2 0 T H C E N T U R Y M E D I A

E F F E C T S R E S E A R C H

C H . 1 7 P R O C E S S E S A N D M O D E L S O F M E D I A E F F E C T S

C H . 1 8 P R O C E S S A N D M O D E L S O F M E D I A

E F F E C T S

• McQuail Point 1

• McQuail Point 2

T W E N T I E T H

C E N T U R Y

M E D I A E F F E C T S

R E S E A R C H

M C D O N A L D , D . G .

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D A N I E L M C D O N A L DA U T H O R

•Concentrated on social aspects of the audience, including a narrow area of research referred to as intra

P S Y C H O L O G I C A L A N D S O C I A L

A S P E C T S O F M A S S

C O M M U N I C A T I O N , I N T R A -

A U D I E N C E E F F E C T S . D R .

M C D O N A L D I S D I R E C T O R O F T H E

S C H O O L O F C O M M U N I C A T I O N .

Professor and Director, Ohio State University

G I T L E N ' S Q U E S T I O N

• Scholars have long tried to classify media effects,

• Authors draw historical picture of media effects in the

21st century in the united states

• Mass media can affect knowledge, attitudes, opinions

and behavior of individuals

• Effects can be long lasting or short in nature as quick

reactions Content can lead to an effect

P I O N E E R

P H A S E• Field of social psychology was emerging at the crossroads between

sociology and psychology

• A few pioneering psychologists, sociologists and social psychologists

wrote about the impact that new media were having on audiences and

on society

• This effect is based on the idea that the media provide an interaction

with symbols or signs rather than with the objects or people those signs

or symbols represent.

• Several other researchers at the time were concerned with the effects of

motion pictures primary concentrated on the effects of children.

Motion Pictures

and

Radio Networks

• Motion Picture Research Council set out to determine what effect

motion pictures had on children.

• They obtained a grant from the Payne Fund - an organization that

has a history of interest in children and media.

• Payne study found that children and adults to learn from motion

pictures - they could often remember what they learned.

Documented effects like the ‘sleeper effect’

• Demostranted that high levels of movie attendance were

associated with declining morals, delinquent behavior, lower

intelligence and a number of other factors, the researchers faced a

question:

T H E P A Y N E F U N D

S T U D I E S

Hovland et al.’s (1949) were attempting to uncover

general principles related to the construction of

messages.

Specifically, on gauging the effects of media programs on

soldiers knowledge, opinions and attitudes.

Paul Lazarfeld - role of mass communications in modern

society in the late 1930’s - role of media and personal

decision making Lazarfeld’s methods and conclusions

were very different from Hovland

W O R L D W A R I I - C O M M A N D E F F E C T S

R E S E A R C H

1950’s brought PhD’s in communication led to many more studies of media effects during the 1950s

Many changes starting taking place in communications research. The sea change in communication research. The effects of mass communication, described a shift from hyperdermic effect

W. PhilIps Davison (1959) suggested that the audience was not a passive recipient of communication but an active, selective part

Late 1960s cognitive psychology began to provide raw material for advances in mass communication effects research.

Media effects research began to abandon the question of whether media had effects to attempt to specify the mechanism by which this effects were achieved.

violence connection during the late 1980s and 1990s provided additional clues to the nature of the relationships and the boundary conditions operating in the connection between content and behavior.

Two broad areas may dominate media effects research - issues of communication and reality and further exploration of the black box, or how audience members understand reality

Agree or disagree?

“The truly revolutionary significance of

modern mass communication is…the ability

to form historically new bases for collective

thought and action quickly, continuously

and pervasively across the previous

boundaries of time, space and status.”

After the Furgeson

events from last evening,

do you think media

effects contributed to the

events?

Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shaprio

• Government relations of news media ownership

• Quantitative and qualitative look at media slant

through keywords and phrases

• Proposed new index of idealogical slant in news

coverage

W H A T D R I V E S M E D I A

S L A N T ?

S L A N T I N D E X

• Slant index measures the frequency with which

newspapers use language that would tend to

sway readers to the right or to the let on political

issues

• Focused on newspapers news content and not

opinion

• Zip code level data on newspaper circulation

Methods

• Computed the total number of times that each

phrase appeared in newspaper headlines and

article text in the ProQuest Newstand database

from 2000 to 2005

pld = placement democrat plr = placement reublican

Findings

•Variation in slant across newspapers is strongly

related to the political makeup of their potential

readers and thus to our estimated profit-maximizing

•Approach to measuring slant requires data on the

frequency with which individual members of

Congress use particular phrases

•we find much less evidence for a role of newspaper

owners in determining slant.

Findings

•We wish to stress three important caveats,

however. First, our measure of slant is a broad

aggregate that includes coverage of many

different topics over a reasonably long window

of time. finding that ownership is not an

important driver of content diver- sity does not

imply that the market produces the optimal

level of diversity.

Question

Do you feel that your local newspaper is slanted

toward a particular political affiliation?