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Media Today, 4th Edition
Chapter Recaps and Study Guide
Chapter 4: Making Sense of Research on Media Effects and Media Culture
After studying this chapter, you will be able to:
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Identify and explain what mass media research is.
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Recognize and discuss the mainstream approaches to mass media research.
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Recognize the shift from mainstream approaches to critical approaches.
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Recognize and discuss the critical approaches to mass media research.
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Recognize and discuss the cultural studies approaches to mass media research.
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Harness your media literacy skills regarding media research and effects to
understand and evaluate the media’s presence and influence in your life.

Mass communication researchers have been grappling for decades with the
most important social issues that have involved society’s most important
media; knowledge of mass communication research traditions and discoveries
is crucial to developing media literacy.

Research is the application of a systematic method to solve a problem or
understand it better than in the past.

Mass media research, then, entails the use of systematic methods to
understand or solve problems related to the mass media. It addresses many
different topics: audiences, the success of media materials, the outcomes of
advertising campaigns, and the impact of the mass media on the relationships,
values, and ideals of society and its members.

Media research can take several approaches in examining the world and
evaluating evidence—we can distinguish between research that is empirical
and conceptual, as well as between that which is quantitative and qualitative.
o Conceptual research focuses on the perspectives or philosophies that
can be used in thinking about the media or media research. It is
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commonly used by scholars of media ethics as well as those looking at
the history of mass communication research.
Empirical research investigates and reports on concrete, observable
things or trends in the world.
Theories are bodies of knowledge that contain tested explanations
about how phenomena work.
The theory of reasoned action, which is one model that media
researchers might use, was developed by Martin Fishbein and Icek
Ajzen. This theory conceptualizes behavior intent as the most
important determinant of a person’s behavior. An individual person’s
intention to perform a behavior is a combination of his or her attitude
performing the behavior and a subjective norm—that is, the
individual’s sense of how others whom he or she cares about evaluate
the behavior.
Hypotheses are tentative predictions that provide the basis for testing
the logical consequences of a theory or set of concepts by means of
experimentation, using control groups.
Quantitative approaches involve collecting and reporting data in
numerical form.
 Surveys and questionnaires typically translate responses into
numerical categories in quantitative studies, often through
experiments and control groups.
 Often, researchers collect data from a sample, or a subset of a
specific population that is selected systematically so that data
related to the sample may be generalized to the broader
population(s) of concern.
 Content analysis is one method of quantitative analysis that
mass media researchers use; it counts aspects of media
products rather than aspects of media individuals.
o Qualitative research makes sense of an aspect of reality by showing
how different aspects of reality fit together in particular ways. It often
relies on sets of concepts, typically called frameworks, to guide
understanding.

When evaluating research, the media literate person should keep in mind that
many variables affect the quality of a study; here are six concerns that a media
literate person might have about mass communication research:
o If a study uses a sample, users of the research should consider the
nature of the sample: is it representative of the broader populations
about whom the research is drawing conclusions?
o Sample size and the way the sample is collected are also concerns.
o Did the study design ask the right questions or compare appropriate
concepts? Did the study employ leading questions?
o Is the study reliable, that is, can the results be reproduced by repeating
the conditions in the study?
o Is the analysis sound? Are the conclusions justified by the numerical
findings?
o Is the study valid, that is, does the study accurately describe the
circumstances that exist in the real world?

Mass communication research has its origins in the opening decades of the
twentieth century. Scholars were interested in two primary issues:
o The media’s role in maintaining a sense of American community.
o The media’s influence, if any, in encouraging bad behavior among
children.

In the early 1900s, groups of people from central and Eastern Europe
immigrated primarily to urban centers in the United States. Researchers
questioned whether the media could help bring immigrants in to the
mainstream of society so that they considered American values their own.

