Intro to media studies. Quiz 1

9/2-10/7 lectures

What is Lazarsfeld’s idea of the two step flow of communication?

A system of how mass media affects the general audience.

Mass media information is interpreted by mass media outlets, like newspapers, broadcasts, and radio, which is then interpreted by opinion leaders, and then interpreted by individuals who listen to these opinion leaders.

What is the magic bullet/hypodermic needle theory?

Mass media affects individuals in an immediate and powerful way.

The audience is a mass: homogeneous, passive

Receiving information in a polarized environment

Individuals have less agency

What is the limited effects theory?

Mass media affects individuals in a gradual and distant way.

The audience is a public: autonomous, critical 

Receiving information in a stable environment

Individuals have agency

How did comic books lead kids to partake in dangerous behaviors and activities?

Kids mimicked the behaviors and actions of the characters they idolized in their comics.

Superheroes, etc

What resulted from the public concern over comic books?

Book burnings

Comic Book Code of 1954

Senate committee hearing

What did the Comic Book Code of 1954 contain? What was its purpose?

Restrictions on what comics can contain

Defined and banned explicit content

Mitigate the public outrage and fear of comics and their negative effects on the youth

Reassure parents that their children wouldn’t be exposed to harmful content that could put dangerous ideas into their heads

What book did Fredric Wortham write, and how does this relate to what he testified in the senate committee hearing about comic books?

“The Seduction of the Innocent”

Testified about comics being a threat to the youth

What model of media effects involves selective exposure?

Limited effects model

What is selective exposure?

People choose to consume media that reinforces their beliefs, avoiding contradictory information.

How is selective exposure different from filter bubbles?

Selective exposure: personal choices directly influence what media individuals consume

Filter bubbles: algorithms and automated choices influence what media individuals consume (indirect influence of personal choices)

Looking at a limited effects model, how is media a tool that influences people’s beliefs?

Media is a tool that reinforces people’s beliefs.

Media is rarely used as a tool to convert people on their beliefs.

According to Lazarsfeld and Merton, what are the three social functions of media?

1. Status conferral: mass media legitimizes a person or idea’s worth

2. Enforcement of social norms: mass media exposes abnormal behavior/rule breakers

3. Narcotizing dysfunction: mass media creates empathy and apathy

In relation to the social functions of media, what does status conferral involve?

Clout, prestige, authority, recognition

Social currency and capital

Positive effects if you’re NOT displayed as the victim

In relation to social functions of media, how does enforcement of social norms get people to follow a status quo?

Media closes the gap between private behavior and public norms.

In relation to the social functions of media, what is narcotizing dysfunction?

The audience has an illusion of being informed and critical thinkers, when they’re actually passive

There’s a disconnect between receiving news and taking action (empathy and apathy)

“The People’s Choice”

600 voters were subjects who were interviewed 6 times over 6 months

Findings: a big majority of the subjects “never changed their minds”

Control groups

Media reinforces people’s beliefs

The Payne Fund Studies

Effect of movies on children and adolescents

What concepts are related to John Durham Peters?

Focuses his thinking of communication away from the transmission model to how communication is much more nuanced-a spiritual, social, and psychological process

What concepts are related to Edward Sapir?

Primary processes of communication: universal

Secondary processes of communication:

Understanding communication -how to communicate- is essential to understanding people

There are generational differences in how people communicate

How does the transmission model relate to communication?

A loop of encoding and decoding a message

Message sent, message received

Noise: interruptions and flaws that impede the quality and efficiency of the information being sent/received