Media Effects and Cultural Approaches to Research Chapter 15

Online Image Library Go to to access the Media & Culture, 9th Edition Online Image Library. The library contains all your favorite images from Media & Culture, 9th edition!

Since the emergence of popular music, movies, television, and video games as influential mass media, the relationship between make-believe stories and real-life imitation has drawn a great deal of attention. Should Life Imitate Culture?

Researching the Effect of Mass Media on Individuals and Society  Media effects research Attempts to understand, explain, and predict the effects of mass media on individuals and society  Cultural studies Focuses on how people make meaning, articulate values, comprehend reality, and arrange experiences through cultural symbols

Early Media Research Methods  Propaganda analysis  Public opinion research  Social psychology studies  Marketing research

Early Theories of Media Effects  Hypodermic-needle model Media shoot effects directly into unsuspecting victims.  Minimal-effects model Researchers argued that people generally engage in selective exposure and selective retention with regard to the media.

Early Theories of Media Effects (cont.)  Uses and gratifications model Researchers studied the ways in which people used the media to satisfy various emotional or intellectual needs.

Conducting Media Effects Research  Private or proprietary research Generally conducted for a business, a corporation, or a political campaign Usually applied research  Public research Usually takes place in academic and government settings More often theoretical information

Conducting Media Effects Research (cont.)  Most research today employs the scientific method. Identify the research problem. Review existing research. Develop a working hypothesis. Determine an appropriate method. Collect information or relevant data. Analyze results. Interpret the implications.

Conducting Media Effects Research (cont.)  Scientific method relies on: Objectivity Reliability Validity  Hypotheses Tentative general statements that predict the influence of an independent variable on a dependent variable

Conducting Media Effects Research (cont.)  Experiments Test whether a hypothesis is true Utilize an experimental group and a control group  Survey research Collecting and measuring data from a group of respondents  Content analysis Studies specific media messages

Contemporary Media Effects Theories  Social learning theory Four-step process  Attention  Retention  Motor reproduction  Motivation  Agenda-setting Media set the agenda for major topics of discussion.

Contemporary Media Effects Theories (cont.)  Cultivation effect Heavy viewing of television leads individuals to perceive reality in ways consistent with portrayals on television.  Spiral of silence Those whose views are in the minority will keep their views to themselves for fear of social isolation.

Contemporary Media Effects Theories (cont.)  Third-person effect People believe others are more affected by media messages than they are themselves. Instrumental in censorship

Evaluating Research on Media Effects  Media effects research is inconsistent and often flawed. Continues to resonate because it offers an easy-to-blame social cause for real- world violence  Limits on research Funding Inability to address how media affect communities and social institutions

Early Developments in Cultural Studies Research  Karl Marx and Antonio Gramsci Investigated how mass media support existing hierarchies Examined how popular culture and sports distract people from redressing social injustices Addressed the subordinate status of particular social groups

Early Developments in Cultural Studies Research (cont.)  Frankfurt School Three inadequacies of traditional scientific approaches  Reduce large “cultural questions” to measurable and “verifiable categories”  Depended on “an atmosphere of rigidly enforced neutrality”  Refused to place “the phenomena of modern life” in a “historical and moral context”

Conducting Cultural Studies Research  Textual analysis Highlights the close reading and interpretation of cultural messages  Audience studies Subject being researched is the audience for the text.  Political economy studies Examines interconnections among economic interests, political power, and how that power is used

Cultural Studies’ Theoretical Perspectives  The public sphere A space for critical public debate Advanced by German philosopher Jürgen Habermas Society in England and France in late seventeenth century and eighteenth century created spaces (coffeehouses, pubs) for public discourse.

Cultural Studies’ Theoretical Perspectives (cont.)  Communication as culture James Carey argued that communication is a cultural ritual.  Described it as “a symbolic process whereby reality is produced, maintained, repaired, and transformed” Leads researchers to consider communication’s symbolic process as culture itself

Evaluating Cultural Studies Research  Cultural studies research Involves interpreting written and visual “texts” or artifacts as symbolic representations that contain cultural, historical, and political meaning Affords the freedom to broadly interpret the impact of mass media Like media effects research, it has its limits.

Media Research and Democracy  Academics in media studies charged with increased specialization and use of jargon Alienates nonacademics Many researchers isolated from life outside of the university Larger public often excluded from access to the research process

Media Research and Democracy (cont.)  Public intellectuals based on campuses help carry on the conversations of society and culture, actively circulating the most important new ideas of the day and serving as models for how to participate in public life.