists, politicians) frames (media and communications)

Question 20

Agenda setting (+priming)
Framing

Answer 20

Key theories in media effects
Agenda setting (+priming):
Accessibility-based model
Framing:
Interpretation-based model

Question 21

Difference between framing and agenda-setting

Answer 21

Agenda setting:
- medias ability to influence what people think about by selecting certain topics and giving them more coverage than others
Framing:
- the way that information is presented or contextualized to influence how people perceive and interpret it
MAIN IDEA: framing focuses on meaning, not accessibility

Question 22

Salience

Answer 22

the more media exposure given to a topic influences the public salience of that topic: repeated exposure is what deems issues important

Question 23

How the media sets the agenda /
intermedia agenda

Answer 23

Setting agenda: news values, editorial policy, intermedia agenda setting
Agenda-setting DEVICES: headlines, images, placement

Intermedia agenda: the media influencing other media in their content agenda-setting