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AMITY SCHOOL of COMMUNICATION BJMC 2nd SEM

UNDERSTANDING MASS COMMUNICATION

MR. ANKIT KASHYAP

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Four Eras of

Mass Communication

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Four eras in mass communication theories

• Era of mass society theory (1850-1940)

• Era of scientific perspective on mass media (1940-1950)

• Era of limited effects (1950-60s)

• Era of cultural criticism (1960s-1980s)

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Era of mass society theory 1850-1940

• Mass Communication theories begins with a review of some of the earliest notions about media. These ideas were initially developed in the later half of the 19th century as new media technologies were invented and popularized. Although some theorists were optimistic about new technology, most were extremely pessimistic (Brantlinger, 1983). They blamed new industrial technology for disrupting peaceful, rural communities and forcing people to live in urban areas merely to serve as a convenient workforce in large factories, mines or bureaucracies.

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Theorists were fearful of cities because of their crime,

cultural diversity, and unstable political systems. For

many social thinkers, mass media symbolized

everything that was wrong with the 19th century urban

life. The dominant perspective that emerged during

this period is referred to as mass society theory. It

began as a collection of contradictory notions – some

quite radical, others quite reactionary.

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In general mass society ideas held strong appeal for any

social elites whose power was threatened by change.

Media industries such as ‘penny press’ were a

convenient for elites’ criticism. The media of the time

were easily attacked as symptomatic of a sick society –

a society that needed to either return to old values or be

forced to adopt a set of totally new values.

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In time, the leaders of the Industrial Revolution gained enormousinfluence over social change. They strongly favored all forms ofTechnological Development, including mass media.In their view technology was inherently good as it facilitated controlover the physical environment, expanded human productivity andgenerated new forms of material wealth.New technology would bring an end to social problems and lead tothe development of an Ideal social world.But in the short term, industrialization brought with it enormousproblems – exploitation of workers, pollution and social unrest.

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Today, the fallacies of both the critics of technology and itsadvocates are readily apparent. Mass society notions greatly exaggerated the ability of media toquickly undermine social order. These ideas failed to considerthat media’s power ultimately resides in the freely chosen usesthat audiences make of it.Technology advocates were also misguided and failed toacknowledge the many unnecessary, damaging consequences thatresulted from applying technology without adequatelyconsidering the impact.

Name of InstitutionImportant Theories

• Bullet Theory

• Propaganda Theory

Name of InstitutionBullet Theory

• Also called as hypodermic needle theory• It holds that an intend message is directly

received and completely accepted by listener. It assumes that the media’s message is a bullet fired from the “media gun” into viewer’s head.

• Receivers are passive and defenseless • Media have direct, immediate and poerful

effect to those who pay attention.

Name of InstitutionPropaganda Theory

• Media propagates any idea with direct impact on the mass society.

• Audience here was also passive and defenseless

• The ideas used to propagate at that time were highly influenced by the politics.

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Era of scientific perspective on mass media (1940-1950)

During the 1930’s, world events seemed to continually confirmthe truth of mass society ideas. In Europe, reactionary andrevolutionary political movements used media in their strugglesfor political power.German Nazis introduced propaganda techniques that ruthlesslyexploited the power of new media technology like motionpictures and radio. All across Europe, totalitarian leaders like Hitler, Stalin andMussolini rose to political power and were able to exerciseseemingly total control over vast populations.

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Private ownership of media, especially broadcastmedia, was replaced by direct government control inmost European nations. The purpose was to use mediafor the service of the society. But the unintendedoutcome in most cases was to place enormous power inthe hands of ruthless leaders who were convinced thatthey personally embodied what was best for all theircitizens. Exception was BBC, an independent publiccorporation.

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At the very peak of their popularity, mass society

notions came under attack from Lazarsfeld,(1941), an

Austrian researcher and scientist. He argued that it

wasn’t enough to merely speculate about the influence

of media on society. Instead he proposed conducting

carefully designed, elaborate field experiments in which

he would be able to observe media influence and

measure its magnitude.

