Media Audiences Test 1

Gidden’s Structuration Theory

Gidden’s Structuration Theory

• Structure

• Agency

• Power

Structure

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

  • Duality of structure: Structures both enable and constrain individuals simultaneously

Agency

• the action of individuals within their environment

Power

• the capacity to achieve outcomes within the structure/ agency duality

  • Power is omnipresent and relational in nature

  • Hegemony = the process by which elites popularize and diffuse the worldview of the ruling class

Historical Turns in Media Studies that Influenced Audience Theory

• Creation of Motion pictures

• Rise of radio

• Turn Toward Media Convergence

The rise of radio

• By 1935

  • Roughly 70% of all households have a radio

  • Nearly 78 million Americans claimed to be habitual radio listeners

  • Radio was perceived to offer “expert opinions” and news

  • Scholars worried about its potential use for propaganda

Creation of motion picture

• In the 20th century, motion pictures were one of the most popular leisure activities.

• The first time a moving picture was projected onto a white screen was 1895 by two French brothers.

Turn toward media Convergence

• paperbacks going digital - cameras going to phone

• 1978

• the process by which previously distinct technologies come to share tasks and resources

• Examples: E-Books (paperbacks with digital), Smartphones (camera, music, photos), Online Radio (radio with internet)

Hypodermic needle theory

• that the media can have a direct and immediate effect on the audience. It sees the audience as “homogeneous mass” (all the same), believing what they see in the media without questioning the content, it's passive.

Magic Bullets theory

• the belief that an originator's media message may convince an audience by directly inserting an idea.

Emotional Contagion

• describes how people who observe the emotions and behaviors of another tend to copy these emotions and behaviors. The viral like spread of emotional states and attitudes from one individual to another, facilitated through mass media

Interpersonal Overlaps with Media Theories

• Cooley (1902/1909) - one of the first academics to link the development of worldview to interpersonal cultural feedback and communication media

  • It took until the 1950s to catch most scholars

• By 1959, 88% of American households had TV, which was the fastest-growing tech at the time

  • Only had 3 networks: CBS, ABC, NBC

  • Worried that TV would produce “cheap over-commercialized fare such as game shows violent dramas and mindless comedies”

Key Findings of the People’s Choice Study

• This study presented the theory of “the two step flow of communication”, later came to be “limited effects model” - the idea that ideas flow from radio to print to local

• Very few people change their mind over the course of a political campaign; media exposure reinforces your previous political beliefs

  • Opinion leaders - more effective in changing opinions

  • Two-step flow - the impact of media message flows through opinion leaders who then pass it along to smaller groups/audiences

    • OnYou watch fox news - they are telling you what to believe/think

Ontology of Audiences

• Audience as an ontological reality

  • Study of what is/classification of object of interest

  • Audience are constructed - they are created

  • Audience are situated and contingent -what happens around them forms them

  • Audience are abstractions rather than objective realities

Difference between Cognitive Dissonance and Consistency Theory (know the difference)

• Cognitive dissonance - the need for consistency is so great that individuals will rationalize their actions to resolve inconsistencies

• Consistency Theory - The drive for cognitive consistency in a key motivator for all human behavior

Direct, Limited and Long-Term Media Effects (know the difference)

1. Violence

   1. Social learning theory - how children socialize and imitate adults, Bobo doll experiment shows children model adult behavior

      1. Children exposed to violent media are far more likely to be violent in real life

   2. Cultivation theory - the more you watch/expose yourself to a message the more likely you are to believe it

      1. Long-term effects of media, the stability to time vs. attitude change

   3. Video games - By the 1980s, kids played 4 hours per week of video games, by 2008 they played 13 hours

2. Social

   1. Social media - an early study of social media use revealed that half of teens reported being addicted to theory phones

      1. Makes them feel more connected to their parents

      2. Makes them more distracted by multitasking

      3. Makes them more anxious/FOMO/social gift

      4. Makes them more likely to engage in risky behaviors (sexting/bullying)

Information and Meaning-Based Approaches to Audiences(know the difference)

1. Information based

   1. Shannon and Weaver’s model of communication- based on the idea that communication is a linear and one-way process that involves 6 elements; a source, a transmitter, channel, receiver, destination, noise.

   2. Transmission view of communication- imparting, sending, transmitting

   3. The focus is on the content and act of sending the message

   4. In this model, the audience is passive

2. Meaning based

   1. Process-oriented - content is less important than meaning made

   2. Feedback and co-construction

   3. Media gap- where community relationships and “small group and special interest group communications” are largely missing.

Moral Panics and Media Panics (know the difference)

• American culture in the early 20th century was dominated by protestant moral values

  • Movies are seen increasing crime, sex, drug use

  • The belief that the blurred line between content and reality makes youth vulnerable to suggestion, persuasion, and hypnosis

• The Payne fund studies

  • 13 volumes report published in 1933

  • 60% of children can recall specific details about media they are exposed to

Selective Perception and Selective Exposure (know the difference)

• Selective Perception - process reinterpreting the world to match already/previously helped beliefs

• Selective exposure - consciously avoiding messages that challenge your beliefs limited effects theories

Source Credibility and Selectivity (know the difference)

• Sources credibility - the degree to which we trust a source or sending as credible

• Source Selectivity - make sure you select what source you want

The ELM, Social Learning Theory, and Cultivation Theory (know the difference)

• Elaboration likelihood model (ELM) - effects depend on the individual's motivation to process the message

• Social learning theory (Brandura) - how children socialize and imitate adults, Bob doll experiments show children model adult behavior

• Cultivation theory (Gerbner) - the more you watch /expose yourself to a message, the more likely you are to believe it

All Limited Effects Theories

1. Source credibility - the degree to which we trust a source or sender as credible

2. Consistency theory - drive for cognitive is a key motivator for all human behavior

3. Cognitive dissonance - the need for consistency is so great that individuals will rationalize their actions to resolve inconsistencies

4. Selective perception - process reinterpreting the world to match already/previously helped beliefs

5. Selective exposure - consciously avoiding messages that challenge your beliefs limited effects theories

6. Elaboration likelihood model (ELM) - depend on the individual’s motivation to process the message

   1. Central processing - active engagement

   2. Peripheral processing - cognitive shortcuts

The Shannon and Weaver Model of Communication

1. Shannon and Weaver’s model of communication

2. Sender → (channel) communication a message to the → receiver

3. Noise is anything that interferes with the message or the channel

The Three Models of Audience

1. Audience as outcome

   1. The audience is people being acted upon by the communicator who creates specific impacts with intention - assumes the audience is captive and must listen

2. Audiences as mass

   1. Audiences as a large collection of people who don't know the communicator or other audience members - the communicator's goal is to gain attention and keep it

3. Audience as agent

   1. Audiences as like “free agents” who make choices about what type of communicators why engage with - the communicator views audience members as having a choice for what they consume