Chapter 13 Mass Media Effects Orson Welles o By 1938 at age 23 Welles dramatic flair had landed him a network radio show Mercury Theater on the Air at prime time on CBS on Sunday nights o For their October 30th program Welles and his colleagues decided on a scary 1898 British novel H G Wells War of the Worlds To the surprise of Orson Welles and his crew the drama triggered widespread mayhem Researchers estimate that one out of six people who heard the program more than 1 million in all suspended disbelief and braced for the worst The effects were especially amazing considering that An announcer identified the program as fiction at four points Almost 10 times as many people were tuned to a popular comedy show on another network The program ran only one hour an impossibly short time for the sequence that began with the blastoffs on Mars included a major military battle in New Jersey and ended with New York s destruction o Unwittingly Orson Welles and his Mercury Theater crew had created an evening of infamy and raised questions about media effects to new intensity War of the Worlds Novel that inspired a radio drama that became the test bed of the media s ability to instill panic Orson Welles His radio drama cast doubt on powerful effects theory Chapter Insights Scholars today believe that the effects of mass communication generally are cumulative over time Mass messages are significant in helping children learn society s expectations Most of the effects of mass communication are difficult to measure and predict Mass communication binds large audiences culturally but also can reinforce cultural fragmentation Some notions about the effects of mass messages including subliminal messages have been overstated Scholars differ on whether media depicted violence triggers aggressive behavior Effects Theories Early mass communication scholars assumed that the mass media were so powerful that ideas and even ballot box instructions could be inserted as if by hypodermic needle into the body politic It is called the bullet theory Doubts arose in the 1940s about whether the media were that powerful and scholars began shaping their research questions on the assumption that media effects are more modest Most scholars now look to long term cumulative media effects Bullet Theory The first generation of mass communication scholars thought the mass media had a profound direct effect on people o Powerful Effects Theory Theory that media have immediate direct influence o Walter Lippmann His Public Opinion assumed powerful media effects in the 1920s Lippmann argued that we see the world not as it really is but as pictures in our heads of things we have not experienced personally but things that have been shaped by the mass media Book was a precursor to the powerful effects theory that evolved among scholars over the next few years Harold Lasswell His mass communication model assumed powerful effects o Studied World War II propaganda o Who says what In which channel To whom With what effect At their extreme powerful effects theory devotees assumed that the media could inject information ideas and even propaganda into the public consciousness o Theory was explained in terms of a hypodermic needle model or bullet model o Bullet Model Another name for the overrated powerful effects theory Early powerful effects scholars would agree that newspaper coverage and endorsements of political candidates decided elections Metaphor was hopelessly simplistic o Assumed wrongly that individuals are passive and absorb uncritically and unconditionally whatever the media spew forth o People are exposed to many many media hardly a single monolithic voice o People are not mindless uncritical blotters A remnant of now discredited perceptions that the media have powerful and immediate influence is called thirdperson effect o o Third Person Effect One person overestimating the effect of media messages on other people W P Davison Scholar who devised third person effect theory The theory can be reduced to this notion It s the other guy who can t handle it not me Davison s pioneering scholarship spawned many studies most of the conclusions can be boiled down to these Fears about negative impact are often unwarranted Blocking negative messages is often unwarranted Minimalist Effects Theory After two studies on voter behavior in 1940 and 1948 scholarly enthusiasm for the hypodermic needle model dwindled o The studies led by sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld were the first rigorous tests of media effects on elections Paul Lazarsfeld Found voters are more influenced by other people than by mass media Rather than citing particular newspapers magazines or radio stations as had been expected these people generally mentioned friends and acquaintances the media had hardly any direct effect Clearly the hypodermic needle model was off base and the powerful effects theory needed rethinking minimalist effects theory Minimalist Effects Theory Theory that media effects are mostly indirect o Includes Two Step Flow Model Status Conferral Narcoticizing Dysfunction o Two Step Flow Model Minimalist scholars devised the two step flow model to show that voters are motivated less by the mass media than by people they know personally and respect Two Step Flow Media affects individuals through opinion leaders Opinion leaders Influential friends acquaintances Includes many clergy teachers and neighborhood merchants although it is impossible to list categorically all those who are opinion leaders Opinion leaders are not necessarily in authority roles Minimalist scholars point is that personal contact is more important than media contact Two step flow model replaced the hypodermic needle model Shows that whatever effect the media have on the majority of the population is through opinion leaders Later as mass communication research became more sophisticated the two step model was expanded into a multistep flow model to capture the complex web of social relationships that affects individuals Multistep Flow Media affects individuals through complex interpersonal connections o o Status Conferral o o o Minimalist scholars acknowledge that the media create prominence for issues and people by giving them coverage Conversely media neglect relegates issues and personalities to obscurity Status Conferral Media attention enhances attention given to people subjects and issues Related to this status conferral phenomenon is agenda setting Agenda Setting Media tell people what