The document discusses various theories and approaches in media research, highlighting the impact of media messages on audiences. It outlines key media effects theories such as the hypodermic needle model, minimal effects model, and the cultivation effect, as well as research methodologies like experimental research, survey research, and content analysis. Additionally, it emphasizes cultural studies approaches that focus on textual and audience analysis in understanding media consumption and its socio-political implications.

1. Research is formalized curiosity.
It is poking and prying with a purpose.
--Zora Neale Hurston, writer

2. Media Effects
& Cultural Approaches to
Research

3. Media Research
• Studying the impact of messages
transmitted by various mass media

4. Copycat Incidents
• 1966 - NBC, The Doomsday Flight

5. Copycat Incidents
• 1966 - NBC, The Doomsday Flight
• 1985 - Judas Priest court case

6. Copycat Incidents
• 1966 - NBC, The Doomsday Flight
• 1985 - Judas Priest court case
• 1993 - Disney movie The Program

7. Copycat Incidents
• 1966 - NBC, The Doomsday Flight
• 1985 - Judas Priest court case
• 1993 - Disney movie The Program
• 1995 - Oliver Stone’s Natural Born
Killers

8. Copycat Incidents
• 1966 - NBC, The Doomsday Flight
• 1985 - Judas Priest court case
• 1993 - Disney movie The Program
• 1995 - Oliver Stone’s Natural Born
Killers
• 1999 - Columbine High School
Shootings

9. Copycat Incidents
• 1966 - NBC, The Doomsday Flight
• 1985 - Judas Priest court case
• 1993 - Disney movie The Program
• 1995 - Oliver Stone’s Natural Born
Killers
• 1999 - Columbine High School
Shootings
• 2000 - MTV’s Jackass

10. Key Theories in Media
Research
• Hypodermic Needle Model
– Leni Riefenstahl films for Hitler:
• Triumph of the Will
• Olympiad
– Orson Welles Oct. 30, 1938 radio
broadcast of War of the Worlds

11. Key Phases in Media
Research
• Minimal Effects Model -
– Selective exposure
– Selective retention

12. • For some children, under some
conditions, some television is harmful.
For other children under the same
conditions, or for the same children
under other conditions, it may be
beneficial. For most children, under most
conditions, most television is probably
neither particularly harmful nor
particularly beneficial.

13. Key Phases in Media
Research
• Uses and Gratifications Model
– Why do we use the media?

14. Three Main Scientific
Approaches
1. Experimental Research
– Experimental Group
– Control Group
– Random Assignment

15. Payne Research studies:
1927-1930
• 13 studies, conducted over a 3-yr. period
• In one study, the researchers divided the children
into various control groups
• Some children drank 2 cups of coffee at 8:30
• Some children were kept up until midnight and then awakened
really early in the morning
• Another group was made to watch movies before bedtime
• The study concluded that watching movies caused
just as much sleep disturbance as did drinking
two cups of coffee at 8:30 p.m.

16. • Bobo doll experiment
SOCKO!!!!

17. Three Main Scientific
Approaches
2. Survey Research
– Does not control variables
– Shows correlations, not causality
– But, generalizable to larger population
– Problems of validity of questions

18. Three Main Scientific
Approaches
3. Content Analysis
– Systematically code and measure media
content

19. What counts as
“violence” on television?
• Is driving a sport-utility vehicle through a stream
violent?
• Is shooting a man before he sets off a bomb that’s
about to kill 100 people violent (or is that a good
deed)?
• Is a parent screaming at a child violent?
• Is it violence if the child screams back?
• Is an accidental shooting by a police officer violent?
• Is an image of a gun violent?
• Is an act of nature violent?

20. What counts as
“violence” on television?
• Is the context of violence important?
• If there’s remorse after a violent act, or “real”
consequences to violence in a certain program,
does that mitigate the conception of violence? Is
it possible to count acts of violence?
• Can the context of violent acts on television be
objectively understood, or is context more a
matter of personal interpretation?
• If there can be many definitions of violence, how
can we decide how much violence is on our
screens?

21. Theories of Media Effects
• The Cultivation Effect: Heavy TV viewing
leads individuals to perceive reality in ways
that are more consistent with TV’s version
of reality.
– “mean world syndrome”
– Italian TV: Berlusconi

22. Theories of Media Effects
• The Cultivation Effect: Heavy TV viewing
leads individuals to perceive reality in ways
that are more consistent with TV’s version
of reality.
– “mean world syndrome”
– Italian TV: Berlusconi

23. Theories of Media Effects
• Agenda-Setting: The more the news
media covers a subject, the more
importance audiences attach to that
subject.
e.g., Earth Day, Jaws, child abduction

24. Theories of Media Effects
• Spiral of Silence: People are generally
scared to voice their opinions if they
differ greatly from the opinions
presented in the media as “majority”
opinions

25. Cultural Approaches to
Media Research
• Cultural Studies
– Textual Analysis: close reading of texts

26. Cultural Approaches to
Media Research
• Cultural Studies
– Textual Analysis: close reading of texts
– Audience Studies: focuses on people
who use the text

27. Cultural Approaches to
Media Research
• Cultural Studies
– Textual Analysis: close reading of texts
– Audience Studies: focuses on people
who use the text
– How do teenage boys watch WWF wrestling and
why?
– How do midwestern women read romance novels
and why

28. Cultural Approaches to
Media Research
• Cultural Studies
– Textual Analysis: close reading of texts
– Audience Studies: focuses on people who use
the text
– Political Economy: focuses on economic and
political forces that control media content
– Chris Martin
– Bettina Fabos

29. Cultural Approaches to
Media Research
• Cultural Studies
the cultural approach, unlike media effects
research, which is grounded in the social
sciences, “does not seek to explain human
behavior, but to understand it….It does not
attempt to predict human behavior, but to
diagnose human meanings.”
– James Carey: