Econ 101 1st Edition Exam 3 Study Guide Lectures 26 36 Magic bullet perspective 2 major studies Payne Fund and Cantril Magic Bullet Perspective this perspective maintains that media has direct powerful effects on people and is able to incite emotions and actions The PAYNE FUND Series of studies to examine the effects of movies on young people nickelodeon s 1 Finding o Children learn from movies whereas it is only 50 60 of what adults learn o children accept the information in the movies as correct unless it is flagrantly incorrect 2 Finding o More movie consumption poor deportment poor school work not studying going outside 3 Finding o Influences attitudes toward groups ethnic social birth of a nation made African Americans look shitty FUCKmED UP 4 Finding o Children imitate movies while playing o Ex Batman The lost boys 5 Finding o Adolescents imitate in fashion and romance Summary o Movies can have powerful effects Studies were actually a bit more sophisticated but interpretations of the studies emphasized direct uniform effects Cantril Studies Done Hadley Cantril Princeton psychologist Why were some people terrified by the WAR OF THE WORLDS broadcast others not News reports interviews Radio at that time had breaks in the news bulletin form Was aired elsewhere and bad things happened i e Buffalo Quito Ecuador 4 Responses o 1 Listened to the events described concluded it was a play fake o 2 Checked other information concluded it was a play real o 3 Checked other information continued to believe the broadcast found proof that it wasn t true but still believed it o 4 Made no attempt to check other information freaked the fuck out o Summary Summary o 1 Media had a strong direct effect but only on some audience members o 2 For some the effect was powerful and multi sensory o 3 Individuals backgrounds and experiences informed how they interpreted the mes3usage whether they believed it Military background knew the situation would have been handled differently if it was real o 4 Individuals actions in response to the media affected how they interpreted it War of the Worlds broadcast the event and its significance Event On radio came after theatres In 30s hits its stride in our home Invasion of private sphere with strangers October 30th Orson Welles at age 23 adapts H G Wells War of Worlds novel about the Invasion of Martians Set up as breaking news bulletins within a regular popular show Context Development of radio breaking into programs with news People were extremely upset and seen as deceptive People wanted regulation by FCC People thought the broadcast was real because few knew it was fictional There was a warning at the beginning but many tuned in late because there were at a different show Hindenburg explosion of 1937 made people fearful of events like this happening also Hitler was already annexing countries Austria Sudetenland so people were worried Hitler was really behind this Broadcast the month after breaking news bulletins became widespread due to state of conflict in Europe Similar things happened in Santiago Chile Quito Ecuador and Buffalo According to the NPR clip the mass panic may have been some historical revisionism by the newspaper industry to discredit the new medium of radio Two step flow perspective Two step flow perspective argues something different from magic bullet Rather than a mass of atomized disconnected individuals that could be manipulated by mass media society is a rich fabric and people to some extent deliberate over media messages Media exchange happens in a social context where opinion leaders act as intermediaries for their followers o minimal effects paradigm o Mass communication is not direct or uniform it does not operate directly on each individual o Communication happens in a social context and that context mediates its effects 2 studies Opinion leaders Idea of social context mediating media messages effects o Opinion leaders are the step in the 2 step flow most attentive to media are respected within their communities and are influential are part of the social structure neighbors relatives etc o Study 1 People s Choice 1940 presidential election interviewed 2400 voters in Ohio from May October o o o o o o findings people cite their personal contacts their friends messages flow through opinion leaders who are these opinion leaders they are representative of the community at whole Study 2 Personal Influence tried to decide if personal influence or media influence is more important went to Decatur IL and interviewed 800 women hair beauty movies findings communications flow through social contexts families opinions are not individual they are social group interactions help you form your opinions of the world opinion leadership is multifaceted tends to be elite in the subject Conclusion for cleaning products and household stuff it was the older women opinion leaders but for pop media it was the younger people that were opinion leaders Personal Influence is more important Critical theory Frankfurt school and historical context importance of power in this perspective Social Context wondered why nazi s were being so successful and how media can affect the culture holocaust originates from Frankfurt 1920 s 33 Heavily influenced by Marxism 3 major puzzles don t really need to know why did working classes not revolt in the West rise of Nazism in highly developed society commercialism of media in the Frankfurt s response to the puzzles media is one means of production that produces culture culture is made up of values beliefs myths common sense that is inherently political ties into how media is represented and how we resist media culture tells what one does believe in and what one is against So if you are for something you are on one side and if it is not in your culture you are against it Makes sense of everyday life and explains why things should be one way and not another way media has the power to legitimize some processes systems people delegitimize other mass media is a form of power and its contents ultimate intent is often to reproduce existing power structures Cultural Studies Stuart Hall Representation Resistance o Stuart Hall was Jamaican born in 1932 informed by Frankfurt school recognized that messages are created within a society people are producers and consumers of culture o Representation to depict represent which gives meaning to the things depicted messages have the power to assign new meaning to people or cultural objects
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