Social Effects of Mass Communication

INVESTIGATING MASS COMMUNICATION EFFECTS
Although you can look at mass media’s effects on individuals and society in a number of ways, we’ve chosen to use the scientific method which employs two primary methods to gather information:

1. Survey The survey consists of a large group of people who answer questions put to them via a questionnaire. Although surveys can’t establish proof of cause and effect, they do help establish associations. One survey type, the panel study, sheds light on patterns of cause and effect. This study type collects data from the same people at two or more different points in time. It controls the effects of other variables to see if viewing TV violence at an early age, for example, is related to aggressive behavior later.

2. Experiment An experiment is performed in a laboratory setting and usually consists of the
controlled manipulation of a single factor to determine its impact on another factor. A variation, the field experiment, is conducted in a real-life setting. Experiments are useful because they can help establish causality.


EFFECTS ON KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDES

Media and Socialization

Socialization includes the ways in which an individual comes to adopt the behavior and values of the group; it is a complex process, extending over a number of years and involving various people and organizations. These groups, called agencies of socialization, contribute to the socialization process.

The Media as a Primary Source of Information

Learning is an important part of the socialization process, and the media (primarily TV) serves as an important source of information, if not the primary one, for a wide range of topics such as politics, crime, occupations, environment, and minorities. Entertainment media also serves as a source of information about such topics as occupations, crime, relationships, minorities, alcohol and drug abuse, morals, values, and law enforcement.

Shaping Attitudes, Perceptions, and Beliefs

The mass media also plays an important role in the transmission of attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs. In specific, TV can be an influential force with young people when:

. the same stereotyped ideas, people, or behaviors recur consistently in TV programs
. a child is heavily exposed to TV content
. a child has limited interaction with parents or other socializing agents and lacks an
alternative set of beliefs to serve as a standard against which to assess media portrayals

All this means is that, under certain conditions, TV will be an influential force in shaping what children think about certain topics.

Creating Stereotypes:
The TV world often presents images of people and lifestyles that are at odds with reality. There are many areas of reality that are stereotyped by TV such as crime and law enforcement, sex-role portrayals, the depiction of occupations, the methods of problem solving, the portrayals of scientists, and the depiction of mental illness.

The Effects of Heavy Viewing:
Research assumes, but does not necessarily prove, that the mass media plays a significant part in creating either negative or prosocial attitudes among children who are “heavy” TV viewers. Although some evidence points to the media as the cause of certain attitudes, we can’t entirely rule out other explanations. Nevertheless, it’s likely that the link between media exposure and certain attitudes demonstrates reciprocal causation.

The Absence of Alternative Information:
Although the evidence is less consistent here than in other areas, experiments suggest that under some circumstances TV can affect young people’s attitudes about matters for which their environment failed to provide first-hand experience or alternative sources of information. Where media influence is indirect, it is difficult to pinpoint a cause and effect relationship. This is particularly true when the media  operates simultaneously with other agencies of socialization and when interpersonal channels outweigh media channels in forming attitudes and opinions.

Cultivation Analysis

Cultivation analysis suggests that heavy TV viewing “cultivates” perceptions of reality consistent with the view of the world presented in TV programs. Cultivation analysis concentrates on the long-term effects of exposure rather than the short-term impact on attitudes and opinions.

Methodology: The first stage is a careful study of TV content to identify predominant themes and messages. Not surprisingly, TV portrays a rather idiosyncratic world that is unlike reality in many dimensions. Step two examines what, if anything, viewers absorb from heavy exposure to the world of television. Study respondents are given questionnaires about our society where each question has two answers: the real world answer and the TV world answer. If heavy viewers show a tendency to choose TV answers, we might have evidence that a cultivation effect is occurring.
Research Findings: How strong is the evidence? Most findings suggest that among some people, TV cultivated distorted perceptions of the real world. Other studies show that cultivation isn’t limited just to children, and other studies show that content other than crime and violence might also evoke a cultivation effect. Although the results of cultivation-analysis studies are intriguing, its conclusions can be clouded by three problems:

1. It’s difficult to determine cause and effect.

2. People differ in ways other than in their TV habits: as such, factors other than TV watching
might affect the differences in perceptions and attitudes between heavy and light viewers.

