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Media Theory 1 Lecture Notes
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Lecture notes of 49 pages for the course Media Theory 1 at RuG (-)
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Media Theory 1: Mediatization and EffectWeek 1, Lecture 1, 07-02-2023
By Claudia Minchilli
Learning overview
Develop an understanding of how media impact ourselves and society as a whole
- Socio-psychological approaches
- Cultural approaches
Use this knowledge in a mindful and meaningful way in daily life
Week 1: introduction to the course unit and the topic of media effect
Week 2: the historical development of theories and models of media effect
Week 3: examples of media effect theories
Week 4: cultural approaches to the social impact of media
Week 5: institutional approaches to the societal impact of media: media logic
Week 6: mediatization theory
Week 7: doing mediatization research + course review
Group paper = 40%
Digital exam = 60%
This week
We will talk about the characteristics, types and functions of media effects.
Why should we study media effects?
At an individual level, it is very important to understand media effects because then we can
understand what is happening in our minds. But there are also institutional and social levels
that are important to study.
in February 2020, I was living in Utrecht, and I was doing my PHD there. At the end of that
month, we started to talk about what then would be COVID-19. I am Italian, and slowly all
media started discussing this pandemic, and it was actually frightening. The northern region
of Italy was blocked and became the ‘red zone’, a lot of people were coming from the south of
Italy and were studying in the north. There was a fear that COVID would reach the southern
region because people were moving back. The kind of information that I had, was mostly
through social media. I was not experiencing it firsthand, the only way that I was experiencing
was continuously through media. The emotional experience, the anxiety, but also the decision
of moving back to Italy were all fueled by the media.
let's imagine another thing. What would have happened if we would experience continuous
lockdowns? What would have happened to our social lives?
This was the opening of a moment where two elements, the most important effect of the
mediated message, where we were continuously exposed to media messages and stimuli. This
has an impact on us. it has an impact on the world we live in.
,Media influence is pervasive and constant:
77% of Europeans watch TV every day or almost every day
90% of EU individuals aged between 16 and 74 years used the internet at least once
within the three months prior to the survey date
15,6 million active social media users in the Netherlands
In 2022, the internet was used to communicate with others, sending/receiving e-
mails (77%), instant messaging (72%), finding information about goods and services
(70%), telephoning or video calls (66%)
Imagine that in 1976, quite a long time ago, Gerbner and Gross said something about
television and the pervasiveness that TV already had back in the day. ‘Television is the first
centralized and cultural influence to permeate both the initial and final years of life as well as
the years between. Most infants are exposed to television long before reading. By the time a
child reaches school, television will have occupied more time than would be spent in a college
classroom. At the other end of the lifelong curriculum, television is there to keep the elderly
company when all else falls.’
With what effect?
We know that media are pervasive, and their presence is constant, but with what effect?
‘Americans who mainly get their news on social media are less engaged, less knowledgeable’,
and ‘exposure to opposing views on social media can increase political polarization’.
When we think about the media effect, we usually think about the negative effect that media
can have on us. do you think that media can have only negative effects on us?
No, we can also find community through social media for example. But there is also a neutral
effect; the fact that media have certain messages that are neutral does not really change our
behavior. Does that mean that there is no effect at all? Think about how the advertisement is
working, is it only working to make you buy something? Generally, yes, but what does
buying mean?
How do media effects differ?
Different approaches to the study of the human brain’s functioning. How the human brain is
function is essential for us to understand what kind of effect we are exposed to and why that
effect is actually working on us. media effect theorists come from very different fields of
studying, so the process of understanding how the human brain functions can differ. Let’s say
that generally speaking, there are two main streams of thought: the scholars who see the
functioning of the human brain as an automatic machine, and those who actually highlight the
interpretative level and functioning of our brain.
Those who actually think of the human brain as a processing machine, they think that the
message arrives in our brain, where we have a set of internalized codes, that makes us receive
the message in the exact way I was meant to receive it. on the other hand, there are scholars
who see the human brain functioning as interpretive, thereby they say that we see things in the
message that we receive maybe differently than it might be meant. We might make sense of it,
possibly, in a very different way.
,The truth is in the middle, it is true that we share certain meanings. It is also true that we
interpret information ourselves. Without the same meanings communication would not be
possible, but we are at the same time free to do with the information what we want to.
