“When President Lincoln was shot in 1865, people in London learned about it five days later. When President Reagan was shot in 1981, journalist Henry Fairlie, in his office one block away, heard about the assassination attempt from his London editor who had seen it on television and phoned Fairlie to get him to go to the scene.”

John Vivian (p. 385)

Media Effects

CMM 201

October 30, 1938

• 8:00 PM• War of the Worlds• CBS Radio Network• Stay tuned• Powerful effects

theory

Powerful Effects Theory• Hypodermic Needle – media can inject

information, ideas, attitudes into audiences.

• Also called “bullet theory” – media events can be like bullets impacting audiences.

Can they?

Wrong assumption …?

• People are passive and absorb media output uncritically and unconditionally.

Minimalist Effects Theory• 1940, 1948 Voter behavior studies• Sociologist, Paul Lazarsfeld• Interviewed 600 people (several times)• Results: Voters were influenced more by

the opinions of other people than by media messages about the candidates.

• Clergy, teachers, merchants – Opinion Leaders

Related theories

• Status Conferral – If issues (or candidates) are covered, they become more important.

• Agenda-setting – “Don’t tell people what to think; tell them what to think about.

• Narcoticizing Dysfunction – information overload can cause a person to withdraw from an issue. (Shutdown of interest)

Cumulative Effects Theorycurrent

• Elisabeth Noell-Neumann: Media do not have powerful immediate effects – instead, they have cumulative effects over time.

Really, Dr. Noelle-Neumann?

EDITORIAL

• I think that social scientists are often too ready to discard an old idea, rather than let it evolve.

• I think the Bullet Theory and Cumulative Effects are compatible and complementary.

Uses and Gratifications• This is the mainstream of media research

for the last 60 years.

• How do people use media to satisfy their personal needs?

• Surveillance

• Socialization

• Diversion

Surveillance

• News• Weather• Traffic• Markets• Politics• Fashions• Music

Socialization

• Did you see Letterman last night? Wasn’t Farah Fawcett outrageous?

• What about those Browns?

• Rachel is hot!

Diversion

• Entertainment stimulates us – relieving boredom.

• Entertainment relaxes us – giving us a change of pace.

• Entertainment releases our tensions.

Another way we use media • It’s called “Consistency Theory.”• It means simply that we use media to reinforce our

own personal views and values.• We pick our books to read, movies to see, shows

to watch, music to enjoy.• We interpret things from our own perspectives.• We remember what is important to us.

Violence Research

• Basically, two schools of thought:

• Seeing violence in the media reduces violent behavior – “cathartic effect.”

• Seeing violence in the media causes violent behavior – 1960 Bobo doll studies.

I think that Vivian’s summary is a good one:

“The preponderance of evidence is that media-depicted violence has the potential [emphasis is mine] to cue real-life violence. However, the aggressive stimulation theory is often overstated. The fact is that few people act out media violence in their lives.”

George Gerbner• Since 1967, he has been doing massive, on-

going content analysis of media violence.• “It’s a mean world out there.”• Typical American 18-year old has seen

32,000 on-screen murders and 40,000 attempted murders.

• BUT -- Bugs Bunny being bopped on the head counts as a violent incident.

Violence Effects

• To terrorize us – give us anxiety, make us expect violence.

• To desensitize us – make us apathetic, maybe even skeptical.

• Which? Maybe both at times?

Newer Research on Violence• 1990’s, UCLA

• Violence Assessment Monitoring Project

• Bugs Bunny and Three Stooges not counted.

• Of 121 primetime TV shows studied, only 10 had frequent violence.

• By 1998, only 2 had frequent violence.

“Even a relatively slender weekday edition of the New York Times contains more information than the average person in the 17th century was likely to come across in a lifetime, according to Richard Saul Wurman in his book Information Anxiety.”

John Vivian

“…the media have effects on individuals and on society, but it is a two-way street. Society is a shaper of media content, but individuals make the ultimate decisions about subscribing, listening, and watching.” John Vivian

Acknowledgements

I wish to express my thanks to the many finenews photographers and news organizations who put their photographs of the World Trade Center disaster on the World Wide Web with copy permissions. Thank you.

Glenn Walters