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Lecture 1/2Valkenburg, P. M., Peter, J., & Walther, J. B. (2016). Media effects:
Theory and research. Annual review of psychology, 67, 315-338.
Introduction
- 1920s, mass communication research: research on the effects of media. This concept arose
as a response to new opportunities to reach large audience via the mass media. It also refers
to uniform consumption, uniform impacts, and anonymity.
- 1980s, mass self-communication: a form of communication as result of individualized and
personalized media. Media users select media content to serve their own needs, regardless
of whether those match the intent of the generator of the content. Mass self-
communication research focuses on the effects of media generation on the generators
themselves.
Meta-analysis of media effects
- Research on the effects of media emerged between 1920s and 1930s, but it became a
prominent focus at the end of the 1950s, after the introduction of television, and the
emergence of academic communication departments in Europe and the United States.
- Since the 1990s, a sizeable number of meta-analyses have synthesized the results of alle
empirical studies with small to moderate effect sizes.
- The discrepancies in results are less contradictory than they seem at first fight, because
there are strong individual differences in susceptibility to media effects. There are several
explanations of why media effects are limited when observed in large heterogenous groups.
Five features of media effects theories
Well-cited micro-level media effects theories:
Theory/model Description
Two-step flow theory Argues that media effects are indirect rather than direct and
established through the personal influence of opinion leaders
Knowledge gap theory Discusses how mass media can increase the gap in knowledge
between those of higher and lower socioeconomic status
Agenda-setting theory Describes how news media can influence the salience of topics on
the public agenda
Uses-and-gratifications theory Attempts to understand why and how people actively seek out
specific media to satisfy specific needs
Cultivation theory Argues that the more time people spend ‘living’ in the television
world, the more likely they are to believe the social reality
portrayed on television
Priming theory Argues that media effects depend on the preconceptions that are
already stored in human memory
Elaboration likelihood model Explains how mediated stimuli are processed (via either the
central or peripheral route) and how this processing influences
attitude formation or change
Framing / framing as a theory Discusses how the media draw attention to certain topics and
of media effects place them within a field of meaning (i.e., frame) which in turn
influences audience perceptions
Limited-capacity model Analyses how people’s limited capacity for information processing
affects their memory of, and engagement with, mediated
messages
Social cognitive theory of mass Analyses the psychological mechanisms through which symbolic
,communication communication through mass media influences human thought,
affect, and behavior
Reinforcing spiral theory Argues that factors close to one’s identity act as both a predictor
and an outcome of media use
Feature 1: Selectivity of media use
Two propositions:
- People only attend to a limited number of messages out of the constellation of messages
that can potentially attract their attentions;
- Only those messages they select have potential to influence them.
Selectivity paradigm: emerged in the 1940s as a new paradigm that aimed to show that it is more
relevant to investigate ‘what people do with media’ than ‘what media do to people’. Two theoretical
perspectives:
- Uses-and-gratifications: conceptualize media users as rational and aware of their selection
motives;
- Selective exposure theory: argues that media users are often not aware of, or at least not
fully aware of, their selection motives.
Both: individuals select media in response to their needs or desires and a variety of
psychological and social factors guide and filter this selection.
Both: media use is a precursor to consequences, named obtained gratification in uses-
and-gratification theory and media effects in selective exposure theory.
Three factors that influence selective media use:
- Dispositional factors: range from more distal and stable factors to more proximal and
transient ones.
Distal dispositions: sensation seeking and trait aggression have been linked to watching
violent, sexual and frightening media; psychoticism to attraction to horror films; need
for cognition to exposure to various mainstream types of news; and woman are more
likely to watch operas, drama, and romance and men are more likely to select sports,
horror and action-adventure.
Proximal dispositions: the evidence of effects of proximal dispositions on selective
exposure is more complex.
Cognitive dissonance theory: people predominantly avoid discomforting cognitive
dissonance caused by information that is incompatible with their existing dispositions.
- Developmental factors:
Moderate-discrepancy hypothesis: individuals typically prefer media content that is
only moderate discrepant from their age-related comprehension schemata and
experience.
Toddlers are most attract to media with a slow pace, familiar contexts and simple
characters;
Preschoolers typically choose a faster pace, more adventurous contexts, and more
sophisticated characters;
Adolescents are the most avid users of social media and seek entertainment that
presents humor based on taboos and irreverent or risky behavior;
Younger adults prefer arousing, violent and frightening media;
Middle-aged adults and older adults prefer nonarousing, meaningful and uplifting
media content.
, - Social context factors:
Social influences can occur overtly and covertly.
