SPICE 2012 Media Psychology - Week Two Notes
-
Upload
west-virginia-university-department-of-communication-studies -
Category
Education
-
view
624 -
download
4
description
Transcript of SPICE 2012 Media Psychology - Week Two Notes
MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY AND INFLUENCE
Week Two – Limited Effects Paradigm
Media Psychology and InfluenceSPICE 2012 (Erfurt)
ND Bowman PhD, Instructor
PreTalk: Mediation and Moderation
Variables – Direct Effect
IV(Caus
e)
DV(Effec
t)
Violent Media ContentAggressive Thoughts in
Children
Variables – Mediation Effect
IVMedV
DV
Violent Media ContentAggressive Thoughts in
ChildrenCo-location
Variables – Moderation Effect
IV DV
ModV
Violent Media Content Aggressive Thoughts in Children
Interactivity
Media Psychology and InfluenceSPICE 2012 (Erfurt)
ND Bowman PhD, Instructor
Day One: Limited Effects – Vott ist das?
Outline
State of Mass Communication Research – 1962
Mediation and Moderation What is it? Why we should be doing more of it?
Mass Communication, circa 1962 To study
communication is to study media; it is part of our ecology
Schramm was an early pioneer in the scientific study of communication
Took a marker of the current state of research affairs
It is possible to study human communication
without considering mass communication, but
hardly possible to study mass communication
without taking account many areas of
communication research which are not
themselves “mass” communication.
Mass Communication, circa 1962 Earliest research out of Columbia looked
the relationship between mass communication and personal influence
FOCUS: Television and Information and entertainment Commercials and children Shift from audience size (why?)
Mass Communication, circa 1962 Audience behaviors
Beyond exposure, what are they exposing to? 12% of newspaper overall
¼ read 30% ¼ read less than 4%
Comics (56%) > Photos (51%) Stories on
War, Defense Disaster Human interest Weather
Mass Communication, circa 1962 Shift to motivations and
usage of media Detroit newspaper strike
affects 59% of audience News > sports, features,
comics, editorials Personality’s influence on
entertainment/information News predicted by
perceived usefulness, interest (TAM?)
Perceived high- or low-brow motivation to use TV
Education level drives information-viewing
Mass Communication, circa 1962 Content and “indexing” by
contextualizing: Headlines Captions Colors Theme music
Aesthetics?
Cloze!
Mass Communication, circa 1962 Channel effects (the
“media” effect?) Recall highest from TV,
least from print information Both in the short-term
and the long-term (eight months)
Debates polarized rather than converged opinions
Audiences ‘insert’ emotion into speech content
Mass Communication, circa 1962 Two-Step Flow model
Mass Communication, circa 1962 Two-Step Flow modelWho are these (leading)
people?• Evenly-distributed
across SES; variance based on content
• Used more media• Were more socially-
connected
Mass Communication, circa 1962 Two-Step Flow model
Schramm to Klapper
One of Klapper’s more famous
arguments was that media
reinforces rather than challenges (cultural-moral)
status quos!
What is Moderation? (B&K)
Moderators are variables that change the direction or strength of a XY relationship
Can be qualitative or quantitative
Moderations can interact with predictors to understand an outcome
Moderation – Case 1
The simplest case, suggesting that an increase in the moderating variable has a multiplicative effect on the relationship between IV and DV (here, positive)
[IV X MV = DV]
Moderation – Case 2
Here, we see a similar effect, but with a dichotomous moderator (i.e., gender). This suggests that the influence of an IV on a DV is greater for one category than another.
[Male’s IV DV > Female’s IV DV]
Moderation – Case 3
A continuous ModV and a categorical IV; good for identifying the conditions for which a moderator’s influence is realized
[Males are influenced more by IV than females]
What is Mediation? (B&K)
Mediators account for an observed influence of an IV on a DV
Move us from SR to SOR, as they consider the “organism” in the process
Sort of like “greedy moderators” as they take all of the effect, no more (c)
Where does this all fit in to media?
Helps us understand potentially spurious relationships between content and affect
Implicates the role of the ‘organism’ in media output
Others?
Helps us understand conditions under which media would have a larger or smaller affect
Teases out influence channel effects and usage motivations
Others?
Mediation Moderation
Importance of Med/Mod Today Holbert and Stephenson argue that
understanding mediation is “a necessary but not sufficient condition” for media influence.
Specifically, then discuss SEMs and indirect effects
Mediation in Media Effects Research
Conditional effects model generally argues media’s limited influence on ‘CAB’
We can think of mediators and moderators as “conditions for a media effect to be realized”
These conditions exist at all levels Who is affected What is being affected How is this affect happening?
