1. Media Impact Video Game Trailer Has anyone played this game?
What did you think?

2. MEDIA IMPACT: Understanding Research and Effects
Chapter 2
MEDIA IMPACT: Understanding Research and Effects
Chapter Outline
History
Theory and Research
Controversies
2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

3. A Brief History of Media Research
Early Studies
Concerns about media impact are as old as the media themselves.
15th 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

4. A Brief History of Media Research
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

5. A Brief History of Media Research
Payne Fund Studies conducted
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
Parents worry children may pick up antisocial habits from media consumption
Video Clip Clip 2
Do you think violent games like Grand Theft Auto Increase Violence in Society?
Why/Why not
Game Demo
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6. Violent /Negative Media?
Are these examples of positive or negative media? Why?

7. A Brief History of Media Research
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

8. A Brief History of Media Research
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

9. A Brief History of Media Research
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

10. 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 10

11. A Brief History of Media Research
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

12. A Brief History of Media Research
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

13. A Brief History of Media Research
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
Does more real violence occur between strangers or between family members, friends or acquaintances?
2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

14. Understanding Today’s Theory and Research
Set of related statements that seek to explain and predict behavior.
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

15. Understanding Today’s Theory and Research
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.
The 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

16. Understanding Today’s Theory and Research
Theories
Bullet 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

17. Understanding Today’s Theory and Research
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”

18. 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. 18

19. Understanding Today’s Theory and Research
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:
Innovators tend to be politically liberal extroverts who are venturesome and eager to try new ideas.
Early adopters make quick but informed choices.

20. 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. -
Late majority tends to be skeptical.
Laggards tend to be conservative, traditional and resistant to any type of change. 20

21. Understanding Today’s Theory and Research
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.
Homicide report
2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved

22. 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. 22