Lecture 3 - Powerful Media Effects
Lecture 3 - Powerful Media Effects
Lecture 3 - Powerful Media Effects
Assumption: Audience members are vulnerable targets easily influenced by media message.
Audience
Media is thought to be able to shape public opinion toward any point that the creator of the message desires.
All
audience members are struck equally and the effects are uniform.
Classical example:
October
War
30, 1938
of the Worlds by Orson Welles. A radio prank (joke) where Orson creates a fake news story about Marsians attacking the earth. Called the Panic Broadcast Mass hysteria, chaos, looting and people escaping from cities.
Between 1929 - 1932, a large amount of funding was used to examine movies and their effects on children.
Children who went to movies performed worse in school than those who went less frequently Sleeping patterns of children were disturbed. Children going to movies exhibited emotions related to fear. They imitated favorable behavior but also delinquent behavior Childrens attitudes concerning ethnic, racial and social issues were changed
Propaganda Research
Harold Lasswell
Conducted
quantitative and qualitative analysis of propaganda over the world. He analyzed the content of propaganda He studied its effects on audiences Argued that as more people were reached by war propaganda, the war effort became more effective.
Propaganda Research
Karl Hovland:
He
conducted studies on how to design messages that could boost soldier morale and influence their attitudes in combat.
He
showed the soldiers a propaganda film called Why We Fight? By Frank Capra
Especially in WW1, WW2 and beginning of Cold War, findings from Lasswell and other political scientists turned communication studies to a magic wand for governments.
Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson and Hazel Gaudet did a study called Peoples Choice (1944). The study examined the effects of mass media on political behavior. The researchers tracked the opinions of 600 respondents from Ohio throughout election campaigns. The study suggested that media might not be as directly effective as people thought it was.
Findings from Peoples Choice Study: Personal contacts appear to have been more frequent and more effective than mass media in determining voting decisions" The flow of personal influence was "activated by certain individuals who were to be found on every level of society and, presumably, were very much like the people whom they influenced."
The relationship between the mass media and opinion leaders was a two-step flow of communication. "Ideas often flow from radio and print to opinion leaders and from them to the less active sections of the population
Conversion: In the Peoples Choice Study, only eight percent of voters made a switch from their normal, intended voting patterns.
So why do political parties spend this much money on advertising during election campaigns?
Parti Cumhuriye t Halk Partisi Adale t v e Kalkinma Partisi M illiye tci Hare t Partisi ke Demokrat Parti Ge nc Parti Kaynak: Bilisim Medya Reklam Harcama Tutar (YTL) 18,560,937 14,556,484 5,686,728 4,624,950 3,645,799
arouses interest Increased interest brings increased exposure Increased attention causes voter to select information Votes crystallize.
Reinforcement:
Many people had made their choice before the campaigns began. The campaigns head to reach out to these people so that they stayed with their current decision.
Reinforcement
The idea that media reinforces rather than changing ideas took a life of its own in later media theory. Paul Lazarsfeld and Robert Merton
One
important function of media are to create conformity. reproduces and reinforces dominant ideology.
Critical Theory
Media
Critical Theory was developed by scholars from Frankfurt School (Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Max Horkheimer).
With Hitler in power they fleed to U.S. They saw that the American media was overly commercial and industrialized.
Production of media content was highly standardized, commercialized. Regardless of variations in the subjects, forms and genres, the media produced a uniform product. Alternative ideas were ignored and not mentioned. Reinforce the status quo.
Noam Chomsky:
If
you want to understand how a particular society works, you have to understand who makes the decisions that determine the way a society functions. In the U.S., the major decisions over what happens in a society (investment, production, distribution, etc.) are in the hands of a relatively concentrated network of major corporations, conglomerates, and investment firms. They're also the ones who staff the major executive positions in the government, and they're the ones who own the media, and are the ones who are in the position to make decisions. They have an overwhelmingly dominant role in the way life happens, what's done in this society. Noam Speaks