The document discusses the historical and theoretical frameworks surrounding media effects on society, highlighting early studies like the Payne Fund studies that explored the impact of movies and other media on youth behavior. It examines various models of media effects, including powerful, minimal, and mixed effects models, while also addressing social learning theory, diffusion of innovations, and agenda-setting in media. Overall, it suggests that the effects of media are complex and multifaceted, often depending on individual perceptions and social contexts.

2.  Video Game Trailer
 Who’s played this game?
 What did you think?

3. Chapter Outline
History
Theory and Research
Controversies
MEDIA IMPACT:
Understanding Research and Effects

4. Why would anyone care
about or even do research on
the effects media have on
society?

5. Early Studies
 Concerns about media are as old as media themselves.
▪ Church leaders thought bibles would corrupt society
▪ Parents felt the same about the first novels.
▪ Consistent research on media begin in the 1920s.

6.  Payne Fund Studies conducted
▪ 13 separate investigations on the influence movies had on youth behavior
 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 Clip 3
▪ Do violent games
Increase Violence in Society?
▪ Why/Why not

7. Would these media influence negative behavior? How?

8.  Content analyses (Payne Fund Study)
▪ Observers analyze media subject matter
▪ (TV, Magazines, Radio, Web, Newspaper)
 Laboratory experiment (Payne Fund Study)
▪ Variables are isolated and observed in a controlled environment

9.  Survey methods (Payne Fund Study)
▪ Research that relies on questionnaires to collect data
 Payne Fund studies as a whole
▪ Instrumental in developing public support for the 1930 Motion
Picture Production code

10.  Random sample
▪ When members of population have equal chance of being selected
 Selective exposure
▪ When 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?

11.  People’s Choice
study
▪ Selective perception
▪ When people with different
attitudes interpret the same
messages differently
 Selective retention
▪ When people with different
views remember the same
event differently

12. ▪ Opinion leaders
▪ Certain well-informed members of families and neighborhoods
▪ 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.

13.  Television and violence
▪ National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence
▪ Found that
▪ Desensitization
 Effect of long-term exposure to mass-media violence.
 Prevented onlookers from helping victims of crimes

14.  Powerful effects model,
 Media will have an immediate & potent influence on audiences.
(Youth acting out scenes after violent movie)
 Minimal effects model
 Media will have little influence on behavior.
▪ People not changing voting behavior

15.  Researchers today accept
▪ Mixed effects model,
▪ Sometimes media will have
 Powerful effects,
 Minimal effects,
▪ Sometimes
 A mixture of both.
 The mixed-effects model makes the
most sense.

16. ▪ Bullet theory
▪ Media effects flowed directly from media to individual.
▪ Multi-step flow,
▪ Effects travel from high to lower level opinion leaders then to us.
 Politicians to community leaders to clergy to public
▪ There is no simple answer to
how media affects behavior.
▪ The best answer usually is “It depends.”

17.  Social Science Perspectives
 Social learning theory, aka modeling theory,
 Social modeling is an important part of socialization,
▪ Where expectations, norms, and values of society are learned
▪ What is an example of being “cool”?
▪ How did you learn what “cool is”?

18.  Diffusion of innovations theory
▪ Five types of people have different levels of willingness to accept new
ideas from the media:
1. Innovators tend to be politically liberal extroverts who are venturesome
and eager to try new ideas.
2. Early adopters make quick but informed choices.

19.  Diffusion of innovations theory
 Five types of people have different levels of willingness to
accept new ideas from the media:1. -
2. -
3. Early majority makes careful, deliberate decisions.
4. Late majority tends to be skeptical.
5. Laggards tend to be conservative, traditional & resistant to change.

20.  George Gerbner’s cultivation theory
▪ States media use will “cultivate” a particular view of the world within users.
 Agenda-setting,
▪ Not telling people what to think, but what to think about
▪ Is the main effect of media.
Homicide report

21.  Cumulative effects theory
▪ Media messages are driven home through redundancy
 Uses and gratification theory
▪ Based on how consumers choose & use media to meet their own needs.