week 8-13

Reading week 8

Social cognitive theory: Theory of learning through interaction with the environment that involves reciprocal causation of behavior, personal factors, and environmental events

• how people (children) learned from the mass media

General aggression model (GAM): Model of human aggression that argues that cognition, affect, and arousal mediate the effects of situational and individual personal variables on aggression.

• Argues that the enactment of aggression is largely based on knowledge structures created by social learning processes.

• Television violence research together provide strong support for the link between television viewing and aggression.

The link between media violence and subsequent aggression has more scientific support than the relationship between self-examination and early detection of breast cancer, the amount of calcium intake and bone mass, and the use of condoms to prevent sexually transmitted disease (Bushman, Anderson 2001).

Catharsis/sublimation: The idea that viewing mediated aggression states, or reduces, people’s natural aggressive drives.

“We read it or repeat it several times. After seeing it enough times, we no longer need to continue—we have learned it… Each additional repetition of seeing something burns it deeper into the brain. If the aggression catharsis hypothesis were true, seeing the telephone number one more time should make us less likely to remember it—it should take it away from us. But in fact, repeating experiences is one of the most effective ways to learn something. . . . Therefore, if one plays a violent video game in which one practices aggressive thoughts, feelings, and responses, it cannot lead to lowered aggressive thoughts, feelings, or responses over the long term” Douglas Gentile (2013).

Imitation: Direct mechanical reproduction of behavior.

Identification: A special form of imitation that springs from wanting to be and trying to be like an observed model relative to some broader characteristics or qualities.

• A particular form of imitation in which copying a model, generalized beyond specific acts, springs from wanting to be and trying to be like the model with respect to some broader quality.

Social learning: Encompasses both imitation and identification to explain how people learn through observation of others in their environments.

• It’s inability to account for people’s apparent skill at learning new responses through observation rather than from actually receiving reinforcement limited its applicability to media theory.

Operant (traditional) learning theory: 

• People learn new behaviors when they are presented with stimuli, make a response to those stimuli, and have those responses reinforced either positively (rewarded) or negatively (punished).

Behavioral repertoire: The behaviors available to an individual in a given circumstance.

Negative reinforcer: A particular stimulus whose removal, reduction, or prevention increases the probability of a given behavior over time

Modeling: The acquisition of behaviors through observation

• Observation of a behavior is sufficient for people to learn that behavior 

→ Even people who have never shot an arrow from a bow, can do it.

Social cognition through the use of media representations operates in one or more of three ways:

1. Observational learning: When the observation of a behavior is sufficient to learn that behavior

• Consumers of representations can acquire new patterns of behavior by simply watching these representations.

2. Inhibitory effects: The effects of seeing a model punished for a behavior, thus reducing the likelihood that the observer will engage in that behavior.

• Seeing a model in a representation punished for exhibiting a certain behavior decreases the likelihood that observers will make that behavior. It is as if viewers themselves are actually punished.

3. Disinhibitory effects: The effects of seeing a model rewarded for their prohibited or threatening behavior, thus increasing likelihood that the observer will engage in that behavior.

• A media representation that depicts reward for a threatening or prohibited behavior is often sufficient to increase the likelihood that the consumer of the representation will make that behavior.

Vicarious reinforcement: Reinforcement that is observed rather than directly experienced.

• Social cognition through the mass media. 

• When we see a television character rewarded or punished for some action, it is as if we ourselves have actually been rewarded or punished.

Reinforcement contingencies: The value, positive or negative, associated with a given reinforcer.

Social prompting: Demonstration of previously learned behavior when it is observed as socially acceptable or without restraints.

• The effect is distinguished from observational learning and disinhibition because no new behavior has been acquired and disinhibitory processes are not involved because the elicited behavior is socially acceptable and not encumbered by restraints.

Aggressive cues: Information contained in media portrayals of violence that suggests or cues the appropriateness of aggression against specific victims.

• People who see mediated violence are believed to show higher levels of subsequent aggression.

Priming effects: Idea that presentations in the media heighten the likelihood that people will develop similar thoughts about those things in the real world.

Cognitive-neoassociationistic perspective: Frequent viewing of violent media portrayals primes particular constructs (e.g., aggression, hostility) and thus makes these constructs more likely to be used in behavioral decisions as well as judgments about others.

• Maintains that the presentation of a certain stimulus having a particular meaning ‘primes’ other semantically related concepts, thus heightening the likelihood that thoughts with much the same meaning as the presentation stimulus will come to mind.