Examples of Mediation
“media vote result” influenced by: Likelihood to vote Information levels
about candidate issues Voter perceptions
about candidate quality
Trust in message?
“media behavior” influenced by: Views on message Views on behavior Social norms
surrounding behavior Self-efficacy to stop
behavior Trust in message?
Political Communication Health Communication
Example: Four Variable Mediation
Cost-Benefit of Facebook
Cost-Benefit of Twitter
Media Psychology and InfluenceSPICE 2012 (Erfurt)
ND Bowman PhD, Instructor
Day Two: Effects on Individuals
Outline
An overview of individual differences Priming and Exemplification Social Cognitive Theory
Individual Differences in Media Effects
Media research has evolved to be more subtle in understanding the S R influence
Understanding ∆ in individuals between and within social groups is key to understanding observed variance in media effects
“The idea that media have a direct or uniform effect on
viewers is a position that is generally understood to be a simplification of the way that researchers in the discipline
conceptualize media influences”
~Oliver, 2002
Enjoyment and Emotions
Individuals differ in… What they “need” from the media
e.g. need for cognition, sensation-seeking Their ‘readiness to respond’ to media
e.g. emotional contagion qua empathy, coping, anxiety
Personality and other traits e.g. aggressiveness, neuroticism, extraversion
Evaluative dispositions e.g. of characters, narrative, show aesthetics
Exposure, Interpretation and Memory
Cognitive dissonance strategies imply by definition individual differences
Important, as dissonance drives media selection
wo könnte es ein Medien-Effekt hier zu sein?
Exposure, Interpretation and Memory
Watergate scandal Interest in coverage was
Highest with McGovern supporters
Lowest with Nixon supporters
Moderate with undecided voters
Rush Limbaugh interest Follows almost identical
patterns among Red > Blue interest
How do we get folks to ‘counter-expose’? Goals? Availability?
Refutability?
Exposure, Interpretation and Memory
Interpretation and Perception Klapper (1960) argues that media is
produced to maintain a status quo… …so it stands to reason that audiences will
use and interpret media in line with their status quo
“Archie Bunker effect” (Vidmar & Rokeach, 1974)
“All In The Family” topped Nielsen charts from 1971 to
1983.
Exposure, Interpretation and Memory
Selective memory If we differ in what
we need from media and how we process it, we likely differ in what we take from it
Memory recall is highest for ‘congruent information’ that fits our a priori world view
Media Priming
Priming is “the effect of some preceding stimulus or event on how we react…to some subsequent stimulus”
Applied to media, we study how media content at T1 might affect a behavior at T2
Media Priming and Violence
K I _ _
Trait aggressiveness (+)External violent cues (+)Frustration (+)Passage of time (-)
Media Priming and Politics
Foreign
Policy
Domestic Policy
Media Priming in other areas Music videos and misogyny “Rape Myth” and sexual media Stereotyping and social judgments
Cognitive Neo-Association
Concepts become linked in memory
These links can become stronger with Similarity Repetition
Accessibility of concept a function of strength of link How is this model
adapted for Political Communication?
Health Communication?
Priming and Mental Models
Mental models represent a merging of
semantic memory (knowledge of the
world) and episodic memory
(experience)
Priming and Mental Models
Issues with the ‘network’ approach? Effects are fleeting, requiring constant rebuilding of
networks (chronic accessibility) Recall the Cognitive Miser hypothesis?
Mental models might serve as readily-available cognitive scripts that are shaped through experience and expectation1. We can either create a new model or tap and old
one2. Information within a model can be primed,
activating our reliance on the model as a whole for that information
Exemplification
In essence, using examples to tell a story
Exemplars vs. base-rate information
*
Also, let’s not forget the role of non-
mediated (i.e. personal)
experience!
Exemplification
Assumes that:1. Events of consequence attract
more of our short- and long-term attentional resources
2. Comprehension and storage of concrete events is easier than abstract ones
3. We make assessments about events based on our ability to retrieve them from memory
We also tend to make to major
boo-boos by relying on failed
heuristics related to:
• Representativeness (of the
event)• Availability (of
examples in our mind)
Six exemplification predictions1. Concrete examples
influence perceptions more than abstract accounts
2. Visual (concrete) exemplars are most effective
3. Emotional exemplars are more effective (when concrete)
4. Variance in event-
relevant characteristics aids in accuracy of perception
5. Emotionally-arousing exemplars foster overestimation
6. Increased attention paid to an event fosters overestimation
In Bandura’s famous “Bobl Doll” studies, children who witness (via television) an adult model assault a Bobo Doll without punish were more likely to enact the behavior, even when no ‘weapons’ were included in a room.