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It was not enough to assume that political propaganda is powerful – hard evidence was needed to prove the existence of such effects (Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet, 1944). Lazersfeld’s most famous efforts, the “Voter Studies”, actually began as an attempt to demonstrate the media’s power, yet they proved, at least to him and his colleagues, just the opposite.

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By the early 1950s, Lazerfeld’s work had generated anenormous amount of data based on which he concludedthat media were not nearly as powerful as had beenpreviously imagined.Instead, he found that people had numerous ways ofresisting media influence and were influenced by manycompeting factors. Rather than serving as a disruptivesocial force, media seemed to reinforce existing socialtrends and strengthen the status quo.

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He found little evidence to support the worst

fears of mass society theorists. Though

Lazarsfeld never labeled his theory, it is now

referred to as the Limited-effects perspective.

These views media as playing a very limited role

in the lives of individuals and larger society.

Name of InstitutionImportant Theories

• Two Step flow theory

• Lasswell’s Model

• Persuasion Theory

• Limited Effect Theory

Name of InstitutionTwo-Step Flow Theory

• Flow of information takes place in two steps. First from Mass Media to opinion leaders and then from opinion leaders to the mass society.

• Media are not so powerful because there are resistance to their messages. Resistance is based on psychological individual traits & crucial role is played by

• Opinion Leaders • Social Context

Name of InstitutionPersuasion Theory

• Subtle change in the attitude of the receiver.

• Any form of persuasive communication changes the attitude of the receiver. Attitude on the other hand changes the behavior .

Name of InstitutionLasswell’s Model

• It is a five step process.

• Who says (Source)

• What (Message)

• In which channel (Media)

• To Whom (Receiver)

• With What effect (Feedback)

Name of InstitutionLimited Effects Theory

• Explained in Slide No- 4-7. Refer to Previous slides.

• Basically, Paul Lazersfeld experiment on Voting Behaviour. He explained that the role of media in deciding the voting behavior is limited.

• 3 steps followed by him are…

• Contd…..

Name of Institution3 Steps by Lazersfeld

• 1. Activate floating voters to take a decision

• 2. Reinforce the preference in convinced voters.

• 3. Convert convinced voters to switch their preference.

• Conclusion- He concluded that media had some kind of influence only at step 2.

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Era of limited effects (1950-60s)

During the 1950s, limited-effects notions about media

continued to gain acceptance within academia. Several

important clashes occurred between their adherents and

those who supported mass society ideas (Bauer and

Bauer, 1960).

In 1960, several classic studies of media effects provided

apparently definitive support for the limited-effects

notions.

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By 1961, V.O. Key had published Public Opinion and American

Democracy, a theoretical and methodological tour de force that

integrated limited-effects notions with social and political theory to

create a perspective that is now known as elite pluralism. This

theory views society as a number of interlocking pluralistic groups

led by opinion leaders who rely on media for information about

politics and social world.

Advocates of mass society notions came under increasing attack as

“unscientific” or “irrational” because they questioned “hard

scientific findings”.

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By the mid-1960s, the debate between mass society and limited

-effects notions appeared to be over – at least within the mass

communication research community.

The body of empirical research findings continued to grow, and

almost all these findings were consistent with the latter view.

Little or empirical research supported mass society theory. This

was not surprising because most empirical researchers trained at

this time were warned against its fallacies.

Name of InstitutionImportant Theories

• Play Theory

• Uses & Gratification Theory

• Agenda Setting Theory

• Dependency Theory

• Dissonance Theory

Name of InstitutionPlay Theory

• Given by William Stephenson• First function of media is to provide entertainment• He said that one should be subjective and

psychological rather than being objective and sociological

• 2 points to explain play theory..• A) Maximize the communication pleasure in this

world• B) Show the extent of autonomy achievable from

an individual respect to the social control by his socio-cultural system.

Name of InstitutionUses & Gratification Theory

• “What the media do to the people, to what the people do with the media”

• USES- It assumes that audiences are active and willingly expose themselves to the media

• GRATIFICATION- It refers to the rewards & satisfaction by audience after the use of media.

