Overview of Theories presented in Media Effects text

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• Overview of Theories presented in Media Effects
  text

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Magic Bullet Theory

• Also known at the Hypodermic Needle Theory
• Postulated that the mass media has a direct,
  immediate and powerful effect on a passive mass
  audience.
• The audience was viewed as being connected to the
  media, but not to each other.

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Uses and Gratifications Theory

• Focus is on the consumer, the audience member,
  rather than the message.
• Assumes that the person is an active selector of
  media communication (as opposed to a passive
  receiver).
• Explores the active persons behavior in terms of
  his direct experience with the media.
• Does not assume a direct relationship between
  messages and effects, but postulates instead that
  members of the audience put messages to use, and
  that such usages act as intervening variables in
  the process of effect.

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Agenda-Setting Theory

• Promoted strongly by Walter Lippman, a foremost
  American journalist.
• The idea that media have the potential for
  structuring issues for the public.
• Lippman argues that the public responds not to
  actual events in the environment but to a
  pseudoenvironment (the pictures in our heads)
  that are put their by the media.

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Adoption of Innovation Theory

• Originally proposed by Everett Rogers
• The idea that the decision to adopt a certain
  innovation is a 5 stage mental process.
• Knowledge - exposure and some understanding
• Persuasion - formation of an attitude
• Decision - activity to adopt or reject
• Implementation - putting into use
• Confirmation - reinforcement or reversal of
  decision
• Rogers also specified 5 adapter categories per
  their rate of adoption of an innovation.
• Innovators - venturesome, eager to try new ideas
• Early adopters - respectable, high degree of
  leadership
• Early majority - deliberate, but seldom leaders
• Late majority - skeptical, adopt for economic
  necessity
• Laggards - traditionalists, past point of
  reference

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Two-Step Flow Diffusion of Information Theory

• Evolved out of the Magic Bullet theory when it
  was found not to be accurate.
• Postulates that information flows from the media
  to opinion leaders, and from them to less
  involved members of society (the followers).
• Has evolved into a multi-step flow model
• Postulates that information that flows in a
  culture or group actually is filtered or passed
  through a series of opinion leaders before
  reaching all segments of the group or culture.

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Limited and Selective Influences Theory

• Evolved out of the findings that the influences
  of mass communication were quite limited effects
  were weak not powerful.
• Was found that different kinds of people selected
  different kinds of content from the media and
  interpreted it in different ways.

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Modeling Theory

• The idea that television and movies present
  models of people acting out patterns of
  behavior.
• Peoples (childrens) behavior can be a result of
  having seen it in the media.
• Similar to Social Learning Theory
• Originally formulated by Albert Bandura.
• Provides explanations of the acquisition of
  behavior by seeing it performed by someone else.
• Not necessarily from the media.

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Social Expectations Theory

• Postulates that TV and movies provide training in
  the norms, roles and other components of living
  in society.
• Includes the idea that every human group has
  rules (customs and expectations) that must be
  followed.
• However, it is impossible for any single person
  to learn all the rules for all the groups and
  social activities.
• Thus, TV and movies fill the role of training.

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Meaning Theory of Media Portrayals

• Postulates that through words, language, stories,
  images, etc. certain situations, lessons in
  meaning, social implications, relationships, etc.
  can be experienced secondhand.
• i.e. can be experienced through media
  portrayals

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Cultivation Theory

• Based on work by George Gerbner
• Deals with the an important effect of TV called
  cultivation.
• Television is believed to be a homogenizing agent
  in culture great common experience for everyone.
• Thus, it has the effect of providing a shared way
  of viewing the world.
• Gerbners research showed that people who are
  heavy viewers of television see the world as a
  more violent and fearful place because of the
  high levels of violence shown on TV.