When are we physically exposed to a message? We need to be in the same room, in order to
be exposed to the very same message.
The perceptual exposure concerns our sensory organs, so we might not be exposed to the very
same messaged. We could have more developed senses than others, or we might have an
impairment. That makes us receive the message in a different way
Psychological exposure happens when the message leaves a trace in our brains. But, actually,
we are folly exposed to media, so we reach what is cold the attention to media, only when
those three levels are fully present. So only when we are exposed to all three levels. Now, we
are exposed to the message. What is happening in terms of how we process that message?
The first level is filtering, Let's imagine that when we are living our everyday life, we are
exposed to a multiplicity of stimuli. It is impossible for us to be exposed to all the possible
stimuli, so we filter some out. There is some sort of choice in there. We cannot be overloaded
by stimuli.
Then there is the level of meaning-matching, so we are receiving the message and there is
some sort of matching process of something that we have already internalized in our brain.
Think about when you are starting to learn to talk. When we have all the information there
and we have decoded the information in the message and we are able to make connections
between different things and are thereby able to make meaning, then we are meaning-making.
Algorithmic thinking explains precisely this dynamic. It is the explanation of how this process
works. We have all these codes internalized, we receive the message, and through the
connection of the concepts that we have we are thinking algorithmically ?????
Automatic processing vs interpretation
Media exposure (physical, perceptual, psychological) and attention to media
Information processing (filtering, meaning-matching, meaning-making)
Algorithmic thinking
What is a media effect?
‘Media-influenced effects are those things that occur as a result- either in part or in whole-
from media influence ‘ (Potter)
What is potter saying here? What is a media effect? Why is this a result? Either in part or in
whole? It is true that in the process of coding and decoding a certain message and also a
certain effect that media can have on us it is not necessarily a media effect. It is not uni-
directional, it can involve multiple other elements.
Characteristics of media effects
, There are 8 main characteristics, with characteristics I mean how scholars have differentiated
the different typologies of media effects of how they might occur.
1. Timing: Is the effect immediate? Or is it long-term? Let’s imagine for example a
certain piece of news that causes us an emotional reaction, which can be immediate.
Or for example, listening to a love song that we were listening to with a loved one
who has now passed away.
2. Duration: how long does it last? Is it temporary? Or is it permanent? Let’s imagine
that we have watched a documentary of meat production, which has led us to now
become vegan. Or on the contrary when we buy a certain product after seeing an
advertisement
3. Valence: does the effect bring up negative or positive effects? Does it cause for
example the emergence of violent and aggressive acts? Or does it cause us to
become more affectionate with each other?
4. Change: does it bring us to change something in our behavior? Or does it not change
at all? Again, when we think about no difference in our behavior does not mean that
there is no effect
5. Intention vs non-intention: the message that we received had an effect that was
intentional from the person that send the message or what is not intentional? For
example Instagram celebrities. Kim Kardashian decides to publish certain Instagram
stories about her new brand in a collaboration with Gucci, there is an intentional aim
in this act, to make people buy Gucci. But let’s imagine instead that she is just
publishing Instagram stories where she shows a lamp that she just bought, which
there was no intention of influencing, but the outcome was that people were buying
that table because she showed it in her stories
6. Direct vs indirect: is the effect direct or indirect? It is straightforward and
unambiguous, or does it work with other mediators? For example, you need some
new sneakers and the algorithm exposes you to an advertisement of Nike. But when
you are watching a movie at the cinema and a particular character is wearing a type
of shoes, which you like and search for on the internet and then decide to buy
7. Manifestation: is the effect observable? Or is it latent? For example, Nikki Tutorials
decides to go to the Rijksmuseum, and in the following week the museum sees an
increase in selling their tickets to the younger visitors. This is an observable effect.
8. ??? laptop
What is media-effect?
Media-influenced effects are those things that occur as a result, either in part or in the whole
of media influence. They can occur immediately during exposure to a media message, or they
can take a long time. They can last for a few seconds, or an entire lifetime, they can be
positive as well as negative. They can show up clearly as changes, but they can also reinforce
existing patterns, in which case the effect appears as no change. They can occur whether the
media have an intention for them to occur or not. They can affect individual people or all the
people in the public. They can also affect institutions and society. They can act directly on a
target, or they can act indirectly. And, finally, they can be easily observable, or they can be
latent and therefore much more difficult to observe.
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