Desensitization: The mitigation or reduction of anxious psychological arousal in response to depictions of violence, both mediated and real-world, as the result of habitual consumption of mediated violence.

• Loss of empathy is an attitudinal or emotional effect closely related.

Contextual variables: Information surrounding the presentation of mediated violence.

Seven important contextual variables (W. James Potter, 1997)

1. Reward/punishment: Rewarded aggression is more frequently modeled; punished aggression is less frequently modeled. We know these to be disinhibitory and inhibitory effects.

2. Consequences: Mediated violence is accompanied by portrayals of negative or harmful consequences produces less modeling. Again, this shows inhibitory effects at work.

3. Motive: Motivated media aggression produces greater levels of modeling, and unjustified media violence results in less viewer aggression. Viewers are cued to the appropriateness of using aggression.

4. Realism: Especially with boys, realistic media violence tends to produce more real-world aggression.

5. Humor: Because it reduces the seriousness of the behavior, humorously presented media violence leads to greater probability that viewers will behave aggressively in real life.

6. Identification with media characters: The more viewers identify with media characters, the more likely it is that they will model the behaviors demonstrated by those characters

7. Arousal: Potter explained, “Emotional appeals can serve to increase the dramatic nature of the narrative, and this can increase attention, . . . positive dispositions toward the characters using violence, . . . and higher levels of arousal.” This dramatically induced arousal and emotional attachment to violent characters, 

according to Potter, are “likely to result in aggressive behavior”.

Active theory: View of television consumption that assumes viewer comprehension causes attention and, therefore, effects or no effects.

Viewing schema: Interpretational skills that aid people in understanding media content conventions.

Active-audience theories: Theories that focus on assessing what people do with media; audience-centered theories.

• One of the most important sets of these media theories

• Argues that average audience members can routinely resist the influence of media content and make it serve their own purposes.

Downward spiral model: Model of media influence suggesting that individuals tend to seek out violent media that is consonant with their aggressive tendencies.

• Posits that individuals tend to seek out violent media that is consonant with their aggressive tendencies, and, by extension, reinforces and exacerbates such tendencies.

Developmental perspective: View of learning from media that specifies different intellectual and communication stages in a child’s life that influence the nature of media interaction and impact.

• Assumes that children undergo extensive and varied cognitive growth between birth and adulthood that is extremely rich, complex and multifaceted. 

Empowered child model: Television effects research that  assumes that children eventually become competent, self-aware users of television.

Weapons effect: In single-shooter video games, the use of highly realistic gun controllers that capture players’ motions increases game realism and immerses players more fully into the action, producing increases in player aggression.

Similarity identification: Observer identifies with a character because they share some salient characteristic.

• Identification as typically understood in social cognitive theory.

Wishful identification: The observer desires to emulate the character, either in general or in specific terms. 

• More powerful form of identification.

Orphan counties: Counties where people receive no news coverage and political advertising for their own statewide elections, irrelevant information about candidates in a neighboring state, or both.

Cultivation analysis: Theory that television “cultivates” or creates a worldview that, although possibly inaccurate, becomes the reality because people believe it to be so.

• Macro-level questions about the media’s role in society.

• George Gerbner 1970s-1980s

Violence Index: Annual content analysis of a sample week of network television prime-time fare demonstrating how much violence is present.

Cultural Indicators Project: In cultivation analysis, periodic examinations of television programming and the conceptions of social reality cultivated by viewing.

Ice-age analogy: In cultivation analysis: idea that the degree of television's influence is less critical than the direction of its steady contribution.

• But just as an average temperature shift of a few degrees can lead to an ice age or the outcomes of elections can be determined by slight margins, so too can a relatively small but pervasive influence make a crucial difference. The ‘size’ of an ‘effect’ is far less critical than the direction of its steady contribution.

Message system analysis: Detailed content analyses of television programming to assess its most recurring and consistent presentations of images, themes, values and portrayals.

Cultivation: Television’s contribution to the creation of a culture’s frameworks or knowledge and underlying general concepts.

Mainstreaming: The process, especially for heavy viewers, by which television’s symbols monopolize and dominate other sources of information and ideas about the world

Resonance: When viewers see things on television that are most congruent with their own everyday realities.

First-order cultivation effects: Viewers’ estimates of the occurrence of some phenomenon; probability judgments.

• Typical of early cultivation research.

Second-order cultivation effects: The attitudes and beliefs that are formed as a result of those judgements.

