A first look at communication theory
Chapter 28 Uses and Gratifications
We make daily choices to consume different types of media. Elihu Katz thought studying all of those
media choices was so important that it could save the entire field of communication. A study of
Berelson showed that media didn’t do anything to change people’s attitudes. Berelson reasoned that
if media weren’t persuasive, the field of communication would wither away. Katz introduced a
different logic. Instead of asking ‘what do media do to people?’ Katz flipped the question around to
ask ‘what do people do with media?’. Katz theory is valuable because it encourages scholars to think
about mass communication in an different way. The theory attempts to make sense of the fact that
people consume a dizzying array of media messages for all sorts of reasons, and that the effect of a
given message is unlikely to be the same for everyone. Th driving mechanism of the theory is need
gratification.
There are 5 key assumptions that underlie uses and grats:
1) People use media for their own particular purposes.
2) People seek to gratify needs
3) Media compete for our attention and time
4) Media affect different people differently
5) People can accurately report their media use and motivation
A typology of uses and gratifications
What are the reasons people give for their media consumption? Alan Rubin claims that his typology
of 8 motivations can account for most explanations people give for why they watch tv.
1) Passing time
2) Companionship
3) Escape
4) Enjoyment
5) Social interaction
6) Relaxation
7) Information
8) Excitement
Rubin claims that his typology captures most of the explanations people give. There may well be
others.
Parasocial relationships: using media to have a fantasy friend
According to Rubin, a parasocial relationship is basically a sense of friendship or emotional
attachment that develops between TV viewers and media personalities. Studies that use parasocial
relationships to make predictions about media effects provide a start for esponding to one of the
main critiscisms of the uses & grats perspective- that is focuses on description instead of prediction.
Beyond tv: uses & grats in the age of new media
SHyam Sundar believes technologies such as social media challenge the notion that people use media
to satisfy needs that arise from within themselves. Instead, he suggests that media technology itself
can create gratification opportunities that people then seek. Whether or not Sundar is right that
gratifications may arise from technology rather than ourselves, it seems that the gratification
possibilities that emerge with new media aren’t quite the same as the ones formulated when tv ruled
the mass media world.
Critique: heavy on descriptions and light on prediction?
,One criticism of uses and grats is that its major contribution is a descriptive typology of media uses
and gratifications. For some, the emphasis on description rather than explanation and prediction is
one of the theory’s weak spots. Jiyeon So notes that uses and gratifications theory was never
intended to be merely descriptive: it was originally designed to offer specific predictions about media
effects. She explains that the theory can be used to predict different media effects by first
understanding why people are consuming a particular media message. If other researchers follow her
lead, it could set a new course for future research on the theory.
How well does uses and grats measure up against the other criteria mentioned in chapter 3? The
propositions seem relative simple. Scholars continue to question the extent to which people can
accurately report the reasons for their media use. At least one aspect of the theory’s testability is
jeopardized.
To their credit, uses and grats scholars aren’t content to simply double down on the premise that
media audiences are uniformly active and making conscious choices. Rubin modified uses and grats
by claiming that activity is actually a variable in the theory.
It also fits the practical utility. Because you might think uses and grats as raising your own personal
consciousness about the media you consume and the reasons you consume them.
Chapter 29: cultivation theory
George Gerbner claimed that because tv contains so much violence, people who spend the most
time in front of the tv develop an exaggerated belief in a mean and scary world.
Gerbner was convinced that tv’s power comes from the symbolic content of the real-life drama
shown hour after hour, week after week.
Tv dominates the environment of symbols, telling most of the stories, most of the time. Gerbner
claimed that people now watch tv as they might attend church. Gerbner wrote that violence ‘is the
simplest and cheapest dramatic means to demonstrate who wins in the game of life and the rules by
which the game is played. Gerbner was more concerned that it affects viewers beliefs about the
world around them and the feelings connected to those beliefs. For almost two decades he
spearheaded an extensive research program that monitored the level of violence on tv, classified
people according to how much tv they watch, and compiled measures of how viewers perceive the
world around them. Gerbner’s cultivation explanation of his research findings remains one of the
most popular yet controversial theories of mass communication. Each of the three prongs is
associated with a particular type of analysis that Gerbner considers a critical component in
understanding the effects of tv on its viewers.
1) Institutional process analysis; the first prong of the plug represents scholars’ concern for the
reasons why media companies produce the messages they do.
2) Message system analysis; if tv cultivates perceptions of social reality among viewers, it
becomes essential to know exactly what messages tv transmits. The only way to know for
sure is to undertake careful systematic study of tv content- message system analysis.
- Gerbner defined dramatic violence as ‘the overt expression of physical force compelling
action against one’s will on pain of being hurt and/or killed or threatened to be so
victimized as part of the plot. He also counted auto crashes and natural disasters. The
annual index I both remarkably stable and alarmingly high.
