Media Studies Research Notes

Final Exam Information

• When: Next week
• Where: Discussion lab
• Format: Same as the midterm
• Duration: Class duration
• Review sheet will be your guide in studying
• Some concepts will need to be learned through the textbook.

Objectivity in Media Studies Research

• Objectivity in research, especially in cultural studies, does not always mean presenting both sides of a story.
• Objectivity is demonstrated by admitting when research findings contradict the initial hypothesis.
• Example: If a researcher hypothesizes that TV show A affects a demographic in a certain way, but the research shows otherwise, the researcher proves objectivity by admitting the contradiction and providing the actual findings.
• Expressing the facts of your findings demonstrates objectivity, especially in fields like anthropology, psychology, and media studies.

Reliability

• Reliability in humanities and social sciences acknowledges exceptions to accepted theories.
• The goal is generalizable knowledge, not perfection.
• Generalizable knowledge means that conducting the same research multiple times with slight variable changes should yield generally the same outcomes.

Validity

• Validity means the study measures what it claims to measure.
• Analogy: A student starts a paper with a topic sentence and outline but ends up writing about a completely different topic.

Hypotheses and Variables

• Researchers pose hypotheses: tentative general statements predicting the influence of an independent variable on a dependent variable.
• The independent variable is what is being changed or controlled (e.g., audiences).
• The dependent variable is the outcome being measured (e.g., effect of media on the audience).

Experiments in Media Research

• Experiments isolate aspects of content, suggest hypotheses, and manipulate variables to discover a medium's effect on attitude, emotion, or behavior.
• This involves experimental and control groups with random assignment to ensure each subject has an equal chance of being in either group.

Limitations in Field Research

• Difficulty controlling variables.
• Findings may not be generalizable to a larger population.
• The sample may not be representative of the general public.
• Unable to predict long-term behaviors in the real world.

Control Groups

• Control groups involve controlling variables such as demographics (racial, ethnic, gender identity, socioeconomic, location).

Specificity in Research

• Be as specific as possible about what you are studying and have a specific hypothesis.
• General or less controlled research can make it impossible to prove the hypothesis.
• Example: The hypothesis "SpongeBob is bad for children" is too general because it doesn't specify age group, education level, income, or other relevant variables.

Interdisciplinary Nature of Media Studies

• Media studies is intersectional and multidisciplinary, incorporating fields such as psychology, psychoanalysis, sociology, history, political economy, race, gender, and class.

Social Learning Theory

• The Social Learning Theory was developed by Albert Bandura, exemplified by the Bobo doll experiment.

Bobo Doll Experiment

• Children exposed to adults abusing a doll were more likely to mimic that behavior.
• Children exposed to adults treating the doll kindly were more likely to treat it kindly.

Factors Related to Media Studies:

• Attention: Getting the person's attention (e.g., loud sounds, colorful visuals, music for toddlers; violence or sexual content for adults).
• Retention: Ensuring the person remembers what they saw.
• Motor Reproduction: The ability to physically reproduce what was seen (e.g., cartoonish violence).
• Motivation: Encouragement or reward for the behavior (e.g., praise, societal beauty standards).

Motivation and Media

• The media's coverage of violent acts can be problematic.

Example: Rolling Stone Cover

• The Rolling Stone cover featuring one of the Boston bombers drew criticism for potentially glorifying the person.
• The concern was whether it would inspire copycats by presenting the bomber like a rock star.

Example: AI Vignettes of Luigi

• AI-generated vignettes of Luigi (CEO of health care guy), presented as a neo-like savior, raised concerns about inspiring copycats.
• Media literacy involves questioning these implications and having discussions about them.

Cultivation Effect

• Cultivation effect suggests that the more time individuals spend viewing television, the more their views of social reality will be cultivated by the images and portrayals they have seen.

Example: Student from Alabama

• A student from Alabama who believed New York was dangerous due to media portrayals.

Statistical Studies

• Studies correlate the fear of undocumented immigrants with the distance from immigrant populations.
• Limited exposure can lead to skewed perceptions.

Spiral of Silence

• The spiral of silence proposes that those who believe their views are in the minority will remain silent out of fear of social isolation, diminishing their perspectives.

Context

• In the electronic age (radio and television), dominant network discourse shaped conversations.

Example: Dixie Chicks

• The Dixie Chicks faced backlash for speaking out against the Iraq War and then-President Bush.

Digital Age

• The Internet provides spaces for marginalized voices to be heard.

Counterpublics: Groups of people with marginalized perspectives find each other, feel empowered, and speak out.

Third-Person Effect

• The third-person effect is when someone argues that the media affects others but not themselves, believing they are too informed to be influenced. Acknowledging that media can effect you means that you not in the third person effect.

Antonio Gramsci

• Antonio Gramsci was a political prisoner during the rise of fascism in Italy.
• He theorized about the variables in society that led to fascism, drawing from Marxist theory.
• Gramsci studied cultural aspects, including media and education.
• Gramsci is known for introducing the concepts of hegemony and ideology.

Hegemony

• Hegemony refers to the culture of the ruling power.

Ideology

• Ideology encompasses values, truths, and norms, defining rights and wrongs, heroes and villains, and what constitutes success.
• Media studies scholars use hegemony and ideology to understand how media texts are produced, received, and reinforced.

Frankfurt School

• The Frankfurt School, comprised of scholars who fled Nazi Germany, explored how Germany became a Nazi nation.
• They connected media effects research with cultural studies research.
• Scholars: Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Walter Benjamin, and Max Wertheimer.
• They argued that mass culture could be used as a tool of propaganda to indoctrinate the public.
• They were interested in power dynamics and how mass culture manipulated the masses into aligning with dominant ideologies.
• Critiques: They did not discuss agency about how people influence media.
• They also brought into play the idea of understanding media in that historical context.

Example: The Matrix

• The Matrix is a good film example of Frankfurt School thought.

Stuart Hall and Cultural Studies

• Stuart Hall is considered one of the most influential figures in cultural studies.
• The cultural approach considers media text, users, technologies, and industries with larger context of culture, the investigation of daily experience, issues of race, gender, class, sexuality, inequalities in power and status.
• It takes an activist perspective, examining what is present and absent in media, looking at media not just by what is present, but by what is absent. That's meaning in itself.
• Textual analysis takes center stage.

Audience Studies

• Audience studies focus on how people use and interpret cultural content.

Example: Ethnographic Study of Rocky

• A scholar studied a couple who loved the Rocky films and discovered that they loved the love story more than the boxing.
• They also liked the ideological perspective of the American dream.

Polysemy: You can draw a different meaning even outside of the artist in textual analysis.

• In film, you can look at the Rambo film and it can be seen as an anti-war film.