3Bs of television:

1. Television blurs traditional distinctions of people’s views of their world.

2. Television blends their realities into television’s cultural mainstream.

3. Television bends that mainstream to the institutional interests of television and

its sponsors.

Genre-specific cultivation theory: Extension of cultivation theory’s logic–message consumption “cultivates” or creates a worldview that, although possibly inaccurate, becomes the reality because people believe it to be so–to specific content genres.

SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY

Strengths

1. Demonstrates causal link between media and behavior

2. Applies across several viewer and viewing situations

3. Has strong explanatory power (e.g., rejects catharsis, stresses importance of environmental and content cues)

Weaknesses

1. Laboratory demonstration raises question of generalizability

2. Experimental demonstration might overestimate media power

3. Has difficulty explaining long-term effects of media consumption

4. Underestimates people’s active use of media messages

5. Focuses too narrowly on individual rather than on cultural effects

Lecture 23-10

The rise of television

1950s and -60s

Political instability → the role of media in how people thought and behaved.

Media effects on children as topic of research

• Concerns started in the 1960s and ‘70s with concerns about television, moved to gaming in the 90s

• Effects on mental health, brain development

• Much (US) research focused on aggression

Media (TV) as topic of research

Limited effects research: effects of television are small and mainly reinforce effects of other social factors in environment

= Postpositivist (theory based on empirical observation guided by the scientific method)

Critical cultural research: Television promotes hegemonic worldview of elites, can be resisted by audiences.

• Both are societal/sociological perspectives on media effects.

Psychologists → individual perspective.

Catharsis theory (Feshbach)

Viewing violence satisfies a person’s aggressive drive and therefore reduce the likelihood of aggressive behavior.

Learning through imitation

Imitative (social) learning (Dollard and Miller)

Motivation → presence of cues → performance of behavior → positive reinforcement

Based on traditional stimulus-response learning (operant learning theory)

Social cognitive theory (social learning theory) → (Bandura)

Learning from observation (observational learning)

• Observe others engaging in behavior (modeling), also via media

Conclusions Bobo doll experiments

1. We can learn from observing others (especially behavioral models similar to us)

2. We don’t simply imitate everything (reward vs. punishment)

3. Learning also works via a screen.

Effects of observational learning

• Inhibitory effects

• Disinhibitory effects

By watching positive or negative reinforcement (instead of having to experience it).

We don’t simply imitate everything

7 contextual variables (Potter 1997)

1. reward/punishment

2. consequences

3. motive

4. realism

5. humor

6. identification with media character

7. arousal

Putting the ‘cognitive’ in SCT

• People learn scripts (symbolic representations of behavior)

• No direct imitation, but learning of general ideas about how behavior can solve problems

Priming: 

Media content can activate cognitions that are semantically linked, 

• Making those cognitions, for a short time, more accessible

• Therefore more likely to be used in subsequent information processing and judgment. 

Priming & media

Results study:

• Music videos made thoughts about sex (but not power) more accessible

Desensitization: The reduction of anxious psychological arousal in response to depictions of violence, both mediated and real-world, as the result of habitual consumption of mediated violence.

Social learning effects can be expected stronger than TV

• Interactivity & involvement

• Rehearsal

• Realism

• Identification (similarity & wishful identification)

Social cognitive theory recap

Strengths

• Causal link → behavior

• Wide application

• Explanatory power (environmental and content cues)

Weaknesses

• Mostly lab research:

  • Generalizability?

  • Overestimate media power?

• Not suitable to explain long-term effects

• Mostly individual effects

• Underestimates active use of media

Active (audience) theory of television viewing

Sees viewers in general–and in the violence debate, particularly children–as actively and consciously working to understand television content

• Depends on age (developmental perspective)

• In contrast to ‘reactive theories’

Downward spiral model

Individuals tend to seek out violent media that is consonant with their aggressive tendencies, and, by extension, reinforces and exacerbates such tendencies

(selective exposure)

General aggression model (general learning model)

• Specifies personal and situational factors (input) that enable aggressive behavior.

• Media play a role in shaping personal and situational factors.

• Active role appraisal & decision processes (outcomes).

Cultivation theory (Gerbner)

Macro-level questions about the media’s role in society.

• The overall pattern of media shows us a certain reality, and this changes our view of the world.

“Television is a “message system” that “cultivates” or creates a worldview that, although possibly inaccurate, becomes the reality simply because we, as a people, believe it to be the reality and base our judgments about our own everyday worlds on that “reality.”

