A BRIEF HISTORY OF MEDIA EFFECTS RESEARCH1917 – Propaganda in World War IPresident Woodrow Wilson appointed a publisher after recognizing that publishers with potential to influence public opinion – He appointed George Creel, to lead the COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION: This committee helped to advise President Woodrow Wilson on how public relations could be used to influence public opinion about the war.“It [The Committee on Public Information] engaged in public relations on a scale never before seen, using movies, public speakers, articles in newspapers and magazines and posters.”The use of WARTIME PROPAGANDA sensitized the public to the fact that mass media might be used to influence public opinion on a large scale.The 1920s – Movies Explode as Mainstream EntertainmentJust like today millions of people in the 20s went to the movies regularly for entertainment.With so many people visiting the cinema every week, it was inevitable that people would begin to think about the effects of movies on attitudes and behaviors.1929-1932 – THE PAYNE FUND STUDIESThe purpose of this study was to discover the real impact of movies on children and adolescents.The studies represent the first systematic attempt to discover media impact scientifically.A total of 13 studies were published in 10 volumes on various topics pertaining to the impact of movies.WHAT WAS THE CONTENT OF MOVIES?Researcher Edgar Dale studied 1,500 movies between 1920 and 1930 his results revealed that more than 75% of all the films he studied could be classified using only 3 of the 10 popular categories: Crime, Love, and Sex.THE EMOTIONAL IMPACT OF MOVIESIn one line of investigation, children and adults were monitored with physiological electrodes to see how they reacted to romantic or sexy content.One measure that was used in this investigation was this:GALVANIC SKIN RESPONSE – When a person has an emotional reaction to an event, the reaction is often reflected in a sweat response.The Aftermath of the Payne Fund StudiesThe Payne Fund studies played a huge role in the development of the study of media effects.Conclusions of the studies helped establish a LEGACY OF FEAR – Widespread beliefs that the media were dangerous and that the effects of media messages might pervert and upset the proper social order.EARLY THEORY OF MEDIA EFFECTS: THE MAGIC BULLET MODELMass media were indeed powerful agents for change and influenceMAGIC BULLET MODEL/HYPODERMIC NEEDLE MODEL OF MASS COMMUNICATION – According to this view, the communication of a message in a mass medium can be compared to shooting a gun that contains a magic bullet or to injecting someone with a hypodermic needle; Once the message reaches the audience, it will exert powerful, relatively uniform effects on everyone who processes it.THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE STUDY: A NICE VIEW OF MEDIA EFFECTSA team of researchers from Columbia University, set out to study “how and why people decided to vote as they did”The study took place in Erie County, Ohio, using a sample based on visitations to every fourth house in the county.They followed a main panel of 600 people throughout the campaign and interviewed them repeatedly (seven times)One of the methodological innovations of this ambitious study was the use of large CONTROL GROUPS of 600 respondents each.Why use CONTROL GROUPS?The fact that one knew ahead of time that they were likely to be interviewed again about their voting preferences and behavior might cause one to modify their behavior or answers in the next round of questions.Media Impact in the 1940 CampaignCONVERSION – changing voters from an intention to vote for one candidate to an intention to vote for the other.REINFORCEMENT – assuring voters that their current intention was worthwhile and correct.IS an important media effect, because it was important that the messages coming in over the months of certain campaigns were keeping people in the fold.THE DECATUR STUDY: THE TWO-STEP FLOW OF COMMUNICATIONTWO-STEP FLOW – Media didn’t really affect most people directly at all; instead perhaps their impact was limited to few key people – opinion leaders, who in turn influenced others through face-to-face interpersonal communication.EXPERIMENTS ON WORLD WAR ll MOVIES:During the war years the Germans produced hundreds of films that were seen regularly in movie theaters and were designed to convince people that the German war machine was invincible.The U.S. Gov’t took notice of how effectively the Germans were using film and, in response, called on Hollywood to fight back.Specifically they asked, director, “Frank Capra” to make movies that would convince audiences that the German empire was evil and that the United States needed to achieve ultimate victory in the war.The Gov’t hoped that these movies would improve peoples understanding of the facts of the war, and would change their opinions and interpretation so that they would adopt a favorable position to the United States;THE LIMITED-EFFECTS PERSPECTIVESELECTIVE EXPOSURE TO COMMUNICATION – Is when people are motivated to expose themselves voluntarily to messages with which they already agree; likewise they will tend to avoid messages that they find disagreeable.THE EVILS OF COMIC BOOKSFredric Wertham – studied a variety of young people; he was convinced on the basis of his interviews and testing that comic books played an important role in corrupting the behavior of the adolescents he studied.One claim Wertham made was that in his analysis of comic books the heroes Batman and Robin were homosexual lovers.MANY TYPES OF MEDIA EFFECTSMICRO-LEVEL EFFECTS: Involve effects on individual media consumers,MACRO-LEVEL EFFECTS: Might examine media impact on large communitiesCOMM375: CHAPTER 3 TEXTBOOK NOTESA BRIEF HISTORY OF MEDIA EFFECTS RESEARCH -1917 – Propaganda in World War IoPresident Woodrow Wilson appointed a publisher after recognizing that publishers with potential to influence public opinion – He appointed George Creel, to lead the COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION: This committee helped to advise President Woodrow Wilson on how public relations could be used to influence public opinion about the war.“It [The Committee on Public Information] engaged in public relations on a scale never before seen, using movies, public speakers, articles in newspapers and magazines and posters.”oThe use of WARTIME PROPAGANDA sensitized the public to the fact that mass media might be used to