This document summarizes key concepts in media effects and cultural studies research. It discusses how media played a role in the 2016 US presidential election and defines media effects research as attempting to understand media influence on individuals and society. It also defines cultural studies as focusing on how people make meaning through cultural symbols. The document then outlines models of mass communication, different eras of communication technology, and contemporary media effects theories before evaluating approaches and limitations of media effects and cultural studies research.

1. Media Effects,ACultural
andACriticalApproach to
MassCommunication
Culture and Media Effects

2. Researching the
Effect of Mass
Media on
Individuals and
Society
 Media played key roles in 2016 presidential election
 DonaldTrump gained media attention during the 2016
presidential race.Trump received free air time on all the majorTV
networks. He used social media to access large numbers of
people, especially young voters.
 Media effects research
 Attempts to understand, explain, and predict the effects of mass
media on individuals and society
 Cultural studies
 Focuses on how people make meaning, articulate values,
comprehend reality, and arrange experiences through cultural
symbols

3. 5 functions of
Mass
Communication
inSociety
 Surveillance: Two types:
 Instrumental surveillance: give us info we need
for daily life: new products, movie reviews,
how to vote, what to wear, what to hear
 Warning or “beware” surveillance: war,
disease, hurricanes
 Interpretation: Media reports give a context to facts
and expose the consumer to multiple points of view
 Linkage: People with shared interests find one another.
Another example of linkage is when you watch a TV
show that you don’t like—just so that you will know
what everyone is talking about when you get to work.
Mass media connects people.
 Transmission of Values: Many academic studies have
been conducted to determine the extent of media
influence on the values of people—both positive and
negative influences—and on all age groups
 Entertainment: This is the big bucks role of media in
society.

4. Eras in
Communication  Digital (electronic communication) redefined news and social
interaction.
 Social media likeTwitter and Facebook are key players in news and
politics, and allow people worldwide to have ongoing online
conversation.
 E-mail has assumed some of the functions of the postal service.

5. The Linear Model of
MassCommunication
 Senders (authors, producers)
 Messages (programs, ads)
 Mass media channel (TV, books)
 Receivers (viewers, consumers)
 Gatekeepers (editors, executive
producers, media managers)
 Feedback (messages from
receivers back to senders)

6. Cultural Model
for Mass
Communication
Recognizes that individuals bring
diverse meanings to messages
Audiences actively affirm,
interpret, refashion, or reject the
messages and stories that flow
through various media channels
Through selective exposure,
people seek messages that
respond to their own cultural
beliefs
The Evolution of Media: From Emergence to Convergence:
• Emergence or novelty stage
• Entrepreneurial stage
• Mass medium stage
• Convergence stage

7. Media
Convergence
Convergence
• A term that media critics
and analysts use when
describing changes
occurring in media content
and companies.
Dual roles
• Technological merging of
content across different
media channels
• Cross platform, the
consolidation of media
holdings under one
corporate umbrella
Media businesses
• Companies like Google
make money by selling ads
rather than by producing
content

8. Culture andtheEvolution
ofMassCommunication
 Communication is the creation and use
of symbol systems.
 Culture may be defined as symbols of
expression that individuals, groups, and
societies used to make sense of daily life
and values.
 Mass media are the cultural industries
that produce and distribute:
 Songs
 Novels
 TV shows
 Newspapers
 Movies
 Video games
 Internet Services

9. Figure 1.1:
Daily Media
Consumption
by Platform,
2015

10. Early Media
Research
Methods &
theories
Propaganda
analysis, Public
opinion research,
Social psychology
studies, Marketing
research
Hypodermic-needle
model
• Media shoot effects
directly into
unsuspecting victims.
Minimal-effects
model
• Researchers argued that
people generally engage
in selective exposure
and selective retention
with regard to the
media.
Uses and
gratifications
model
• Researchers studied the
ways in which people
used the media to satisfy
various emotional or
intellectual needs.

11. Conducting
Media Effects
Research
Private or
proprietary
research
• Generally
conducted for a
business, a
corporation, or
a political
campaign
• Usually applied
research
Public research
• Usually takes
place in
academic and
government
settings
• More often
theoretical
information
Most research uses
the scientific
method.
• Identify the
research problem,
Review existing
research.
• Develop a working
hypothesis, Decide
a method.
• Collect information
or relevant data,
Analyze results.
• Interpret the
implications.

12. Media Effects
Research
Scientific method
relies on:
• Objectivity,
Reliability,
Validity
Hypotheses
• Tentative
general
statements that
predict the
influence of an
independent
variable on a
dependent
variable
Experiments
• Test whether a
hypothesis is
true
• Utilize an
experimental
group and a
control group
Survey research
• Collecting and
measuring data
from a group of
respondents
Content analysis
• Studies specific
media messages

13. Contemporary
Media Effects
Theories
 Social learning theory: Four-step process
 Attention, Retention, Motor reproduction, Motivation
 Agenda-setting
 Media set the agenda for major topics of discussion.
 Cultivation effect
 Heavy viewing of television leads individuals to perceive reality in
ways consistent with portrayals on television.
 Spiral of silence
 Those whose views are in the minority will keep their views to
themselves for fear of social isolation.
 Third-person effect
 People believe others are more affected by media messages than
they are themselves; Instrumental in censorship

14. Evaluating
Research on
Media Effects
• Continues to resonate because it offers an easy-to-blame
social cause for real-world violence
Media effects
research is
inconsistent and
often flawed.
• Funding
• Inability to address how media affect communities and
social institutions
Limits on
research
• Investigated how mass media support existing hierarchies
• Examined how popular culture and sports distract people
from redressing social injustices
• Addressed the subordinate status of particular social groups
Karl Marx and
Antonio Gramsci

15. Cultural
Studies
Research
Frankfurt School
• Three inadequacies of traditional scientific approaches
• Reduce large “cultural questions” to measurable and “verifiable
categories”
• Depended on “an atmosphere of rigidly enforced neutrality”
• Refused to place “the phenomena of modern life” in a “historical and
moral context”
Textual analysis
• Highlights the close reading and interpretation of cultural messages
Audience studies
• Subject being researched is the audience for the text.
Political economy studies
• Examines interconnections among economic interests, political power, and
how that power is used

16. Cultural
Studies’
Theoretical
Perspectives
The public sphere
• A space for critical public debate
• Advanced by German philosopher Jürgen Habermas
• Society in England and France in late seventeenth century
and eighteenth century created spaces (coffeehouses, pubs)
for public discourse.
Communication as culture
• James Carey argued that communication is a cultural ritual.
• Described it as “a symbolic process whereby reality is
produced, maintained, repaired, and transformed”
• Leads researchers to consider communication’s symbolic
process as culture itself

17. Evaluating
Cultural
Studies
Research
 Cultural studies research
 Involves interpreting written and visual “texts” or artifacts as
symbolic representations that contain cultural, historical, and
political meaning
 Affords the freedom to broadly interpret the impact of mass media
 Like media effects research, it has its limits.
It’s messy! Mass media influences
culture. Culture influences mass
media.

18. References
 Campbell, Martin, and Fabos. 2014. Media & Culture: Mass
Communication in a Digital Age, chapters 1 and 15. 10th edition.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.