COMM 1000: The Effects of Mass Media

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering major media effects concepts, theories, and models from COMM 1000 taught by Dr. Stephen C. Stifano.

Hypodermic Needle Model

An early media effects model postulating that media messages are injected directly into the brains of a passive audience, exerting immediate, uniform, and powerful influence.

Fredric Wertham

Psychiatrist and author of 'Seduction of the Innocent' who argued that comic books severely corrupted youth, famously stating that 'Hitler was a beginner compared to the comic book industry.'

Limited Effects Perspective

A mass communication perspective associated with Joseph Klapper suggesting that media rarely produces direct, dramatic shifts in attitudes, but instead primarily reinforces existing beliefs.

Selective Exposure

The tendency of individuals to seek out and consume media messages that correspond with and reinforce their existing beliefs, attitudes, and opinions.

Uses & Gratifications Approach

An audience-centered framework that examines why and how people actively choose and consume specific media to satisfy distinct personal and social needs.

Cognitive Needs

A category of needs within the Uses & Gratifications approach fulfilled by seeking information, knowledge, and understanding.

Affective Needs

A category of needs within the Uses & Gratifications approach fulfilled through aesthetic, pleasant, and emotional media experiences.

Integrative Needs

A category of needs within the Uses & Gratifications approach centered on media use that strengthens personal confidence, credibility, stability, and status.

Social Integrative Needs

A category of needs within the Uses & Gratifications approach satisfied by using media to strengthen connections and relationships with family, friends, and society.

Tension-Release Needs

A category of needs within the Uses & Gratifications approach focused on using media to relax, escape pressures, and divert attention from everyday life.

Social Learning Theory

A theory postulating that people learn behaviors by observing media models, particularly when those models are perceived as attractive and their actions are rewarded rather than punished.

Excitation Transfer Theory

A theory asserting that physiological arousal produced from any initial source can persist and amplify the intensity of a subsequent emotional experience.

Agenda-Setting Theory

The proposition that the media may not dictate what people think, but through coverage choices and prominence, it effectively dictates what public opinion thinks about.

Cultivation Theory

A theory suggesting that extensive, heavy exposure to television cultivates a worldview where individuals perceive social reality as closely mirroring television depictions.

Mainstreaming

A Cultivation Theory concept describing the process by which heavy television viewing overrides individual differences, leading diverse audience members to share similar perspectives.

Resonance

A Cultivation Theory concept occurring when media depictions correspond directly with real-world experiences, amplifying the cultivation effect for those viewers.

Audience Activity

The core question and area of inquiry in media effects concerning the degree to which media consumers function as active, selective users versus passive recipients of content.