1. The document traces the historical trajectory of media effects research through four phases: from viewing media as all-powerful, to its effects being challenged, to powerful media being revisited, to negotiating how audiences make meaning from media. 2. Across these phases, research approaches and theories have shifted from behaviorism and conditioning, to cultivation analysis and social learning theory, to examining how audiences actively interpret media rather than being passive receivers. 3. A key challenge is that it is difficult to isolate the specific influence of media from other variables on behaviors, and research approaches each have their limitations such as lack of external validity or real-world application.

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The persistence case of ‘media effects’ research

2. 2
Commercial broadcasters
Politicians Audience
5%
Policy planners 14% share
13%
Regulators 0-16
Health care professionals 19% 17-24
18%
Academics 25-34
35-44
Technology companies
45-54
Content producers 31%
55+
The general public
The importance of audience research data

3. 3
Books
Art
Film
Television
Internet
Video games
Music
Comics
The media terrain is wide…

4. 4
Different stakeholders = different interests

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Time consuming, costly and complex

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Myths

7. 7

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‘The history of audience research is littered with
the corpses of studies that have tried and failed
to demonstrate, once and for all, a cause and
effect relationship between media message and
receiver behaviour’
(Ross & Nightingale, 2003: p9)
Myths

9. 9
Sensitive to ideological objections

10. 10
Effects Research

11. 11
A few useful background texts

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The direction of effects research

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‘despite decades of work in which researchers
have tried to demonstrate the cause-effect
relationship, it has never actually been possible
to isolate out the specific influence of media
from the other factors, including individual
pathology, on human behaviour’
(Ross and Nightengale, 2003: 72)
The direction of effects research

14. 14
Effects Uses and Encoding / Now?
Gratifications Decoding
Passive Active Socially Autonomous
situated ?
Interactive?
The basic historical trajectory

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Phase 1 – media as all-powerful
Phase 2 - media as all-powerful challenged
Phase 3 – powerful media revisited
Phase 4 – negotiating media meaning
4 phases (see McQuail, 1993, 2010)

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1900-1930s
Media as a top-down model of communication
From the power elites to ‘the masses’
Phase 1 – media as all-powerful

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Ivan Pavlov
Physiologist
1901
‘Conditional reflex’
Classical conditioning
Phase 1 – media as all-powerful

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Phase 1 – media as all-powerful

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The tail wagging the dog?

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1930s-1950s
Studies into voting patterns
Studies into juvenile delinquency
Acknowledgment of multiple variables
Impact of positivism
Influence of behaviourism
Phase 2 - media as all-powerful
challenged

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B.F. Skinner
Behaviourist
Schedules of reinforcement
Operant Conditioning Chamber
(aka the Skinner Box)
Cause and effect
Phase 2 - media as all-powerful
challenged

22. 22
Phase 2 - media as all-powerful
challenged

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Phase 2 - media as all-powerful
challenged

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1960s
longer-term effects
more subtle shifts in comprehension
diversity in motivations of media use
George Gerbner’s cultivation analysis theory
Phase 3 – powerful media revisited

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Albert Bandura
1961-63
Social learning theory
The Bobo Doll Experiments
Exposure to aggressive modelling
Phase 3 – powerful media revisited

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Phase 3 – powerful media revisited

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Criticisms?
Ferguson (2010) suggest the Bobo Doll studies
are not studies of aggression at all
• Children were motivated to imitate the adult
in the belief the videos were instructions.
• Children were motivated by the desire to
please adults rather than genuine aggression.
• The external validity of the study noting that
Bobo Dolls are designed to be hit.
Phase 3 – powerful media revisited

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1970s onwards
Focus on media message construction and how
audiences deconstruct these
An examination of what audiences did with
media, rather than what the media did to
audiences
Qualitative research
Ethnography
Phase 4 – negotiating media meaning

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A new dimension?
More cause and effect?
Brain science?
Neuroscience + psychology?
What happens next?

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Models have changed
Cyclical arguments, claims and counter-claims
Identification?
Addition?
Desensitisation?
Morals?
Summary

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• The research approach:
– Content analysis?
– Physical stimuli?
– Trend analysis?
– Closed question surveys?
– Participant observation?
– Focus groups?
– Ethnography?
The biggest problem?

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Read this

33. 33
The tartanpodcast, 2009, Social Media Outposts
M. Mackenzie, 2008, Top Secret Codeword Data
$PHPhoto, 2008, Time is Money
FrozenCapybara, 2007, Wait, where am I again?
Ramkarthikblogger, 2009, Direction
Nina Leen (LIFE), 1964, B F Skinner training a rat
Holah.co.uk (date unknown), bobo2
Mal Cubed, 2005, MB1NR-3
A. Diez Herrero, 2007, creative commons -Franz Patzig-
Images