Context:

• 1970s-1980s: interest in television as social force

• Limited-effects perspective was becoming less prevalent, cultural theories were receiving more attention

• How does watching TV affect people?

Cultural Indicators Project

Gerbner and colleagues redefined their work as the ‘Cultural Indicator Project’
Consisting of 5 assumption:

1. TV is different from other mass media

2. Tv is the “central cultural arm” of American society

3. The substance of the consciousness cultivated by TV are basic assumptions about the ‘facts’ of and standards of judgment on which conclusions are based

4. TV’s major cultural function is to stabilize social patterns, to cultivate resistance to change

5. The observable, measurable, independent contributions of TV to the culture are relatively small

Cultivation research in 4 steps:

1. Message system analysis (content analysis)

2. Formulation of questions about viewer's social realities

3. Survey the audience, posing the questions from step two and asking them about their amount of television consumption

4. Comparing the social realities of light and heavy viewers.

Comparing the social realities of light and heavy viewers

• Not possible to measure cause and effect: there is no ‘before’ and ‘after’ general TV viewing

• Effects occur over longer periods of time with repeated exposure

• Effect = the difference in the percentage believing the “TV reality” within comparable groups of:

  • light viewers (viewing less than 2 hours a day)

  • heavy viewers (viewing more than 4 hours a day)

Two kinds of effects of TV reality → view of the world

• First order effects

Estimation of the probability of something occurring 

• ⅔ of women will be victims of crime

• Second order effects

The beliefs you hold about the way people are, the world works, etc, based on that probability

• Women should be careful walking the streets alone

TV reality vs. the real world

Mean world syndrome: The phenomenon in which violent media content causes viewers to perceive the world as more unsafe than it actually is.

The ‘mean’ TV world replaces actual reality

Gerber’s 3 Bs of television

1. Television blurs traditional distinctions of people's views of their world.

2. Television blends their realities into television cultural mainstream.

3. Television bends that mainstream to the institutional interests of television and its sponsors.

Mainstreaming

Different demographic groups hold different beliefs about the world

Mainstreaming = differences disappear among heavy TV viewers

TV influence dominates over other influences

Resonance 

Occurs when the TV world resembles your everyday environment and reality

→ Results in stronger cultivation effects among heavy viewers

Cultivation theory: Strengths

• Comines macro- and micro-level

• Empirical study of widely held assumptions

• Redefines effect as more than observable behavior change

Cultivation theory: Weaknesses

• Assumes homogeneity of television content and the worldview embedded in it

• Initially focused on heavy users of television

Cultivation theory and the internet

“Internet-based media give us the power to shape the message system that cultivates our understanding of the social world

We’re no longer at the mercy of the big TV networks,

but that doesn’t mean that media have ceased to cultivate our understanding of ourselves and the people around us” 

Ask yourself: are you ever guilty 

Week 9

Adultification: when children’s value as consumers trumps their value as people, threatening their physical, psychological, social, emotional and spiritual development.

Superpeer theory: media serve as powerful best friends in sometimes making risky behaviors seem like normative behavior

Theory of mind: Children’s recognition of others’ beliefs, desires, and intentions in order to understand why they act a certain way or predict how they will act.

Self-complexity: Seeing oneself as having different self-concepts across different situations

Scope of self model: Adolescents who have heavier media diets are exposed to a constricted and simplified view of human attributes and endeavors at the expense of more robust, real life experiences, reducing their sense of self-complexity

Scripting theory: Young people learn about sex through snippets of information they collect from a variety of sources from which they piece together scripts that shape their attitudes, expectations, and behaviors surrounding sex

Objectification theory: Theory arguing that females internalize others’ perspective as a primary view of their physical selves

Early window: Idea that media allow children to see the world before they have the skill to successfully act in it

Kinderculture: The corporate construction of childhood

Brain drain hypothesis: Idea that the mere presence of one’s own smartphone occupies limited-capacity cognitive resources that might be better used on the task at hand

Nomophobia: Feelings of discomfort or anxiety caused by the non availability of a mobile device enabling habitual virtual communication

Dual-factor model of Facebook: Social networking use is primarily motivated by the need to belong and the need for self-presentation

Idealized virtual identity hypothesis: Tendency for creators of social network site profiles to display idealized characteristics that do not reflect their actual personalities

Extended real-life hypothesis: Idea that people use social networking sites to communicate their real personality

