 Video Game Trailer Video Game Trailer  Has anyone played this game?  What did you think?

 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Chapter Outline  History  Theory and Research  Controversies MEDIA IMPACT: Understanding Research and Effects

 Early Studies  Concerns about media impact are as old as the media themselves. ▪ 15 th century church leaders thought printed bibles would corrupt society ▪ Parents felt the same about the first novels. ▪ Consistent research into media effects did not begin until the 1920s.  2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Propaganda ▪ Information spread to promote a doctrine or cause.  During WWI propaganda had been so blatant and useful to both sides ▪ People feared media would “brainwash” an innocent public and influence them in ways they did not realize. ▪ Do you believe the media is powerful enough to do this

A Brief History of Media Research  Payne Fund Studies ▪ 13 separate 1929 investigations into the influence movies had on the behavior of children.  Modeling (Payne Fund Study) ▪ The imitation of behavior from media examples ▪ Parent Concern ▪ Children may pick up antisocial habits from media consumption ▪ Video Clip GameDevin Moore Video ClipGameDevin Moore ▪ Do you think violent games like GTA Increase Violence in Society?  Why/Why not  Game Demo Game Demo  2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

Are these examples of positive or negative media? Why?

 Content analyses (Payne Fund Study)  Research where observers analyze media subject matter ▪ (TV, Magazines, Radio, Web, Newspaper) ▪ Has shown that the vast majority of movies dealt with crime, sex, and love.  Laboratory experiment (Payne Fund Study) ▪ Research where variables are isolated and observed in a controlled environment

 Survey methods (Payne Fund Study) ▪ Research that relies on questionnaires to collect data ▪ Administering surveys to young movie viewers, parents and teachers, ▪ Asking teens to recall effects that early movie viewing had on them. ▪ Results showed movie viewing was harmful to a child’s health,  contributed to an erosion of moral standards and had a negative influence on the child’s conduct.  Payne Fund studies ▪ Instrumental in developing public support for the 1930 Motion Picture Production code  2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 People’s Choice study ▪ Examined how media affected voter behavior in the 1940 presidential election between FDR and Wendell Wilkie.  Random sample ▪ Method to ensure members of population have equal chance of being selected  Selective exposure ▪ Process by which people seek out messages that are consistent with their attitudes ▪ Where do you get your News, What is your favorite TV show, What type of movies do you like?  2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

A Brief History of Media Research  People’s Choice study  Selective perception ▪ Process by which people with different attitudes interpret the same messages differently  Selective retention ▪ Process where people with different views remember the same event differently

 Peoples Choice Study ▪ Media strengthened attitudes already held by voters – ▪ Presidential campaigns persuaded only 8% to switch sides. ▪ Also ▪ Voters in all categories received much information and influence directly from other people. ▪ Opinion leaders ▪ Certain well-informed members of families and neighborhoods who then created a ▪ Two-step flow ▪ Process where media effects travel through opinion leaders ▪ From radio and print to the opinion leaders and from them to the less active sections of the population.  2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Studies into the Effects of Television  Television in the Lives of Our Children study  Thousands of school children and their parents were interviewed, surveyed and tested ▪ On how children used TV and how that use affected those children.  The study found ▪ Some TV is harmful for some children under some conditions. ▪ For other children under the same, or other, conditions TV may be beneficial.  For most children, under most conditions, most TV is probably neither harmful nor particularly beneficial.  What do you think? Do you agree that TV is mostly neutral ▪ Or does it have a more positive or negative effect?  2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Television and violence ▪ National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence ▪ Partly dealt with media and TV ▪ Commission found that ▪ Desensitization - Effect of long-term exposure to mass-media portrayals of violence. ▪ Prevented onlookers from helping victims of crimes ▪ Video Clip Video Clip ▪ Does more real violence occur between strangers or between family members, friends or acquaintances?  2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 What is a Theory  Set of related statements that seek to explain and predict behavior.  Effects Models  Powerful effects model, ▪ Predicted that media will have an immediate and potent influence on their audiences. (Youth acting bad after violent movie)  Minimal effects model ▪ Predicts that media will have little influence on behavior. ▪ People not changing voting behavior

 Researchers today accept ▪ Mixed effects model, ▪ Sometimes media will have powerful effects, ▪ Sometimes minimal effects, ▪ Sometimes - depending on a variety of factors - a mixture of both.  Mixed-effects model makes the most sense. ▪ We know that an effective ad can make a product fly off shelves, and that a news report can fuel a riot.  2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Theories ▪ Bullet theory (A.K.A. Hypodermic needle theory) ▪ Implies that media effects flowed directly from media to individual –  like a bullet. ▪ From movie to viewer, from book to reader ▪ Multi-step flow, ▪ Media effects travel from high level opinion leaders to lower level opinion leaders to us. ▪ Politicians to community leaders to clergy to public ▪ There is really no general, simple answer to the question of how media affects behavior. The best answer usually is “It depends.”  2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

 Social Science Perspectives  Social learning theory, aka modeling theory, ▪ Assumption that people learn to behave by observing others, including those portrayed in the mass media.  Social modeling is an important part of socialization, ▪ Where expectations, norms, and values of society are learned ▪ What is an example of a person that is “cool” ▪ How did you learn what “cool is”

Understanding Today’s Theory and Research  Social learning theory suggests ▪ Stereotypical depictions of minorities and women teach others to react to them as stereotypes and teach these groups to behave in the ways they are depicted.

 Individual differences theory ▪ How media users with different characteristics are affected in different ways by the mass media.  Diffusion of innovations theory ▪ Five types of people have different levels of willingness to accept new ideas from the media: 1.Innovators tend to be politically liberal extroverts who are venturesome and eager to try new ideas. 2.Early adopters make quick but informed choices.

Understanding Today’s Theory and Research  Diffusion of innovations theory  Five types of people have different levels of willingness to accept new ideas from the media: Early majority makes careful, deliberate decisions. 4.Late majority tends to be skeptical. 5.Laggards tend to be conservative, traditional and resistant to any type of change.

 George Gerbner’s cultivation theory predicts that over time, media use will “cultivate” a particular view of the world within users.  Researchers in the 1970s found that agenda-setting,  Not telling people what to think, but telling them what to think about, was the main effect of media.  2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Homicide report

Understanding Today’s Theory and Research  Cumulative effects theory ▪ Holds that media messages are driven home through redundancy, have profound effects over time, and do, in fact, tell us how to think.  Uses and gratification theory ▪ Based on the ways in which consumers actively choose and use media to meet their own needs.