MEP 203 CONTEMPORARY MEDIA THEORY

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MEP 203 CONTEMPORARY MEDIA THEORY

• 2. BEHAVIOURISM / MODERNITY

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Behaviourist approaches

• Direct effects (the stimulusresponse model)
• Social cognitive theories
• Cultivation and agenda setting
• Limited effects (the active audience model)
• Media and modernity (NOTE a different
  perspective)

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Direct effects

• Media stimulus audience response
• Werthams (1955) five psychological effects of
  media targeted at children (esp. crime comics and
  TV) passivity, misconceptions of reality,
  imitation, identification and desensitization
• Audience assumed to be isolated individuals
• Laboratory methods used in psychological research
  are problematic (see Gauntlett 1995)
  artificial, can only measure short-term
  responses/effects, neglect social influences on
  respondents behaviour

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Social cognitive theories

• Social learning / modelling theory (Bandura)
  media provide sources of observational learning,
  esp. for kids, as evident from the BoBo doll
  experiment (?)
• Priming the process of mental association
  between mediated and personal experience (e.g.
  when music makes us recall memories)

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Cultivation and agenda setting

• Cultivation theory is based on levels of
  reception to TV in particular
• Content and survey analysis deployed
• Heavy viewers are likely to change their values
  and beliefs with increased exposure to
  representations of violence
• TV causes Mean World syndrome
• Agenda-setting theory argues that the news agenda
  affects the public agenda
• Prominent news and views become important to
  peoples everyday opinions and actions

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Limited effects

• Two-step flow model (Katz and Lazarsfeld 1955)
  media messages flow to opinion leaders, who
  mediate these messages to other individuals
• Uses and gratifications theory individual needs
  generate expectations of media the media in
  turn gratify these needs (needs precede effects)

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Media and modernity

• The 2nd IR occurs in USA c.1870 electricity,
  mass production, mass consumption, advertising,
  cinema, automobile, radio
• Modernists (e.g. the Leavises) promote a minority
  culture (educated elite) to counter the threat of
  cheap mass culture on the individual personality
• Individual character becoming other-directed
  mass media serve as tutors (Riesman 1961 290)
  instead of parents, teachers, etc.

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Conclusions

• Behaviourist theories of media effects are
  diverse and draw on different methods and modes
  of analysis
• Long history of theory/debate continues today
  eg, Sigman (2005) links ADHD to children who
  watch TV indiscriminately
• But evidence to prove effects remains
  inconclusive e.g. role-play CVGs re visual
  impairments, relation to US gun/sniper culture