Media Uses and Effects

Effects
Effects mean different things to different people. A psychologist, for example, has psychological effects in mind when talking about media effects. The political scientist political effect and so on. So any attempt to understand effects must necessarily take into account from whose perspective the effect are being investigated.

Mass Media/Communication Effects The effects of media are explained with some proven research. Reinforcement: Limited Effects Theory Catharsis and Narcosis Incidental Effects Uses and Gratification Cultivation or Cultural Theory Technological Effects McLuhans Perspective Reflex Effects:

Reinforcement: Limited Effects Theory

Reinforcement theory is a limited effects media model applicable within the realm of communication. The theory generally states that people seek out and remember information that provides cognitive support for their preexisting attitudes and beliefs.

 The assumption that guides this theory is that people/human do not like to be wrong and often feel uncomfortable when their beliefs are challenged. Politics provides an excellent setting for the study of reinforcement theory. The statistics on undecided voters indicate that most people have pre-existing beliefs when it comes to politics. Relatively few people remain undecided late into high-profile elections.

 The reason why undecided voters are frequent message targets can be found in reinforcement theory. Reinforcement theory predicts that people with already developed opinions will selectively attend to and cognitively incorporate information that supports their own views. Reinforcement theory has three primary mechanisms behind it: selective exposure, selective perception and selective retention.

Catharsis and Narcosis

Catharsis

Closely related to narcosis theory, is the catharsis theory of media effectsSeymour Feshbach He argued that media may have cathartic effect on people that somehow purges them of many anti-social and unfulfilled desires, frustrations and feelings of hostility.

Narcosis
Theorists argue that media have narcotizing dysfunction that distracts audiences from real problems and in fact prevents their doing anything about them. The mass media have a drug-like addictive effect, lulling audiences into positivist and a sense of elation.

Incidental Effects
Aldous Huxley took the stand that media indeed do teach people things But most of them are of no consequence; they also have effects, but mostly in unimportant and trivial facets of our lives although we may think that they are important.

Uses and Gratification

The theory places more focus on the consumer, or audience, instead of the actual message itself by asking what people do with media rather than what media does to people It assumes members of the audience are not passive but take an active role in interpreting and integrating media into their own lives.

 The theory also holds audiences responsible for choosing media to meet its needs. The approach suggests that people use the media to fulfil specific gratifications. This theory would then imply that the media compete against other information sources for the viewers gratification.

 There are three main paradigms in media effects: hypodermic needle (i.e., direct, or strong effects), limited effects, and the powerful to limited effects. "Uses and Gratifications" falls under the second paradigm which reached its apex around 1940-1960, when studies helped realize that the first paradigm was inaccurate.

Cultivation Theory
Television is responsible for shaping, or cultivating viewers conceptions of social reality. George Gerbner, began the 'Cultural Indicators' research project in the mid-1960s, to study whether and how watching television may influence viewers' ideas of what the everyday world is like. Cultivation research is in the 'effects' tradition. Cultivation theorists argue that television has long-term effects which are small, gradual, indirect but cumulative and significant.

 He states that combined effect of massive television exposure by viewers over time subtly shapes the perception of social reality for individuals and, ultimately, for our culture as a whole. Gerbner argues that the mass media cultivate attitudes and values which are already present in a culture. There is also a distinction between two groups of television viewers: the heavy viewers and the light viewers

 The focus is on heavy viewers. People who watch a lot of television are likely to be more influenced by the ways in which the world is framed by television programs. Light viewers may have more sources of information than heavy viewers, especially regarding topics of which the viewer has little first-hand experience. Cultivation research looks at the mass media as a socializing agent and investigates whether television viewers come to believe the television version of reality the more they watch it.

Technological Effects
The medium is the message is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived. He proposes that media itself, not the content it carries, should be the focus of study.

 He said that a medium affects the society in which it plays a role not only by the content delivered over the medium, but also by the characteristics of the medium itself.

Reflex Effects
A rather different kind of effect on which no theory has yet been built is the impact of media among and within themselves. Mass communicators are known to review each others work, and reporters carefully go through rival papers, and switch on to news programmers on the air. It is no surprise; therefore, that copycatting in content and form has become a common phenomenon.