SNS addiction: Use of SNS that is habitual, excessive, or motivated by a desire for mood alteration

Social skills model of problematic SNS use: Idea that SNS users who prefer communication with others online are at greater risk of succumbing to addiction

Facebook depression: Depression that develops when preteens and teens spend a great deal of time on social media sites and then begin to exhibit classic symptoms of depression

Affective forecasting theory: Discrepancy between the expected and actual emotions generated by SNS activity

Social comparison theory: Theory that people evaluate their own opinions and abilities and reduce uncertainties by making comparative judgments of social stimuli on particular content dimensions

Lecture 30-10

The developmental perspective

Children experience extensive and varied cognitive growth between birth and adulthood

• Empowered child model of television effects research: children eventually become competent self-aware users of television.

• Less emphasis is placed on consequences for cognitive, emotional, and physical development.

• Research suggests that media use can interfere with that development.

Child development & media

Important aspects of development:

• Behavioural scripts

• Theory of mind

• Self-complexity

Behavioural scripts

• Step-by-step mental schema of how real-world behaviours and situations unfold.

• Scripts can be learned via media (SCT)

• Media as “super-peer”

Theory of mind

• Recognizing other people’s beliefs, desires, and intentions in order to understand why they act a certain way, or to predict how they will act

• Takes quite some time to develop

• Cognitive development can be influenced by screen use

Self-complexity

• = seeing oneself as having different self-concepts across different situations.

• Negative effects of media on self-complexity due to limiting content and interfering with real-life interactions (scope of self-model)

Gender socialization

3 explanations for an increase in gender-stereotyped behaviour and preferences: 

1. Biology: hormones and genes 

2. Social learning (SCT) 

3. Positive reinforcement of gender schematic behaviour

Nature/nurture-debate

Sexual socialization

• Scripting theory: learn about sex through “snippets of information” → happens a lot via media.

• Form memorized ‘scripts’ that shape attitudes, behaviours, and expectations (e.g., more traditional sex and gender roles).

Objectification theory

• Internalizes an observer’s perspective and treats oneself as an object to be looked at and evaluated for one’s appearance.

• Constant awareness

Cognitive, emotional, and physical consequences:

• Lack of attention and performance in mental activities

• Reduced confidence in and comfort with one’s body

• Diminished sexual health

Media as early window → media allow children to see the (adult) world before they have the skill to successfully deal with this

Adultification → When children’s value as consumers outweigh their value as people (threatening their development)

Commercialism & ‘kinder culture’

The corporate construction of childhood

A lot of media that's aimed at children is commercial (Barbie)

Children’s value as consumers trump their value as people 

Advertising to children

< 8 years: no advertising literacy (don’t know what advertising is, just entertainment)

8-10 years: limited advertising literacy (understand commercials are different than other content, but not aware of companies that are selling things)

Advertisements are often food-related → link with obesity among children

Also linked to materialism, especially for children from low-SES households. Children are more likely to believe that if you buy a lot of stuff you become happier.

Lack of literacy especially for non-traditional advertising (in games, social media, films) → harder to detect for children as advertisements.

Advergames: represent the product as a valued (treasured, magical) item, and reward players for consuming the desired food item.

New technologies and digital media: affect us

Motivations for social media use

Dual-factor model of Facebook (FB) uses 2 basic social needs: 

• Need to belong (affiliate with others and gain social acceptance) 

• Need for self-presentation (impression management) 

Benefits SNS (social networking service):

• Building social connections and networks (“social capital”)

• Stronger social bonds

• More likely to socially interact face-to-face

Benefits of online media and technology: 

• Identity formation 

• Community 

• Building social connections and networks (“social capital”) 

• Civic involvement

How do we present ourselves online?

• Idealized virtual identity hypothesis (People use social media to display idealized characteristics)

• Extended real-life hypothesis (People use social media to communicate their real personality) → has found more support

Interpersonal communication

Difference computer-mediated and face-to-face: Non-verbal cues filtered out (lack of visual and auditory information to form an impression of someone)

Ease of communication and self-disclosure = the purposeful and voluntary sharing of personal history, attitudes, feelings, values, secrets, etc., with another person (transparency)

Basis of relationship formation → self-disclosure

Relationships via computer-mediated communication (CMC) 

3 perspectives: 

• Impersonal 

Relationships are hindered by CMC 

• Interpersonal (Social Information Processing) → Joseph Walther

Relationships can also exist through CMC 

• Hyperpersonal 

Relationships get better because of CMC

Hyperpersonal model

Reasons for ease of relationship formation: 

1. Sender: paint (too) positive picture of yourself (selective self-presentation) 

2. Receiver: Idealize sender 

3. Channel: Asynchronous 

Optimal and desirable communication 

4. Feedback: You start behaving according to the other person’s expectations 

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Creating relationships faster and better online than offline.

