Media Audiences Exam 1

Direct Effects

There is no such thing, but the radio studies made this real

Social Learning Theory

How children socialize and imitate adults, and the Bobo doll experiments

Moral Panics

very strong negative public reactions to the spread of a new social behavior

Media Panics

a specific type of moral panic that surround the introduction of a new type of media or content genre

Magic Bullet

if i watch military advertisement, it is gonna be a bullet shot right through the heart and I’m gonna feel it and go to fight for my country

Hypodermic Needle

media messages are injected directly into the passive audience's minds, leading to immediate and uniform effects on behavior and attitudes.

Emotional Contagion

ideas spread in media like a virus from one individual to another through mass media

Selective Perception

process of reinterpreting the world to match already/previously held beliefs

Cognitive Dissonance

need for consistency is so great that individual will rationalize their actions to resolve inconsistencies

Selective Exposure

consciously avoiding message that challenge your beliefs

Elaboration Likelihood

effects depend on individual’s motivation to process the message

Cultivation Theory

the more you watch/expose yourself to a message, the more likely you are to believe it

Source Credibility

the degree to which we trust a source or sender as credible

Consistency Theory

drive for cognitive consistency is key motivator for all human behavior

5 Need of Uses & Gratifications - Cognitive

information, knowledge, and understanding

5 Need of Uses & Gratifications - Affective

aesthetic, pleasurable, and emotional experience

5 Need of Uses & Gratifications - Integrative

credibility, confidence, stability, and status

5 Need of Uses & Gratifications - Escape

escape or tension release that weakens contact with self and one’s other social

5 Need of Uses & Gratifications - Social

contact with family, friends, and the world

Populations

a group of individuals who may have an opinion relating to the subject of the survey

Samples

subset of individuals from the population to complete the survey

Cross Sections

surveys conducted at a single point in time to capture a snapshot of the public’s views on issues

Generalizability

the goal of surveys and public polls

Framing

when journalists or media producers “select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation”

Bandwagoning

when individuals hear news reports of opinion polls that differ from their own opinions, which causes them to shift their outlook to match the majority opinion

Underdog Effects

when the public shifts its support to a minority position or political candidate

Giddens Structuration Theory - Structure

any type of social behavior or set of interactions or relationships between human beings that is reproduced over time

Giddens Structuration Theory - Agency

the actions of individuals within their environment

Giddens Structuration Theory - Power

the capacity to achieve outcomes within the structure/agency duality

Measurement Errors

attitudes are quite stable over time

Response Effects

when one question impacts your response to another

Question Wording Effects

how something is asked effects the answer

Non Attitudes

expressions of opinions that don’t really exist (someone who don’t have an opinion participates anyway)

Non Response Bias

some groups won’t do / are biases against polls

Audience as Outcome

Audiences are people being acted upon by the Communicator who creates specific impacts with intention - assumes audience is captive and must listen

Audience as Mass

Audiences are a large collection of people who don’t know Communicator or other audience members - communicator’s goal is to gain attention and keep it

Audience as Agent

Audiences are like “free agents” who make choices about what types of communications they engage with - communicator views audience as members as having choice for what they consume

Ritualized Audience

use media consume time or divert from other activities

Instrumental Audience

use media to search for specific types of message content in a purposeful way

Payne Fund Studies

A study used to investigate the question: How can we prove that media has brain washing behavior

Petersen & Thurstone

found significant effects on attitude: exposure to the racist film “Birth of a Nation” directly lessened viewer favorability towards African Americans

Blume

connected motion picture viewing to delinquency: proposed the idea of emotional contagion- ideas spread in media like a virus from one individual to another through mass media

Psychology of Panic

argued that people need critical ability to analyze media messages

Expectancy Value Theory

Individuals approach new (media) situations / information with a built in set of beliefs and expectations that shape responses to those new (media) situations

Descriptive Beliefs

result of direct observation

Informational Beliefs

formed by accepting information from outside sources that is not directly observed / experienced

Inferential Beliefs

based on characteristics of objects or facts developed on the basis of logic, experience or stereotyping

People’s Choice Study

A study that found that people will not change their minds on a political topic because of the media, but they will if there is an opinion leader involved

Rise in Quantification

• growth of the insurance industry

• expansion of foerign trade

• concern over the # of plague deaths

Two Step Flow

impact of media message flows through opinion leaders who then pass it along to smaller groups/audience