1 Social Effects of Mass Communication Chapter 19 © 2009, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Social Effects of Mass Communication

Chapter 19

© 2009, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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CHAPTER OUTLINE

• Investigating Mass Communication Effects• Effects on Knowledge and Attitudes• Media Effects on Behavior: A Short History• The Impact of Televised Violence• Encouraging Prosocial Behavior• Other Behavior Effects• Research about The Social Effects of the

Internet• Communication in the Future: Social Impact

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INVESTIGATING MASS COMMUNICATION EFFECTS

• Focus on scientific studies

• Two methods common– Survey

• Panel study

– Experiment• Field experiment

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EFFECTS ON KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDES

• The dividing line between knowledge and attitudes is fuzzy. We will consider both

• We will examine several topics that have generated the most research interest

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Media and Socialization

• Socialization is how individuals come to adopt behaviors and values of the group– Agencies of socialization include media

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The Media as a Primary Source of Information

• Learning is important part of the socialization process– Media, especially TV, are primary information

source• Especially politics and public opinion

– Entertainment media also provide information• About diverse topics such as occupations, crime,

relationships, minorities, morals, etc

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Shaping Attitudes, Perceptions, and Beliefs

• Media can play important role in transmitting attitudes, perceptions, beliefs– Especially in young people who are heavy

viewers of TV, when stereotypes consistently recur, and when they have limited exposure to alternative beliefs or other socializing agents

• Creating stereotypes• Effects of heavy viewing• Absence of alternative information

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Cultivation Analysis

• Heavy TV viewing cultivates perceptions of reality consistent with the view of the world presented on TV. – Methodology– Research findings

• Mainstreaming• Resonance

– Criticisms of cultivation analysis• Determining cause and effect• Factors other than TV may affect people• Wording of questions on surveys

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Children and Television Advertising

• Given extent of children’s exposure to advertising, most people accept that children deserve special consideration from advertisers, due to:– Vulnerability of the audience– Effects of special selling techniques– Consumer socialization

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Agenda Setting

• When the media emphasize certain topics, we begin to think these topics are important

• Most agenda-setting studies examine information-based media, especially political campaigns and issues

• Agenda-setting research has led to– Framing research– Agenda-building research

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MEDIA EFFECTS ON BEHAVIOR: A SHORT HISTORY• 1940s research was prompted by concern

about political effects of mass media, especially radio

• 1950s-1960s: Growth of TV shifted concern to affects on young people

• 1970s-1980s-1990s: Concern about affects of violent content– 2007: FCC urged Congress to allow the

agency to regulate violent content

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THE IMPACT OF TELEVISED VIOLENCE

• The impact of televised violence is a complex issue, and the definitive answer has not yet been found

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Survey Results

• Decades of surveys reveal a significant correlation between viewing violent TV and aggressive behavior in real life– Correlation does not prove causality

• Panel studies have provided stronger evidence that there is a mutual causal connection between watching TV violence and performing aggressive acts– Connection is small and influenced by individual and

cultural factors

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Experimental Results: The Catharsis Versus Stimulation

Debate• Two rival theories on impact of media

violence– Catharsis– Stimulation

• Experiments support stimulation, not catharsis

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Bandura’s Experiment

• Albert Bandura, 1960s– Experiments with Bobo doll– Found that film and TV might teach

aggressive behavior to children

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Complicating Factors

• Many factors can influence the outcomes of experiments into the effects of violent content, including:– Experimental setting– Participate age, gender, social class, family

history, economic background, etc– Length and type of content viewed– Reactions of others to the same content

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Field Experiments

• Field experiments are more naturalistic– People react more naturally– Harder to control for other outside influences

• Field experiment results vary but tend to support the notion that viewing TV violence fosters aggressive behavior

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What Can We Conclude

• A consistent thread appears– Tentative acceptance that watching violence

on television increases aggression in at least some viewers

– Effects are weak or small, but are not necessarily trivial

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ENCOURAGING PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR

• Most media research has studied potential negative effects of media

• Research on prosocial behavior studies potential positive effects, including– Cooperation, sharing, self control, helping

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Experiments

• Lab experiments have shown that film and TV content can affect young children’s self control, cooperation, sharing, and helping

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Surveys

• Survey data measure what TV programs children watch, and how often they perform prosocial acts

• A wide variety of prosocial behaviors have been examined

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Research Results

• Research in this area is hard to interpret– Prosocial behavior covers many areas

• Experiments indicate moderate short-term impact of exposure to prosocial behavior

• Surveys reveal moderate impact of voluntary exposure to prosocial programs– Positive impact about as strong as that of the

negative impact from exposure to violence– Altruism is most strongly-affected prosocial behavior

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OTHER BEHAVIOR EFFECTS

• Researchers have also studied other potential effects of media exposure

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Political Behavior

• Negative advertising

• Effects of mass media on voter choice– Conversion– Reinforcement– Crystallization

• Effects of televised debates

• Television and the political behavior of politicians

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RESEARCH ABOUT THE SOCIAL EFFECTS OF THE INTERNET

• Two trends in Internet studies– Impact of Internet use on other media

• Greatest effect on TV usage• Internet important as source of news

– Relationship between Internet use and social involvement

• Contradictory results don’t yet support conclusions

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COMMUNICATION IN THE FUTURE: SOCIAL IMPACT

• Advances in media technology usually have an upside and a downside

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Privacy

• The widespread exchange of information has had both positive and negative consequences

• Personal information is uncomfortably easy to find

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Fragmentation and Isolation

• Mass media serve needs of ever more specialized audiences– Directing people to ever more selective

content exposure– Could result in smaller and smaller interest

groups• The cocoon effect

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Escape

• People could always immerse themselves in world of mass media, and tune out of the real world

• New technologies have caused those fears to resurface– HDTV, the Internet, virtual reality, role-playing

games