University of Chicago researchers (Robert Park, John Dewey, and Charles
Cooley) argued that it was precisely the media that allowed for a new form of
community to spring up and prevent the splintering of American society.
Media channels could unite the masses of geographically separated, diverse
individuals by exposing them to common notions and ideas. (Figure 4.1)

Other analysts working at the same time worried that the media’s power could
be harnessed for undemocratic ends.
o Some scholarly observers, including Harold Lasswell, saw the
potential of powerful interest groups in society to use the media to
spread propaganda messages that could manipulate large populations
into acting together in support of the views of those in power.
o Researchers who took a propaganda analysis approach accused
journalists of being culprits in using the media for spreading
propaganda because of their selective views of the world and limited
space in which to present them.
o George Creel’s book, How We Advertised America (1920), argued that
the U.S. propaganda effort had been very successful during World War
I.
o Upton Sinclair’s book, The Brass Check (1919), argued that
advertisers were demanding favorable newspaper coverage in
exchange for ad revenue.
o Other critics argued that big corporations were planting stories in
newspapers that were favorable to their corporate goals.
o Walter Lippmann’s book, Public Opinion (1920), claimed that the
media create the ideas of the world that people hold as reality, a
process known as agenda setting.
o Leonard Doob, Alfred McLung Lee, Ralph Casey, and George Seldes
were academics who decided to study media content, an activity they
called propaganda analysis.
o Later writers suggest that propaganda analysts took a magic bullet or
hypodermic needle approach to mass communication. This refers to
the notion that the mass media persuade all people powerfully and
directly, compelling them to accept messages without people having
any control over how they will react. (Figure 4.2)
o By the mid-1920s, many parents, social workers, and public welfare
organizations worried that the media, and specific films in particular,
were adversely affecting the behavior of youngsters.

Gradually, several studies shifted researchers away from the magic bullet
concept of media effects; these studies included:
o The Payne Fund studies employed a range of techniques to examine
the question about the impact of violent films on young people. They
found that youngsters’ reactions to movies were not uniform. Rather,
they depended on key social and psychological differences among
children.
o In the 1940s, researchers put forth a new theory claiming that social
relations, or the interactions among people, played a large part in the
way individuals interpreted media messages.
o Paul Lazarsfeld and other Columbia sociologists developed the twostep flow model of media influence. This states that media messages
are diffused in two stages: (1) media content is picked up by people
who use the media frequently; and (2) these people act as opinion
leaders when they discuss that content with others. Those others are
then influenced by the media in a way that is one step removed from
the original content. (Figure 4.3)
o Lazarsfeld and his associates developed the concept of an active
audience, meaning that people are not simply passive receivers of
media messages.
o Another outgrowth of the Columbia School research is the uses and
gratifications model, which examines how people use media products
to meet their needs and interests. This model of analysis maintains that
it is as important to know what people do with media as it is to know
what media do to people.
o Further analysis (Carl Hovland’s naturalistic experiments summarized
as “The American Soldier”) coming out of the Second World War era
showed that even materials specifically designed to persuade people
would succeed only under limited circumstances and with only certain
types of people. This area of inquiry is called limited effects research.
o Findings indicate that, under normal circumstances, where all aspects
of the communication environment could not be equal, the mass
media’s ability to change people’s attitudes and behavior on
controversial issues was minimal.

Subsequent researchers built on the work of these early communication scholars
and developed very broad areas of study often referred to as “The Mainstream
Approach.”
o Interest grew in understanding the conditions under which individuals’
opinions or behaviors could be influenced by certain types of media
content. Some of the most contentious issues in mass media research have
sprung up in this area: the effects of TV violence on children and the
impact of pornographic material on adults.
o Two components of research regarding who learns what from mass media
content stand out: whether media can facilitate children’s educational
development, and who in society learns about current affairs from the
media.
o Research on kids and the media shows that learning and linking pro-social
behavior with what is seen primarily on TV is more likely with kids aged
3–7. Older kids may have already developed their personalities to the
point that it may be hard to change them.
o By making some events and not others into major news stories, the mass
media are successful at getting large numbers of people to agree on what
topics to think about. Indeed, the press has the power to spark public
dialogue on major topics facing the nation.
o Priming is the process by which the media affect the standard that people
use to evaluate what they see and hear in the media. It specifically refers
to the impact of news coverage on the weight individuals assign to
particular issues in making political judgments.
o Agenda setting also comes in to play in affecting people’s sense of public
affairs priorities.
o Furthermore, the information rich gain more knowledge of social and
political issues earlier on than the information poor, thereby creating a
knowledge gap. (Figure 4.4)
o Researchers identified the knowledge gap as dangerous in an age where
the ability to pick up information about the latest trends was increasingly
crucial to success and full participation in society.
o Some of the most basic questions that researchers ask about mass media in
society center on who uses them, how, and why. This research holds as a
core belief that audiences are active, not passive, media consumers.
o Ongoing research on the digital divide has emerged out of these types of
questions. (Figure 4.5)