- Old people and children are harmed at a much greater rate than are young or middle-
aged adults. In the pecking order of ‘victimage’, African Americans and Hispanics are
killed or beaten more than their Caucasian counterparts. Gerbner noted that it’s risky to
be nonwhite. It’s also dangerous to be female. And finally, blue-collar workers ‘get in the
neck’ more often than do white-collar executives.
3) Cultivation analysis; most devotees of cultivation theory subscribe to the notion that
message system analysis is a prerequisite to the third prong of the plug: cultivation analysis.
It’s important to recognize the difference between the two. Message system analysis deals
with the content of tv; cultivation analysis deals with how tv’s content might affect viewers-
particularly the viewers who spend lots of time glued to the tube.
,Cultivation works like a magnetic or gravitational field
Michael Morgan and his co-authors point out that the cultivation process is much more like the pull
of a gravitational field. In the same way, although the magnitude of tv’s influence is not the same for
every viewer, all are affected by it.
L. J. Shrum offers insight into the ‘black box’ of the mind so we can better understand how watching
tv affects judgements of the world around us. He relies on the accessibility principle in explaining tv’s
cultivating impact. This principle states that when people make judgements about the world around
them, they rely on the smallest bits of information that come to mind most quickly- the information
that is most accessible. The two main propositions that guided his thinking about cultivation were
mainstreaming and resonance.
Mainstreaming: blurring, blending and bending of attitudes
Mainstreaming is Gerbner’s term to describe the process of ‘blurring, blending and bending’ that
those with heavy viewing habits undergo. He thought that though constant exposure tot the same
images and labels, heavy viewers develop similar perspectives in a way that doesn’t happen with
radio. Instead of narrowcasting their programs, tv producers broadcast in that they seek to ‘attract
the largest possible audience by celebrating the moderation of the mainstream.’ Tv homogenizes its
audience so that those with heavy viewing habits share the same orientations, perspectives and
meanings with each other. Gerbner reported that traditional differences diminish among those with
heavy viewing habits. It’s as if the light from the tv washes out any sharp features that would set
them apart.
The tv is distinctly skewed to the right.
Resonance: the tv world looks like my worlds, so it must be true
Gerbner thought the cultivating power of tv’s messages would be especially strong over viewers who
perceived that the world depicted on tv was a world very much like their own. He thought of these
viewers as ones who get a ‘double dose’ of the same message.
Research on cultivation analysis
Cultivation takes time. Gerbner viewed the process as one that unfolds gradually through the steady
accumulation of tv’s messages. That’s why the strategy for performing cultivation analysis relies on
surveys instead of experiments. He labeled, due to surveys, heavy viewers as those who watch four
hours or more. He also referred to the heavy viewers as the tv type, a more benign term then couch
potato.
The major findings of cultivation analysis
Gerbner’s surveys have revealed some provocative findings:
1) Positive correlation between tv viewing and fear of criminal victimization.
2) Perceived activity of police
3) General mistrust of people; Gerbner called this cynical mindset the mean world syndrome.
Critique: how strong is the evidence in favor of the theory?
The most daunting issue to haunt cultivation research is how to clearly establish the causal claim that
heavy tv viewing leads a person to perceive the world as mean and scary. Because cultivation
researchers shun the experimental method infavor of the survey, they are stuck with a method that
is incapable of establishing clear evidence of causality. Critics are quick to point out that the
correlation between tv viewing and fear of criminal victimization can be interpreted plausibly In more
than one way. Longitudinal studies can help determine which of the two variables comes before the
,other. But there is no time for that. This state of affairs causes some critics to give cultivation theory
low marks on the criterion of testability.
Another possibility is that the relationship between tv and fear of crime isn’t existing at all.
Scholars have another reservation about the evidence: cultivation effects tend to be statistically
small. On the other hand, champions of the theory point out that tiny statistical effects can be
crucial.
Critics contend that Gerbner’s original assumption that tv viewers are constantly exposed to the
same images and labels is no longer true. If the theory is to continue to exert influence, many critics
maintain that it will have to adapt to the new media environment.
Chapter 25; Media Ecology
Media ecologists study media environments. They seek to understand how people interact with
media and how those interactions shape our culture and our daily experiences. Marshall McLuhan’s
theory suggests that media should be understood ecologically. Changes in technology alter the
symbolic environment, the socially constructed, sensory world of meanings that in turn shapes our
perceptions, experiences, attitudes, and behavior.
The medium is the message
McLuhan’s theory of media ecology is best captured in his famous aphorism “the medium is the
message.” This pithy statement is meant to upset our expectations. We’re accustomed tot thinking
that people change because of the messages they consume. The whole field of persuasion revolves
around message content. McLuhan wanted us to see that media-regardless of content-reshape
human experience and exert far more change in our world than the sum total of the messages they
contain. He was convinced that when we consider the cultural influence of media, we are usually
misled by the illusion of content. We focus on the content ad overlook the medium-even though
content doesn’t exist outside of the way it’s mediated.
