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Social Effects of Mass
Communication
Chapter 19
© 2009, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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CHAPTER OUTLINE
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Investigating Mass Communication Effects
Effects on Knowledge and Attitudes
Media Effects on Behavior: A Short History
The Impact of Televised Violence
Encouraging Prosocial Behavior
Other Behavior Effects
Research about The Social Effects of the
Internet
• Communication in the Future: Social Impact
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INVESTIGATING MASS
COMMUNICATION EFFECTS
• Focus on scientific studies
• Two methods common
– Survey
• Panel study
– Experiment
• Field experiment
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EFFECTS ON KNOWLEDGE AND
ATTITUDES
• The dividing line between knowledge and
attitudes is fuzzy. We will consider both
• We will examine several topics that have
generated the most research interest
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Media and Socialization
• Socialization is how individuals come to
adopt behaviors and values of the group
– Agencies of socialization include media
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The Media as a Primary Source
of Information
• Learning is important part of the
socialization process
– Media, especially TV, are primary information
source
• Especially politics and public opinion
– Entertainment media also provide information
• About diverse topics such as occupations, crime,
relationships, minorities, morals, etc
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Shaping Attitudes, Perceptions,
and Beliefs
• Media can play important role in
transmitting attitudes, perceptions, beliefs
– Especially in young people who are heavy
viewers of TV, when stereotypes consistently
recur, and when they have limited exposure to
alternative beliefs or other socializing agents
• Creating stereotypes
• Effects of heavy viewing
• Absence of alternative information
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Cultivation Analysis
• Heavy TV viewing cultivates perceptions of
reality consistent with the view of the world
presented on TV.
– Methodology
– Research findings
• Mainstreaming
• Resonance
– Criticisms of cultivation analysis
• Determining cause and effect
• Factors other than TV may affect people
• Wording of questions on surveys
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Children and Television
Advertising
• Given extent of children’s exposure to
advertising, most people accept that
children deserve special consideration
from advertisers, due to:
– Vulnerability of the audience
– Effects of special selling techniques
– Consumer socialization
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Agenda Setting
• When the media emphasize certain topics,
we begin to think these topics are
important
• Most agenda-setting studies examine
information-based media, especially
political campaigns and issues
• Agenda-setting research has led to
– Framing research
– Agenda-building research
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MEDIA EFFECTS ON
BEHAVIOR: A SHORT HISTORY
• 1940s research was prompted by concern
about political effects of mass media,
especially radio
• 1950s-1960s: Growth of TV shifted
concern to affects on young people
• 1970s-1980s-1990s: Concern about
affects of violent content
– 2007: FCC urged Congress to allow the
agency to regulate violent content
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THE IMPACT OF TELEVISED
VIOLENCE
• The impact of televised violence is a
complex issue, and the definitive answer
has not yet been found
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Survey Results
• Decades of surveys reveal a significant
correlation between viewing violent TV and
aggressive behavior in real life
– Correlation does not prove causality
• Panel studies have provided stronger evidence
that there is a mutual causal connection
between watching TV violence and performing
aggressive acts
– Connection is small and influenced by individual and
cultural factors
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Experimental Results: The
Catharsis Versus Stimulation
Debate
• Two rival theories on impact of media
violence
– Catharsis
– Stimulation
• Experiments support stimulation, not
catharsis
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Bandura’s Experiment
• Albert Bandura, 1960s
– Experiments with Bobo doll
– Found that film and TV might teach
aggressive behavior to children
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Complicating Factors
• Many factors can influence the outcomes
of experiments into the effects of violent
content, including:
– Experimental setting
– Participate age, gender, social class, family
history, economic background, etc
– Length and type of content viewed
– Reactions of others to the same content
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Field Experiments
• Field experiments are more naturalistic
– People react more naturally
– Harder to control for other outside influences
• Field experiment results vary but tend to
support the notion that viewing TV
violence fosters aggressive behavior
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What Can We Conclude
• A consistent thread appears
– Tentative acceptance that watching violence
on television increases aggression in at least
some viewers
– Effects are weak or small, but are not
necessarily trivial
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ENCOURAGING PROSOCIAL
BEHAVIOR
• Most media research has studied potential
negative effects of media
• Research on prosocial behavior studies
potential positive effects, including
– Cooperation, sharing, self control, helping
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Experiments
• Lab experiments have shown that film and
TV content can affect young children’s self
control, cooperation, sharing, and helping
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Surveys
• Survey data measure what TV programs
children watch, and how often they
perform prosocial acts
• A wide variety of prosocial behaviors have
been examined
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Research Results
• Research in this area is hard to interpret
– Prosocial behavior covers many areas
• Experiments indicate moderate short-term
impact of exposure to prosocial behavior
• Surveys reveal moderate impact of voluntary
exposure to prosocial programs
– Positive impact about as strong as that of the
negative impact from exposure to violence
– Altruism is most strongly-affected prosocial behavior
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OTHER BEHAVIOR EFFECTS
• Researchers have also studied other
potential effects of media exposure
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Political Behavior
• Negative advertising
• Effects of mass media on voter choice
– Conversion
– Reinforcement
– Crystallization
• Effects of televised debates
• Television and the political behavior of
politicians
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RESEARCH ABOUT THE SOCIAL
EFFECTS OF THE INTERNET
• Two trends in Internet studies
– Impact of Internet use on other media
• Greatest effect on TV usage
• Internet important as source of news
– Relationship between Internet use and social
involvement
• Contradictory results don’t yet support conclusions
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COMMUNICATION IN THE
FUTURE: SOCIAL IMPACT
• Advances in media technology usually
have an upside and a downside
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Privacy
• The widespread exchange of information
has had both positive and negative
consequences
• Personal information is uncomfortably
easy to find
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Fragmentation and Isolation
• Mass media serve needs of ever more
specialized audiences
– Directing people to ever more selective
content exposure
– Could result in smaller and smaller interest
groups
• The cocoon effect
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Escape
• People could always immerse themselves
in world of mass media, and tune out of
the real world
• New technologies have caused those
fears to resurface
– HDTV, the Internet, virtual reality, role-playing
games
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