This document discusses the role and history of media theory and research. It covers early theories from the 19th-20th centuries that examined the role of mass communication in industrialized societies. Media effects research is also summarized, including propaganda studies, radio impact research, and television violence studies. The document then discusses limited effects theories, audience research approaches like uses and gratifications, and new directions in digital media research. Finally, it considers different philosophical approaches to media research like positivism, social constructionism, and the use of both qualitative and quantitative analysis methods.

1. 5th edition
John V Pavlik & Shawn McIntosh
Chapter 12:
Media Theory & Research:
From Writing to Text Messaging

2. THE ROLE OF THEORY AND RESEARCH
Media theories & research
 Play a foundational role as cognitive
constructs
 Shape public policies toward the media and
media industries
 Help determine audience numbers for
particular shows or networks

3. MASS SOCIETY, MASS COMMUNICATION
 19th-20th century, Europe & US: Dramatic societal
and political changes from industrialization,
provide the backdrop for early theorizing on the
role of mass communication
 The notion of “the masses:” Elites’ rationale for
why they should continue to rule

4. MEDIA-EFFECTS RESEARCH
 Propaganda and
the magic bullet
 Payne Fund
 Radio’s wider
impact
 Television and
violence

5. MEDIA-EFFECTS RESEARCH
Limited effects
Cultivation analysis
Spiral of silence
Third-person effect
Criticisms of media-effects
research

6. UNDERSTANDING THE AUDIENCE
Audiences creating
meaning
 Uses & gratifications
 Encoding/decoding
 Reception analysis
Framing

7. CULTURAL STUDIES
 Ideology and the
culture industry
 Criticisms of
cultural studies

8. SOCIO-HISTORICAL FRAMEWORKS
 Information
society
 Political
economy
 Media ecology
 Agenda setting

9. NEW DIRECTIONS IN MEDIA RESEARCH
 Digital media research:
Business, organizational
science, and library
science
 Digital media scholarship
complicated by rapidly
changing technologies
 Impact of time spent
online

10. NEW DIRECTIONS IN MEDIA RESEARCH
 Changes in the role of the
audience in an interactive
communication
environment
 Issues surrounding
social-networking sites
 Multiple and popular
facets of the video game
world

11. MEDIA RESEARCH: WHAT TYPE OF SCIENCE IS IT?
 Positivism
 Epistemology
 Post-positivism
 Social constructionism
 Postmodernism
 Pragmatism

12. MEDIA RESEARCH: WHAT TYPE OF SCIENCE IS IT?
 Quantitative analysis
 Qualitative analysis
 Qualitative and
quantitative analysis
working together