Name of InstitutionAgenda Setting Theory

• Given by Maxwell Mc Combs & Don Shaw• It states that media have the ability to advise or tell

audiences what issues are major & relevant, thus setting the agenda. They can achieve this by choosing what stories to consider newsworthy and how much prominence and space they give them.

• Key Features• 1. The role of mass media, particularly news media is

to provide filtered information in order to create a distorted view of reality.

• 2. Media focus on certain issues depicting them as more important than others because they want the public opinion to perceive them as more important.

Name of InstitutionDependency Theory

• Integral relationship between audience, media & larger social system

• Learning from experiences in real life is limited

• Audience depend largely on media to gather information they need

• Prolonged use of media triggers a dependence

Name of InstitutionDissonance Theory

• When confronted by new/conflicting information, people experiences a kind of mental discomfort.

• The level of dissonance is decided by 3 factors…

• A. Selective Exposure

• B. Selective Perception

• C. Selective Retention

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Era of cultural criticism (1960s-1980s)Though most mass communication researchers in the United States found limited-effects notions and empirical research findings on which they were based persuasive, researchers in other parts of the world were less convinced. Mass society notions continued to flourish in Europe, where both left-wing and right-wing concerns about the power of media were deeply rooted in World War II experiences with propaganda. Europeans were also skeptical about the power of scientific, quantitative social research methods to verify and develop social theory (they saw them as reductionist – reducing complex communication processes and social phenomena to little more than narrow propositions generated from small-scale investigations). This reductionism was widely viewed as a distinctly American fetish. Some European academics were resentful of the influence enjoyed by American after World War II. They argued that American empiricism was both simplistic and intellectually sterile. Although some European academics welcomed and championed American ideas, other strongly resisted them and argued for maintaining approaches considered less biased or more traditionally European.

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One group of European social theorists who vehemently resisted postwar U.S. influence was the neo-Marxists (Hall,1982). These left-wing social theorists believe that media enable dominant social elites to maintain their power. Media provide the elite with a convenient, subtle, yet highly effective means of promoting worldviews favorable to their interests. Mass media can be viewed, they argue as a public arena in which cultural battles are fought and a dominant or hegemonic culture is forged. Elites dominate these struggles because they start with important advantages. Opposition is marginalized, and the status quo is presented as the only logical, rational way of structuring society. Within neo-Marxist theory, efforts to examine media institutions and interpret media content came to have high priority.

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During the 1970s, questions about the possibility of powerful media effects were again raised within U.S. universities.Initially, these questions were often advanced by scholars in the humanities who were unrestrained by the limited effects perspective and untrained in the scientific method. Their arguments were routinely ignored and marginalized by social scientists because they were unsupported by “scientific evidence.”

Some of these scholars were attracted to European-style cultural criticism. Others attempted to create an “authentic” American school of cultural studies – though they drew heavily on Canadian scholars like Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan (Carey, 1977).

This cultural criticism, although initially greeted with considerable skepticism by “mainstream” effects researchers, gradually established itself as a credible and valuable alternative to limited-effects notions.

Name of InstitutionCultivation Theory

• The Cultivation Theory is a mass communication theory that suggests a shaping - cultivating -  cumulative long-term effect of TV media on the social reality of viewers.

Origin of Cultivation Theory

• The Cultivation Theory has been developed by professor George Gerbner from Annenberg School of Communications of Philadelphia, US, in 1967-1974. He was conducting research called “Cultural Indicators Program” about the impact of violence broadcasted in TV programs on individuals.

Name of InstitutionCultivation Theory

• His early hypothesis aimed to demonstrate that a massive use of media leads to an increase in acceptance of violence and in the engagement of cruel behaviors. Gerbner started considering TV as a new social agent competing with traditional ones such as family, school, church and peer groups. Analyzing TV programs, especially fictions, he divided audiences in 3 groups:

• Low Users, those who watch TV less than 2 hours a day.

• Normal Users, those who watch TV from 2 to 6 hours a day.

• Heavy Users, those who watch TV for more than 6 hours a day.