The challenge of media ecology
Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media
work as environments. But evaluating the ecology of media is a difficult enterprise because all
environments are inherently intangible and interrelated.
Invisibility of environments
McLuhan’s theory of media differs from the traditional warnings against technological advances.
According to McLuhan, it’s not technological abnormality that demands our attention. It’s hard not
to notice what’s new and different. Instead, we need to focus on our everyday experience of
technology. A medium shapes us because we partake of it over and over until it becomes an
extension of ourselves. The ordinariness of media is what makes them invisible. When anew medium
enters society, there’s a period of time in which we’re aware of its novelty. But when it fades into the
background of our lives we become vulnerable to its patterns-its environmental influence.
Complexity of environments
In contrast, research on media ecology is rather sparse because it takes up the challenge of trying to
understand the interplay between all of these things in a culture that changes at blazing speed.
McLuhan believed it took a special ability to stand back from the action and take in the big picture.
One way McLuhan tried to gain a broader perspective was by stepping outside the moment and
considering all of human history. He found it helpful to trace the major ecological shifts in media over
thousands of years. That grand historical perspective is the foundation of McLuhan’s theory.
A media analysis of human history
McLuhan was critical of social observers who analyzed the Western world but bypassed the effects of
symbolic environments, be they oral, print, or electronic. He specifically accused modern scholars of
, being ‘ostrichlike’ in refusing to acknowledge the revolutionary impact of electronic media on the
sensory experience of contemporary society. McLuhan divided all human history into four
periods/epochs:
1. The Tribal Age: An Acoustic Place in History; McLuhan claimed that ‘primitive’ people led
richer and more complex lives than their literate descendants because the ear, unlike the
eye, encourages a more holistic sense of the world.
2. The age of literacy: a visual point of view; turning sounds into visible objects radically altered
the symbolic environment. Suddenly, the eye became the heir apparent. Hearing diminished
in value and quality. McLuhan also claimed that the phonetic alphabet established the line as
the organizing principle in life. When oppressed people learned to read, they became
independent thinkers.
3. The print age: prototype of the industrial revolution; if the phonetic alphabet made visual
dependence possible, the printing press made it widespread. Concurring with this new sense
of unification was a countering sense of separation and aloneness.
4. The electronic age: the rise of the global village; McLuhan insisted that electronic media are
retribalizing the human race. Instant communication has returned us to a pre-alphabetic oral
tradition where sound and touch are more important than sight. What we feel is more
important than what we think.
5. The digital age? A wireless global village; instead of mass consciousness, which McLuhan
viewed rather favorably, we have the emergence of a tribal warfare mentality.
For example Twitter. First, the 140-character limit demands simplicity. Second, Twitter
promotes impulsivity. Finally, Twitter fosters incivility. The lack of formality and intimacy
encourages negative zingers that demean others.
A source of inspiration for McLuhan’s ideas: His catholic faith
It’s widely known that McLuhan’s ideas were informed by the work of Canadian professor of
economic history Harold Innis. But many McLuhan scholars are also quick to note the impact of two
Jesuit priests on his thinking: Walter Ong and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. That’s why it’s surprising
that McLuhan rarely discussed his faith in the context of his theory or voiced ethical judgments on
the cultural effects of media technology.
‘Though he never discussed it, his faith forms the intellectual backdrop to all his mature work… His
role as a thinker was not to celebrate or denigrate the world, but simply to understand it.
Ethical reflection: postman’s Faustian bargain
Like McLuhan, Postman believed that the forms of media regulate and even dictate what kind of
content the form of a given medium can carry. But unlike McLuhan, Postman believed that the
primary task of media ecology is to make moral judgments. His media ecology is to make moral
judgements. His media ecology approach asks, what are the moral implications of this bargain? Are
the consequences more humanistic or antihumanistic? Do we, as a society, gain more than we lose,
or do we lose more than we gain?
As for tv, Postman argued that society lost more than it gained. He believed whatever advantages tv
offers are more than offset by the fact that it has led to the loss of serious public discourse. But,
similar to Sherry Turkle, Postman feared that virtual interaction may sabotage the kind of intimacy
that only comes by being in the physical presence of others. Have we gained more than we’ve lost?
Critique: how could McLuhan be right? But what if he is?
McLuhan’s theory suggests objectivity without scientific evidence. In other words, he used an
interpretive approach to make objective claims, but his theory fails to meet most of the standard
criteria used to assess either type of theory.
For readers who desire a scientific theory, McLuhan does offer an explanation of the way different
media engage our different senses of sound, sight and touch. But this is after the fact analysis rather
than specific predictions of future cultural change. Indeed, it’s hard to know how empirical press