Negative effects of new technologies and digital media

Social, cognitive and physiological effects

• Brain drain hypothesis 

the mere presence of tech devices reduces available cognitive capacity 

• Nomophobia 

feeling of discomfort or anxiety caused by the non-availability of a mobile device enabling habitual virtual communication

Concerns about loneliness 

• Conversation: phones attract our constant attention and pull us away from ftf conversations 

• Intimacy: less closeness with a special few, and more superficial interactions with many 

• Empathy: can mostly be developed through ftf/eye contact

It depends.... 

• Social media addiction depends on social skills (social skills model of problematic SNS use) 

• Declines in mood depends on expectations about how social media will make you feel (affective forecasting error) 

• Effects of social media use on loneliness and well-being depends on what you do online (active vs. passive use) 

• Effects on self-esteem or jealousy (‘Facebook envy’) depend on upward vs. downward comparison (social comparison theory)

What is your motivation for social media use?

• Self-esteem, appearance consciousness → motivation appearance validation → social media use

• Depressive feelings, body dissatisfaction → motivation social comparison → social media use

• The solution to negative media effects? Media literacy.

Why media literacy? 

Importance of literacy throughout history

• Literacy increases people’s control over their environments and lives 

Literacy can be increased via interventions

• Reduce harmful effects of the media by informing the audience about harmful aspects of the media

Definitions (Alan Rubin) media literacy

1. The ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and communicate messages 

2. Knowledge about how media function in society 

3. Understanding cultural, economic, political, and technological constraints on the creation, production, and transmission of messages

“Media literacy, then, is about understanding the sources and technologies of communication, the codes that are used, the messages that are produced, and the selection, interpretation, and impact of those messages” 

= a skill that can be improved

Parental mediation theory

Three types of mediation

1. Active mediation (talk to your child about media)

2. Restrictive mediation (set rules for your child on media use)

3. Co-viewing (sit with your child during media use)

Later added

4. Participatory learning (engage with your child in digital media activities)

Parental mediation of digital technology (Lim, and Julian Lin, 2017)

1. Discursive activities (talk to your child)

2. Gatekeeping activities (set rules for your child)

3. Diversionary activities (direct your child away from technologies)

4. Investigative activities (inform yourself about your child's activities)

Risks and opportunities

Negative effects of interacting with screens instead of people, on cognitive (e.g. theory of mind, self-complexity), emotional (e.g. well-being, loneliness) and physical levels (e.g. brain drain, text-neck). 

The negative effects of social media are not the same for everyone and depend on various factors (e.g. social skills, expectations, active vs. passive use).

People have motivations for using social media (e.g. need to belong, self presentation), and usually give a realistic presentation of themselves there. 

Positive effects of social media use include identity development, community building, and social capital building.

Logical Fallacies: Any kind of error in reasoning that renders an argument invalid.

False cause: someone indirectly .. the cause of it

Straw man: Exaggerating or twisting the argument so it can be easily refuted

someone takes an argument and miss represents it 

Begging the question: circular question, use of conclusion as part of the argument

False dilemma: the situation is represented as either or when in reality there are more than 2. 

Appeal to authority: its true because of the authority of the person who says it

Ad hominem: attacking the person instead of the argument

Circular reasoning: the statement is used as an argument 

Red herring: Drawing attention away from the topic by introducing a second one

Faulty generalization: Generalizing based on weak premises

Lecture 5-11

Uses & gratifications

gratification 

Needs of the user → media use → effect on user

• 1940s: needs of radio audience

• 1970s: revival of the U&G approach → needs of television audiences

3 reasons for revival

1. survey methodology

2. active use of media as mediator in effects

3. criticism on negative effects research: positive effects ignored

1980s: Rubin's typology of needs for television viewing.

Social and psychological needs

1. Passing time

2. Companionship

3. Escape

4. Enjoyment

5. Social interaction

6. Relaxation

7. Excitement

8. Information

Other social needs

Media use is often motivated by needs resulting from a social context.