Selective exposure is most likely to occur when it is perceived to converge with
opinions, values and norms in the social group(s) to which media users perceive
themselves to belong.
Media offer individuals many opportunities to develop and maintain their social
identities. They can use it to learn about ingroups and outgroups.
Feature 2: Media properties as predictors
There are three types of media properties that may influence media effects:
- Modality:
The medium is the message: media affect individuals and society not by the content,
but by their modalities.
Many content and structural properties related to the presentation of information
(difficulty, repetition, prompting) turned out to be more important for learning and
information processing than modality.
Media comparison studies started to focus on the differential effects of reading on
paper versus screens for learning and information processing. Data shows small and
inconsistent differences in favor of reading on paper.
- Content properties:
Pollyanna effect: people attach more weight to negative information because such
information probably contrasts with their baseline positive reactions to social
information (danger-conveying stimuli). Other explanation: it is the human tendency to
automatically direct more attention to negative than positive stimuli.
Social cognitive theory: media depictions of rewarded behavior and attractive media
characters enhance the likelihood of media effects.
Priming theory: predicts that justified violence enhances the likelihood of aggressive
outcomes.
Transportation theory and the extended elaboration likelihood model: propose that
media messages embedded in engaging narratives lead to increased media effects and
predicts that argument strength and/or attractiveness and credibility of the source can
enhance persuasive effects.
- Structural properties:
Orienting reflex to media: research has identified structural properties of media (e.g.,
visual surprises, special effects, peculiar sounds) that can trigger an automatic and
immediate response.
Stimulus-driven or transient attention: the attentional process that is accompanied by
the orienting reflex. This type of attention contrasts with goal-directed or sustained
attention.
It is not likely that attention-driven attention causes selective exposure: after repeated
exposure, people’s attention toward it become weaker, even if the stimulus is strong
and selective exposure is primary guided by the goals and experiences of media users.
Feature 3: Media effects are indirect
The conceptualization of indirect media effects is important for two reasons:
1. Intervening variables provide important explanations for how and why media effects occur,
and therefore they can be helpful when designing prevention and intervention programs;
, 2. Ignoring indirect effects can lead to a biased estimation of effects sizes in empirical research
and thus of meta-analyses.
Media effects theories have identified three types of indirect effects:
1. Media use itself acts as an intervening variable between pre-media-use variables
(development, dispositions, and social context factors) and outcome variables.
2. The cognitive, emotional, and physiological processes that occur during and shortly after
exposure act as mediators. It has often been posited and shown that the way in which
individuals process media forms the route to media effects.
- Elaboration likelihood model: attitude change is more enduring when a message leads to a
high level of attention and elaboration (i.e., the central route).
- General aggression model: predicts indirect effects of exposure to media violence on
aggression through three response states: cognition, emotion and arousal.
- Excitation-transfer: model: residual arousal that results from media-induced sexual
excitement can intensify positive and negative feelings and behavior.
3. Postexposure variables that may themselves be dependent variables (e.g., attitudes and
beliefs) as mediators of other postexposure variables. Especially in political and health
communication, it has repeatedly been found that effects of media use on political and
health behavior are mediated by certain beliefs and attitudes.
- Recent work increasingly conceptualizes the relationship between news media and voting
behavior as indirect, mediated through various political beliefs and attitudes.
- Theory of agenda setting: agenda setting is a mediator between exposure to news and
subsequent political beliefs and attitudes.
- Theories of health communication via media campaigns: are grounded in the notion that
the more researchers know about the intervening variables between exposure to
programs and given health behavior, the better they can develop an effective campaign or
intervention to reinforce or change that behavior.
Feature 4: Media effects are conditional
- Media effects can be enhanced or reduced by individual differences and social context
variables.
- Several media effects theories recognize conditional media effects: uses-and-gratification
theory, reinforcing spiral model, the conditional model of political communication effects,
the elaboration likelihood model and the differential susceptibility to media effects model.
- Dispositional, developmental and social context factors have a double role: they not only
predict media use, but in interaction with media properties they influence the way in which
media content is processed (moderator).
- Audiences differ in their interpretations of media content and these interpretations partly
depend on gender, class, race, and age (moderator).
- Dispositions: trait aggressiveness moderates media violence effects on cognitive processing
and emotional processing; a high need for cognition has been shown to moderate message
effects on cognitive processing; trait empathy and need for affect can enhance emotional
processing when watching sad or frightening films; and bodily needs such as hunger may
significantly alter the way in which individuals perceive food products presented on a
screen.
- Disposition-content congruency hypothesis: may explain the moderating role of
dispositional variables. Dispositionally congruent media content may be processed faster
and more efficiently than incongruent content because it can be assimilated more readily to
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