Two other observations come out of this area:

(a) a phenomena called mainstreaming, whereby differences apparently due to cultural and social factors tend to diminish among heavy TV watchers; and

(b) resonance, a situation in which a respondent’s real life experiences parallel those of the TV world, thereby leading to a greater cultivation effect.

3. Technical decisions about the way TV viewing and attitudes are measured can have a
significant impact on findings, such as the precise wording of the questions.

Recent research suggests that

(a) the cultivation effect is stronger when a particular kind type of TV viewing is measured (e.g., soap operas and adventure series) as opposed to overall TV viewing, and

(b) you must take into account the context of the TV portrayals viewed. In 2007 media scholars reviewed more than 5,600 cultivation analysis studies and findings collected over two decades.

In it, they reported that the cultivation effect is indeed real for many people.

Children and Television Advertising

A typical American child sees about 40,000 TV commercials every year, mostly for toys, cereals, candies, and fast-food restaurants. So it’s not surprising that by the early 1980s, most people accepted the idea that children deserve special consideration from advertisers for the following reasons:

. Children are a vulnerable audience and should not be exploited by TV advertising

. Children, especially young ones, might be easily deceived by TV advertising techniques

. Long-term effects of exposure to TV ads might have a negative effect on a child’s
socialization as a future consumer

A Vulnerable Audience: Research hints that younger children (5 to 8 years old) are able to identify commercials, but they have difficulty separating ads from the rest of the program and have little idea as to the purpose behind them. Older children (9 to 12 years old) are better able to differentiate the ads from the rest of the program and have little trouble distinguishing between the purpose of the ad and a program. In 1974, partly as a result of these findings, broadcasters started using a separation device between the programs, typically a message five to ten seconds long. As before, younger children under five still had trouble distinguishing ad from program content.

Effects of Special Selling Techniques: It’s obvious that toys and other products designed for children can be made to look more appealing through the use of special camera angles, lenses, advertising copy, sound effects, animation, and special lighting techniques. However, the effects of these techniques on children is unclear. In short, exaggerated claims lead to exaggerated expectations and almost always end with exaggerated disappointments. As such, guidelines for toy ads now state that audio and video techniques should not misrepresent the appearance and performance of toys and that disclaimers should be used when batteries are needed, assembly is necessary, or accessory items show in the ad are not included.

Consumer Socialization: Consumer socialization includes all those processes by which children learn behaviors and attitudes relevant to their future behavior as consumers. For example, we do know:

1. as kids get older, they tend to distrust commercials and even become cynical about them

2. exposure to TV commercials is not related to consumer skills, such as price or product value comparisons

3. some studies suggest a link between heavy exposure to ads and the personal endorsement of materialistic values, equating money and possessions as being necessary for happiness

Agenda Setting

By saying the media has an impact on agenda setting, we mean that they have the ability to choose and emphasize certain topics, which can cause the public to perceive these issues as important. Or, as one author put it, “the media may not always be successful in telling people what to think, but they usually are successful in telling people what to think about.” Generally most agenda-setting studies examine information-based media, with much of the research revolving around political campaigns and issues. The research to date suggests:

. cause and effect relationships are still unclear
. the results can hinge on the medium being studied
. topic covered can influence agenda setting (concrete topics do better than abstract ones)
. a person’s experience with the topic will influence the results

The agenda-setting effect can also be influenced by other factors, such as a person’s interest in the topic, experience with the topic, age, education, and political involvement.

Agenda-setting research, now over 30 years old, has two general fields of study:

. framing the way a news topic is treated by the media. This research posits that
not only do the media tell us what to think about, they also tell us how to think about it by the way the story is framed

. agenda building examines how the media build their agenda of newsworthy items. Some
factors that seem to have an impact include presidential press conferences, congressional hearings, and special-interest PR efforts

Television and Cognitive Skills

Studies on what, if anything, heavy TV viewing does to a child’s IQ level are so far inconclusive. Some of the research done on the relationship between reading and TV viewing suggests that the relationship was influenced by such factors as age, the type of TV content watched, social class, and parental attitudes toward reading. Although TV has been linked to decreased intellectual performance, its effects are complicated and its impact is relatively light. On the other hand, the hours that youngsters invest in watching TV don’t seem to pay off in better academic skills.