While mainstream approaches to research have laid a strong foundation for
communication research, some scholars recognize two problems with it:
o One problem is its stress on change rather than continuity. By a stress on
change over continuity, critics of mainstream research contend that so
much of it focuses on whether a change will occur as a result of media
exposure. This may ignore the possibility that the most important effects
of the media have to do not with changing people but with encouraging
them to continue certain actions or views on life. Although outlooks or
behavior may not be changed by media content, they may be reinforced by
it.
o The other problem is its emphasis on the active audience member in the
media environment and not on the power of larger social forces that
control that media environment. By focusing so much on the role of the
individual, mainstream researchers are accused of ignoring the impact of
social power. What ought to be studied, critics say, are how powerful
groups come to influence the most widespread media images in ways that
help them stay in power.

Critical theory is the term used to describe these points of departure from
mainstream media research.
o The Frankfurt School of researchers focused on the cultural aspect of
Marxism, or the belief that the direction of history would result in labor’s
overthrow of capitalism and the more equal distribution of resources in
society. Scholars wrote about the corrosive impact of capitalism on
culture, emphasizing the ability of the mass media to control people’s
worldviews.
o Political economy theorists, in contrast, focus on the link between the
economic and the cultural. They ask when and how the economic
structures of society and the media system reflect the political interests of
society’s rich and powerful. Most critical work in this area focuses on how
institutional and organizational relationships create requirements for
media firms that lead their people to create and circulate certain types of
material over others. (Figure 4.6)
o Some political economists who are concerned about the corrosive impact
of U.S. media content on other cultures study cultural colonialism, the
exercise of control over an area or people by a dominant power not so
much through force of arms as by surrounding the weaker countries with
cultural materials that reflect values and beliefs that support the interests
of the dominant power.
o Cultivation studies researchers focus less on industry relationships and
more on information about the work that people pick up from media
portrayals. It differs from mainstream research by taking the following
approach—when media systematically portray certain populations in
unfavorable ways, the ideas that mainstream audiences pick up about
those people help certain groups in society keep power over the groups
they denigrate.

Cultural studies scholars often start with the notion that all sorts of mass media
present their audiences with technologies and texts, and that audiences find
meaning in those. They examine what it means to “make meaning” of
technologies and texts, and what consequence that has for audiences in society.
o One way to tackle these issues is from an historical perspective.
o Another way to look at what technologies mean in the context of social
class and social power is to take an anthropologist’s approach to closely
examining the way people use media. Issues of race, gender, and class
positions in society often come into play.
o Others apply linguistic and literary models to the meanings of text to get at
how a person might interpret content.

Media research relates closely to media literacy. The history of mass media
research provides one with tools to figure out three key ideas a media-literate
person must know:
o Where you stand with respect to the effects of media on society.
o How to make sense of discussions and arguments about media effects.
o How to get involved in research that can be used to explore concerns you
might have about mass media.

Part of becoming media literate involves taking an informed stand on why the
media are important. New ideas on the subject are emerging constantly, and it
helps to stay current with press coverage of media developments or academic
journal articles in this area.

Five key considerations in making sense of media effects analysis are:
o Are the questions the researcher is asking interesting and important?
o Into what research tradition does the study fall?
o How good is the research design?
o How convincing is the analysis?
o What do you wish the researchers would do next in their research?

It is useful to think about what the implications of the research are for your
personal life and for public policy.
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SPECIAL NOTE: Be sure to use Table 4.1—Comparing Media Research
Theories. This table summarizes the key research efforts explained in this chapter.