1. Need to reduce tension

2. Need to seek information to solve problems

3. Need to substitute or supplement a lack of opportunities

4. Need to affirm and reinforce social values

5. Need to be familiar of certain media

Present day revival of the U&G approach

Social media and computer mediated communication

• New ‘gratifications’

Three characteristics 

• Interactivity

• Demassification

• Asynchroneity 

Needs arise from technology itself

What is active audience

Several meanings:

• Utility: put media to your own use

• Intentionally: media use because of prior motivations

• Selectivity: media use reflects existing interest and preferences 

• Imperviousness of influence: people avoid certain type of influence

Activity: what the audience does

Activeness: audiences freedom and autonomy

5 basic assumptions of the U&G model (Katz et. al)

1. The audience is active, and its media use goal is oriented.

2. The initiative in linking need gratification to a specific media choice rests with the audience member.

3. The media compete with other sources of need satisfaction.

4. People are aware enough of their own media use, interests, and motives to be able to provide researchers with an accurate picture of that use.

5. There are different needs gratifications, for different types of media use, with different types of consequences.

Users & Gratifications

Strengths: 

• Focuses attention on individuals

• Respect intellect and ability of media consumers

• Focus on experience of media content

• Role of social context

Weaknesses:

• Media gratifications are often not associated with effects

• Difficult to measure key concepts

• Too micro-level

Entertainment theory

“Psychology of entertainment”

• Sees entertainment processes are different from media processes

We voluntarily select entertainment, often because of hedonic and eudaimonic motivations, psychological processes resulting from entertainment use can be conscious and unconscious), and effect can be intended or unintended.

Mood management theory

• Subtheory of entertainment theory

• Sees entertainment as a way of coping with problems in our lives

• Motivation to choose entertainment = create / maintain positive state

Four types of media content attributes that play a role (Knobloch-Westerwick):

1. Excitatory potential: get us excited or calm us down

2. Absorption potential: direct thoughts away from negative mood

3. Semantic affinity: content is similar to situation that elicits (bad) mood

4. Hedonic valence: potential of content to induce positive feelings

Other motivations for entertainment use

Regulate self-concept via social comparison with media characters 

(SESAM, Knobloch-Westerwick & Westerwick)

• Self-consistency: looking at others with the same view

• Self-improvement: getting inspired by upward social comparison

• Self-enhancement: feeling better by downward social comparison

Expand the boundaries, or limits, of everyday life, via identifications with characters and transportation into a story world. (slater)

Reception studies

Relates to how media content is produced and interpreted

• Most media messages are polysemic: they can be interpreted in different ways.

Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model:

Encoding: production/creation of media content in a social and political context

Decoding: how the audience interprets a message

1. Operating inside the dominant code (preferred reading)

2. Applying a negotiable code (negotiated reading)

3. Substituting an oppositional code (oppositional reading)

Reception studies

Strengths:

• Focuses on individuals

• Respect intellect and ability of media consumers

• Seeks to understand of a range of meaning and interpretations in media text

Weaknesses: 

• Analysis of data is subjective

• Doesn’t address effects

• No causal explanations

• Too micro-level

Reading 13-11

Not all information-processing theory involves learning from news and advertising.

Much of this work is devoted to how people interpret and react to persuasive messages.

Elaboration likelihood model 1980 (ELM): a dual process theory describing the change of attitudes. 

• a model of persuasion

• based on assumption for social reasons, people are motivated to hold “correct behavior”

• people are “cognitive misers”

Petty and Cacioppo: There must be something more than the efficient use of cognitive capacity that motivates these different information-processing strategies

In other words, not everyone is willing or able to process information in a way that will get them to that correct attitude, at least not all the time. Sometimes they take an easier, more automatic route to their opinion. You can hear echoes of dissonance theory and social categories from our earlier discussion of attitude change.

Peripheral route:  an indirect route that uses peripheral cues to associate positivity with the message.

• Attractive sources

• Catchy jingles

• Political party labels

Heuristics: Simple decision rules that substitute for more careful analysis of persuasive messages. 

Heuristic-systematic model: Dual-process model of information processing that argues for the parallel operation of systematic and heuristic processing.

• Argues that people process information systematically and heuristically, but it sees these two processes as working together.

• A dual processing model
  → recognizes concurrent parallel modes of information processing that are qualitatively different.

• Assumes people are cognitive misers

Sufficiency principle: we will exercise only as much systematic processing as is necessary (sufficient) to meet that need.

