JMC 1100 1st Edition Lecture 21 Media Uses and Effects. Media and Our EmotionsMedia TodayI. Google attacks “Spoilers”a. Wants to remove unwanted spoilers from your surfingII. Greatest Show on TVa. Harkens back to Battle of Network Starsb. L.L. Cool JTodayI. How do media influence our emotions?II. Then, how do our emotions influence our media choices?What is an Emotion?I. A state of arousal; an instinctive or intuitive feeling (positive or negative)a. Physiological arousal responsible for the intensity of the emotionb. Feeling: our cognitive processing of that arousalWhy are emotions important?1. Survivala. They are instinctual, so they help us evaluate situations quickly2. Decision- Makinga. Help us understand what is right and wrong3. Communicationa. They help us navigate social situations5 basic emotionsII. We have five types of emotionsa. Happiness, Fear, Anger, Sadness, Disgustb. These emotions represent our physiological response to situationsSecondary emotionsIII. We also experience Secondary Emotionsa. Appear after primary emotions and may come from blending emotionsi. Ex: Shame, guilt, nervousness, embarrassment, giddinessEmotions in SocietyIV. Primary and Secondary emotions help us organize ourselves within our social groupsa. We learn how to behave and gain approval based on our interactionsThese notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor’s lecture. GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes, not as a substitute.How we learn EmotionsI. First, we focus on non-verbal cues from our social groupsII. Second, we rely on tone of voiceIII. Finally, the actual words said to usMedia Influence our EmotionI. Much like violent media content can influence our perceptions of the world, different types of content can influence our Emotional StateII. Throughout our lives our media…a. Trigger Emotional Reactionsb. Alter Emotionsc. Reinforce EmotionsMedia and EmotionsI. Mass media provide a continual flow of stories used by audiences to feel emotionsII. Media give us information about how different emotions should be expressedStarts an Early AgeI. Perceptual Stagea. Years 2-7b. Frightened of cartoons, fantasy characters and situationsII. Conceptual Stagea. Years 7+b. Developing logic and processing skillsc. Frightened of things that are really possibleHow Media Plays to our Emotions1. Fear Appealsa. A message that uses fear as a tactic to inform or entertain peopleb. Common method in political persuasion and social marketing2. Empathy Appealsa. Messages try to connect you to another person or situationb. Empathy is likely to occur if you have a positive view of the personInterpreting these MessagesI. Law of Apparent Reality (Frijda, 1988)II. Emotions are elicited by events appraised as real and their intensity corresponds to the degree which this is the casea. As we consume media we evaluate the level of threat vs. level of realityEmotions affecting media choiceI. Again, Mood Management Theory (Zillman, 1988)a. We choose media based on our feelingsb. Semantic Affinityi. We choose media to help our current moodc. Hedonic Valencei. We choose media purely of pleasured. Excitatory Potentiali. We choose media that arouses or calms use. Absorption Potentiali. We choose media based on our wish to “lose ourselves“What about social media?II. As offline social interactions become less frequent, how do we learn to behave3 Effects of New Media on EmotionsI. Problem 1: Emotional Atrophya. We no longer have to react to emotions in real timeb. We get lazy at reacting to emotionsc. This changes our social groups and methods of interacting with one another II. Problem 2: Harder to learn emotional cuesa. Given that face and voices are the most descriptive forms of emotioni. Social media users don’t learn to be as good at being emotionalii. Heavy online media users are less able to assess others’ emotions successfullyb. We miss the subtle, non-verbal cues through online and digital interaction III. Problem 3: Social Media is too happya. The majority of comments, photos and content on Facebook and Snapchat are positivei. Positive content is also like moreb. If you look at a world that is mostly happy, you don’t learn negative emotionsc. Facebook -‘is the happiest place on earth’i. If we don’t learn about these emotions it makes it more difficult to manage these