Mass Media Effects
The study of mass media effects has a long and storied history that predates the existence of the communication discipline itself. Yet, its breadth and scope have made it challenging for the area to gain coherence. This chapter's goal is to review the historical
roots of media effects research and the most popular theoretical perspectives that have emerged to date. After discussing the state of the literature, including the limitationsor controversies within each tradition, we identify some .
Historical Roots Although interest in the effects of mediated messages can arguably be traced to long
before the 20th century, it was the advent of technologies allowing for mass productionand distribution of messages, electronic media in particular, that stimulated moresystematic interest in the production, content, and selection of such messages and,
of course, the effects they have on the audiences that consume them (Schramm,1997). This interest was generated from a range of academic disciplines, including journalism, sociology, political science, psychology, and advertising, that converged to
form the foundation of current academic interest in the study of mass media.First, we discuss general schools of thought that have influenced the development of the modern-day study of media effects and then turn to particular scholars whose
works raise conceptual ideas fundamental to the most widely examined media effects paradigms.
Influential Schools of Thought Four broad schools of thought have been frequently referenced in mass communication
research (see Bryant & Miron, 2004).
The Chicago school of sociology emphasized Influential Scholars As Wilbur Schramm (1997) describesin his posthumously published memoir, there are
a few notable scholars whose work may be viewed as foundational to the modern study of media effects. He begins with Harold Lasswell, a product of (and later contributorto) the Chicago school. By affiliation, Lasswell was a political scientist perhaps most
famous for his summary of the communication process as "who says what to whom through what channel and with what effect " (Lasswell, 1948). His contributions might be summarized as helping to understand how to assess media content (e.g., via more
thoughtful content analyses), propaganda (and more specifically the use and effects of symbols), and consideration of the role of mass communication in informing andsocializing audiences and influencing society's response to that information.
Paul Lazarsfeld, a sociologist in the famed Columbia Bureau of Applied Social Research, engaged in extensive audience-centered research. His interests focused on audience attention and selectivity. That is, who listens to what messages, why
they listen, and what they do with that information. In addition to his contributions inadvancing social science research, he expanded media research to consider effects of radio, film, and TV in addition to print media and interpersonal communication.
Thus, beyond looking at news and information, he opened the investigations into more Socialization Theories
Socialization theories focus on the acquisition of the norms and values of one's social group. Along with parents, peers, and schools, the media are considered one of the foremost agents of socialization. Although critical/cultural theories arguably focus extensively on issues of socialization, the most popularly cited theory in this domain is cultivation analysis, which offers a more social scientific approach to the phenomenon.Cultivation Analysis. Cultivation analysis, or cultivation theory as many now call it,
asserts that common conceptions of reality are cultivated by overall patterns of TV programming to which communities are exposed regularly over long periods of time(Gerbner, 1969; Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, Signorielli, & Shanahan, 2002). Gerbner
and his colleagues propose that compared with light TV viewers, heavy viewers aremore likely to perceive the world in ways that mirror reality as presented on TV ratherthan more objective measures of social reality. Researchers have tested and found
support for the cultivation hypothesis in a range of contexts, including racism, genderstereotypes, alienation, and so on (see Morgan & Shanahan, 1997). However, asubstantial proportion of cultivation research has focused on TV violence and its effects
on perceptions of real-world incidences of crime and victimization (see Potter, 1993, fora review). Numerous content analyses have documented that the number of violent actson American network TV greatly exceeds the amount of real-world violence. In turn,
heavy TV viewers (a) overestimate the incidence of serious crime in society (i.e., firstordereffects, or prevalence estimates) and (b) are more likely to believe that the worldis a mean place where people cannot be trusted and are just looking out for themselves