1. Journalism Principles and Practices
How Powerful Are Media?
Journalism Principles and Practices

2. Five Main Ways Media are Studied...
Experimental
Qualitative
Quantitative
Survey
Content Analysis

3. Experimental Research
Example: Whether music interferes with comprehension
Example: Monitor children’s play
Problem: Life is not a lab
Learning effect
People know they are studied

4. Qualitative Example: Ride along in a police car
Example: Case studies, looking for pattern
Problem: Many unpredictable elements -- what you see at one particular time might be unrepresentative

5. Survey
Example: Would you report on another newsperson’s ethical transgression?
Example: What’s in code of ethics?
Problem: Great difficulty in getting representative samples and accurate questions..
Abortion poll outside Catholic church
Political poll outside subway stop at 6 a.m.
Fredonia

6. Content Analysis Example: Counting things...
Number of times women mentioned on front page of New York Times
How often stories duplicated by other news organizations
First use: Counting German songs in WWII
Problem: What do you count?

7. So, What is “Research?” Systematic Reproducible Testing hypothesis
Scientific method -- reviewed by others
In some way statistically significant

8. Statistically Significant Means the Result is Very Unlikely to Have Happened by Chance

9. Normal Distribution
Galton Board

10. What Research Says About Media Power
Payne Fund
Cantril Study
Lazarsfeld/People’s Choice
Modern strong media revival

11. Payne Fund 1929 Between wars Propaganda worries
Magic Bullet/Hypodermic Needle
Problem: Subject selection, phrasing of question

12. Cantril Study 1938-30 War of the Worlds
Results: Critical thinking and education were keys

13. Lazarsfeld/People’s Choice
1940, Erie County PA
Tracked change over six-month period...
Only eight percent converted
Majority reinforced
Opinion leaders exerted strong effects
Verdict: Minimal effects

14. Rebirth of Strong Media Theories
Agenda setting
Media ecology...
Effects are everywhere - impossible to isolate
Technology eliminates alternatives to itself
Postman

15. Conclusion
Obviously, media has effects -- but we just don’t know the extent
Advertising, for example...old maxim about don’t know “which half” works. But without it, no exposure
Effect varies with individual and other elements of individual’s

16. Conclusion, Continued
Not all-powerful: Major newspapers opposed Truman, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR and Kennedy
Is there a cause and effect? Probably...but we just don’t know how much and how to prove it