Lecture 13-11

The Elaboration Likelihood Model and The Persuasion Knowledge Model

Media user → Information processing → Persuasion effect

Persuasive communication: information that is intended to change or bolster a person’s attitude or course of action and is presented in written, audio, visual, or audiovisual form.

• advertising

• public service announcements

• campaigns

Elaboration likelihood model 1980 (ELM)

How does attitude change take place?

• The amount and nature of thinking that a person does about a persuasive message is a very important determinant.

• How much people think and how they think about a specific message → thinking behavior of the receiver

• Determines the route of information processing (thorough vs. superficial)

Processing routes

2 routes (= way of information processing)

1. Central route

Message elaboration: careful thinking about and examining information central to the topic (issue relevant thinking)

2. Peripheral route

Mental shortcut based on cues (heuristics)

Dual processing model

Outcome variable = attitude change

Attitude can be predictive of behavior 

Attitude = Evaluative response (positive or negative) to a stimulus (the so called attitude object)

Motivation: do you want to think?

• Personal relevance

• Personal responsibility (characteristic of situation)

• Need for cognition (characteristic of person)

Ability: Can you think

• Distraction (characteristic of situation)

• Prior knowledge (characteristics of person)

Processing routes & Persuasion

High motivation & motivation & ability → Central route → Persuasion = enduring attitude

• Good argument quality 

• Initial (positive) attitude

Initial attitude

People who have given the topic a lot of thought, or who have strong prior attitudes about a topic, are often biased, which makes it difficult to persuade them  if they do not agree with your message.

• Even with strong arguments and high elaboration

= Biased elaboration (vs. objective elaboration)

Differences in attitude change

Strong attitude is:

1. accessible

2. persistent and stable

3. resists counter arguments

4. predicts behavior

Weak attitude is

1. less accessible

2. temporary

3. easy to change

4. less predictive of behavior

Continuum

Processing can be partly central, partly peripheral.

Low elaboration likelihood High elaboration likelihood

Peripheral processing Central processing

Research ELM

Topic: comprehensive exam at university

1. Manipulate “motivation” via personal relevance

• Policy for next year (high personal relevance)

• Policy for in 10 years (low personal relevance)

2. Argument quality (for central processors)

3. Source expertise (for peripheral processors)

ELM recap

People like to hold correct attitudes, but the extent  to which they can and want to put effort in this differs per issue, situation, person

How thorough people process a message depends on their motivation & ability

Central route = attitude is relatively enduring, resistant, and predictive of behavior

Peripheral route = attitude is relatively temporary, susceptible and predictive of behavior.

Critique to ELM

• What is a strong argument?

• Individual differences?

• Focuses on cognitive processes (thinking), not much attention for affective processes (emotions).

What is advertising?

Paid nonpersonal communication from an identified sponsor, using mass media to persuade or influence an audience.

Paid mediated form of communication from an identifiable source, designed to persuade the receiver to take some action, now or in the future.

Three dynamics that drive the evolution of advertising.

1. (new) media and formats

2. (new) “consumer” behaviors

3. extended effects of advertising

New definition

“brand-initiated communication intent on impacting people”

Timeline

1920 - Selling in print

1950 - Paid content, mass media, persuade an audience

- Elaboration Likelihood Model

2000 - Persuasion Knowledge Model

2020 - Brand initiated communication, impacting people

- Influencer marketing

Why is influencer marketing effective?

• Include sponsorship seamlessly in their editorial content and engage their audience to interact with those contents

• Build close relationships with their followers, by exposing their private lives.

• Induce interactivity by engaging their followers and even responding to their followers’ comments.

• Are considered experts and trustworthy sources of advice.

Parasocial relationships: are socio-emotional connections that people develop with media figures such as celebrities or fictional characters.

The bright side of influencer marketing

• Can be used to stimulate behavior change for the good

• Raise awareness on social issues

• Propagate a healthy sustainable lifestyle

Perceived expertise

• Influencers specialize themselves

• Trusted sources of advise 

The dark side of influencer marketing

• Meet the demands of sponsor and followers

• Share private information

• Limited labor protection

• Limited research 

• Fit fluencers communicate idealized body images

• Children are vulnerable audiences due to limited advertising literacy

• Evoke feelings of envy

• Lack of transparency and improper disclosure

The role of disclosures

Influencer marketing - collaborations and sponsorships - are less clear than traditional advertising

Disclosures are recommended - or even required, but influencers are hesitant.

Activate persuasion knowledge