Suzie and the Bobo Doll
Observational Learning @ SCT/SLT
Basic logic of the theory A person learns by observing the actions of
others and the consequences of those actions. If Action A is rewarded, then Action A is
good If Action A is punished, then Action A is
bad We model those behaviors that are ‘good’ Non-punishment = reward
Triadic reciprocal causation
Based on Four Distinctly Human Traits
Symbolizing Capacity The ability to use symbols to transform
experiences into cognitive models for the future (e.g., words)
Self-Regulatory Capacity The ability to evaluate and motivate oneself
Self-Reflective Capacity The ability to verify thoughts to see if they
are right Vicarious Capacity
The ability to learn without direct experience
Modeling
The reenactment of observed behavior1. Attention2. Retention3. Motor reproduction4. Motivation
Can be either anti-social or pro-social
Modeling
Social Learning Theory (Bandura) We learn through response consequences
Informative We learn which responses are appropriate through
observation Motivational
Anticipation that behavior will be rewarded leads to modeling
Reinforcing Reinforcement of behaviors subsequently
performed leads to further learning and motivation
Social Learning Theory (Bandura) Role of Moral Judgments
Violating moral principles is aversive
We learn by experience how to weight moral factors
Transgressions are regulated by two major sanctions social sanctions internalized self-sanctions
We can learn to override these judgments!
What motivates us to be bad?
Media Psychology and InfluenceSPICE 2012 (Erfurt)
ND Bowman PhD, Instructor
Day Three: Effects on Society
Outline
Cultivation Theory and Social Reality Agenda-Setting Theory Third-Person Effects
Cultivation Theory
TV is… a centralized
storytelling system…
…that creates broadly shared images…
…and presents a limited world view…
…that becomes shared by audience members
But giving primary attention to those aspects and terms of traditional media effects research risks losing sight of what is most distinctive and significant about television as the common storytellerof our age.
Cultivation Theory
Heavy viewing overrides differences in perspectives that ordinarily stem from other group influences
people from different backgrounds develop same social perceptions
At times, heavy television viewers might experience the very content they view on screen
Mainstreaming Resonance
Cultural Indicators Project
1967, George Gerbner Investigated the cultivation effect:
For people who watch TV, real world = TV world
Cultural Indicators Project
Three steps of the project Institutional Process Analysis, where we see
how messages are created Message Systems Analysis, where we assess
the content in mass-produced messages Cultivation Analysis, where we examine the
influence of these messages on audience thoughts and feelings
Cultivation Research looks at long-term effects!
Findings from cultivation research TV viewers diverge from reality
Underestimate number of elder Overestimate chances for being assaulted General believe in the violent urban areas
(and bucolic rural areas) Tend to know less about their environment Tend to dream about “the bachelor life” Label themselves as political moderates
Example: Mean World Syndrome
(c) 2010 by N.D. Bowman, YHC
65
How
vio
len
t is
th
e
worl
d?
Schrum and the heuristic model TV viewing enhances construct
accessibility Repeated priming causes certain aspects to
be salient Shared social perceptions serving as
indicators of a cultivation effect are constructed through heuristic processing
Cultivation Hypothesis Assumptions
1. Messages are relatively uniform2. Viewing of television is non-selective3. Television viewing is habitual
**What do you think?**
Cultivation Hypothesis Assumptions Is TV still a universal story-teller?
Increase in cable and radio channels New networks focus on narrowcasting
and tailoring “1000 True Fans” hypothesis eschews
large audiences
Cultivation Hypothesis Assumptions
Agenda-Setting
The press “may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about” (Cohen, 1963, p. 13)
Increases salience of an event/idea/concept
*
Agenda-Setting
McCombs and Shaw (1972)
*
Agenda-Setting
What increases salience? Placement of a story Total time/space devoted Duration of coverage Framing?
Who sets the agenda today?
*(c) ND Bowman, 2011
Framing
*
Choosing how to package a story to maximize some intended effect
Information Effects Persuasion Effects
Accompanying a story about abortion Which image is more likely to garner support for Planned Parenthood? Support for anti-abortion legislation?
Example: Mad Cow
Example: OJ Simpson
Example: Sports Coverage
Analysis of adjectives used to describe finalists shows reporters to use “Brawn” and “Brain” frames to describe Black and White athletes’ success
More here
Looking at the portrayal of nude athletes, females were more likely to be out of context and to engage in self-touching than males
More here
Heisman Trophy ESPN Body Issue