Ch 10 Internet 04 15 2014 Internet WWW Trends New technology utopia v dystopia Utopia o McLuhan s global village new technology might bring us closer together through discussion o Virtual democracy people truly being involved in government o Access to information is empowering Dystopia o Issues with access digital divide access is not universal divide between technology haves and have nots o Technology gap information gap 1st Amendment issues Citizen journalists as the 4th estate truthfulness credibility Freedom of expression hate speech children s access to porn User generated content happy slapping attacking people for viral videos Privacy issues Privacy of communication e mail privacy anything on state supported system is public e g FSU e mail social media Privacy of information dataveillance surveillance of personal data to project what a consumer s next purchase might be Opt in Opt out consumer decides when the information collecting stops Net neutrality all information on the Internet is equally accessible nothing is given priority as created by scientists Since the Internet was taken over by corporations this concept has become a cable companies want to charge individual HH more than others for using more bandwidth Supreme Court ruled that the FCC does not have the right to regulate the Internet or enforce net neutrality Copyright intellectual property Digital natives people who have never known a world without the Internet Ch 13 Media Effects 04 15 2014 Effects Debate Do media affect individuals society And is that bad Common misconceptions about the media It is not real and people know that it is not real It is only play entertainment It is just a reflection of society not a change agent in it It only reinforces existing beliefs values If it impacts anything they are just trivial things like They are not a matter of opinion but a subject of social science fads fashion Media effects research The is really o In what ways o How much relative to other factors o Under what conditions o With what consequences o Why should we worry about this Scientific study of media effects 3 types of possible effects 1 Cognitive 2 Emotional 3 Behavioral There is no single theory of effects Social scientific theory of effects o hard v soft science social soft science deals with people Early window media give children a window on the world before they have the critical intellectual ability to judge what they see Willingly suspend disbelief willingly accept as real what is put before us Micro level personal level media have few direct effects at this level Macro level cultural level hidden impact of media Administrative research asks s about the immediate observable influence of mass comm direct causes effects Critical research asking larger s about what kind of nation we are building what kind of people we are becoming more significant Transmissional perspective sees media as senders of information for the purpose of control either media have effects on our behavior or Ritual perspective views media not as a means of transmitting messages in space but as central to the maintenance of society in cultural s they do not time Defining Mass Communication Theory Mass comm theories explanations predictions of social phenomena that attempt to relate mass comm to various aspects of our personal cultural lives or social systems Cultivation analysis people s ideas of themselves their world and their place in it are shaped maintained primarily through TV Attitude change theory explains how people s attitudes are formed shaped changed and how those attitudes influence behavior Middle range theories explain predict specific limited aspects of the mass comm process Ideas of mass comm theory 1 There is no one mass comm theory 2 They are often borrowed from other fields of science 3 They are human constructions 4 They are dynamic undergo frequent recasting acceptance and rejection History Earliest studies looked at behavior 1920s when motion pictures emerged Payne Fund studies 1960s specific effects assumed Behavioral cognitive Media violence Increased social interest in late 1960s Assumption was that viewing media violence increased aggression Catharsis watching violence in the media reduces people s innate aggressive drive deflated by social cognitive theory Social cognitive theory of mass comm explains how we can learn behaviors by watching others perform them in media o Modeling learning through imitation and identification in order to model you must pay attention retain the information be physically capable of the behavior and be motivated to perform the behavior Imitation direct replication of observed behavior Identification special form of imitation in which observers do not copy exactly what they have seen but make a more generalized but related response Imitation and identification are products of 3 processes 1 Observational learning observers acquire new behaviors simply by seeing them performed 2 Inhibitory effects seeing a model punished for a behavior reduces the likelihood that the observer will perform it 3 Disinhibitory effects seeing a model rewarded for prohibited threatening behavior increases the likelihood that the observer will perform it o Consensus we can learn violent behavior through media but we are motivated to not perform those behaviors due to moral code punishment etc 4 major eras of mass comm theory 1 Era of Mass Society Theory Media needed to be controlled to prevent abuses of power like Mass society theory media are corrupting influences that undermine social order and average people are defenseless Hypodermic needle theory magic bullet theory media are a dangerous drug killing force against which average people the Nazis against them are defenseless Grand theory designed to describe explain all aspects of a given phenomenon 2 Era of the Limited Effects Perspective Halloween 1938 The War of the Worlds Limited effects theories media s influence is limited by people s individual differences social categories and personal relationships 2 step flow theory media s influence on people s behavior is limited by opinion leaders people who initially consume media content interpret it in light of their own values beliefs and pass it on to opinion followers who have less frequent contact with media Dissonance theory when confronted by new or conflicting information people experience a kind of mental discomfort Selective attention people expose themselves to only those messages
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