Vilmantė Liubinienė

10. Media Effects

Vilmantė Liubinienė
vilmante.liubiniene@ktu.lt

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 Why Study Media Effects

The purpose is to move you beyond the obvious

1. Get you to see the “big picture” of media effects
• Constructed from scientific studies
• More facets and more interesting
2. Big picture of media effects emphasizes three trends
• Media message saturation
• Growing challenge of coping
• Growth of knowledge in media effects

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 Media Message Saturation

Culture saturated with information

1. Much information is from media
2. Access to information on internet
• High degree of exposure
• People spend much time with media
• Increase driven by young people using
electronic media
3. High computer use

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Media Message Saturation

Accelerating production of information

• More than 6 million scientific articles
published yearly
• Increase in artists, musicians, authors
with messages
• Biggest drivers–social networking,
digital television, and cameras used by
hobbyists and in surveillance

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 Media Message Saturation

Challenge of coping
1. Mind uses “automatic pilot” to filter out most
message options
• Automatic processing of information (called
automaticity by psychologists)
• Operates without conscious effort
• Performs mundane tasks efficiently, e.g.,
brushing teeth
2. Sometimes something in message triggers our
conscious attention, e.g., favorite song

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Media Message Saturation

3. Disadvantages of automaticity
• May miss useful or enjoyable
messages
• Might not have programmed all
triggers needed to get the most out of
automatic processing
• Might lose the opportunity to expand
experiences and make better

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Influence: Pervasive and Constant

Media exert continual influence

unconsciously due to our automatic
processing
Who programs our automatic routines?
1. We have programmed some
2. Parents, society
3. Institutions
4. Media

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Influence: Pervasive and Constant

Most influences are subtle and shape

our mental codes unconsciously
1. Especially true with media effects
• So much exposure to media
• Our habits—turning on television, radio,
computer
2. Advertisers constantly program how we think
about ourselves
• Products to smell, feel, look better

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Influence: Pervasive and Constant

Media constantly programming,

reprogramming our mental codes
1. Adding information; stimulating
responses
2. Altering our existing information
structures
3. Reinforcing certain patterns of
thinking and acting
4. Exerting influence whether we are
aware or not

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Influence: Pervasive and Constant

Media influence is constant

1. Purchasing decisions shaped by “shopping
code”
2. Much of the “code” is shaped by
advertisers
• “Code” is received from all types of media
• Been receiving it all your life

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Huge Knowledge Base About Media
Effects

Scholars generated large number of

research studies
1. About 6,200 studies by communication
scholars
2. May be more than 10,000 studies in all
fields

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Nature of Audience Members

Human mind as a machine

1. Efficient, makes sense of all stimuli
encountered
2. Mind similar to powerful information
processor
Interpretive beings
1. Continually create meanings for
themselves
2. Have wide variety of opinions,
experiences, etc.
3. Can reject common meanings

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Media Exposure

Exposure and attention

1. Physical exposure--proximity of person in
time and space to message
2. Perceptual exposure
• Able to see and hear sensory input
• Connection between input and brain
processing
• Stimuli outside human’s ability to sense
or perceive (subliminal)—non-exposure
• Stimuli sensed and perceived—exposure;
not all exposure is conscious (sub-
conscious)
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Media Exposure

3. Psychological exposure
• Sound, emotion, pattern, image, etc.
element created in mind
• Can last briefly or a lifetime
• Can enter mind consciously (central
route) or unconsciously (peripheral route)
4. Attention
• Person must have physical, perceptual
and psychological exposures
• Conscious awareness of media message

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Media Exposure

Exposure states
1. Attentional state
• Conscious of being exposed to media message
• Attention can range from minimal to extensive
processing
2. Automatic state
• Not consciously aware of message
• Continually exposed to message
though not paying attention
• Element captures attention, e.g., favorite song
played on radio
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Media Exposure
3. Transported state
• Drawn into experience of message
• Lose touch with time and place
• May experience action, intense emotions of movie
• Lose track of real world environment
4. Self-reflexive state
• Hyper-aware of message and how processing it
• Reflection: why am I watching this?
• Analyzing media message
• Analyzing his/her analysis of message (meta-analysis)

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Information Processing Tasks

Filtering
1. Occurs when elements in message
recognized
2. Determine its meaning

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 Information Processing Tasks

Meaning matching
1. Learn meanings from authoritative sources—education, media
2. Recognize elements (referents) in message, access memory for
meanings
• Automatic task
• Initially an effort to learn to recognize symbols in messages
3. Learning meanings develops competencies
• Either able to do something correctly or not (e.g., reading)
• Able to recognize standard referents (words, numbers,
pictures, sounds)

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Information Processing Tasks

Meaning construction
1. Use skills of analysis and evaluation to screen messages
consciously
• When information screened in, use induction,
deduction, grouping and synthesis
• Incorporates new with existing knowledge; constructs
own meaning
2. Fundamental difference between meaning construction
and meaning matching
• Construction relies on skills
• Matching relies on competencies

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Algorithms

Origin of algorithms
1. Must acquire from another or mass media or
build them as experience life
2. Acquisition of information
• Conscious – intention to learn something
• Unconscious – exposed to entertainment
messages

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Algorithms
3. Construction of algorithm
• Transforms information to fit into existing
algorithms
• Construction processes vary
• High importance uses rational strategy (clear goal,
high mental energy)
• Low importance – shortcut or irrational strategy
(“feels right”)
• Individual construction; conditioning by media
and experiences

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Algorithms

Use of algorithms
1. Accessed during media exposure
situations
2. Guide decisions
3. Can run automatically while doing other
tasks

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Defining Media Effects
Key issues in media effects definitions
1. Time
• Immediate effect
• Long term effect
2. Duration
• Temporary
• Permanent
3. Valence
• Negative effect—antisocial behavior
• Positive effect—learn useful information
4. Change
• Difference
• No difference
• Some effects show up as no change

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Defining Media Effects
5. Intension or no intension
6. Level of effect
• Wide research of effects on individual (micro)
• Macro effects on public, society, institutions
7. Direct and indirect effects
• Person sees political ad; votes for candidate
• Candidates owe funding groups
Influences policies they support
Influences services government provides
8. Manifestation
• Some results easy to observe
• Some results are latent or very difficult to observe
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 Defining Media Effects
The Definition
1. Things that occur as a result—in part or in whole
2. Can occur immediately or take a long time
3. Can last a few seconds or a lifetime
4. Can be positive as well as negative
5. Can show up clearly as a change or not, but reinforce
existing patterns
6. Can occur whether media intend them to or not
7. Can affect individuals or all public
8. Can affect institutions and society
9. Can act directly on target or indirectly
10. Can be easily observable or latent (more difficult to
observe) 25
Organizing Individual Level Media Effects
6 types of effects on individuals
1. Cognitive
• Influences person’s mental processes or product of those
processes
• Absorbs information transform it
Create new meanings and generate principles about real life

2. Media continually create and shape beliefs

3. Attitudes—make judgments
4. Affect—media can trigger emotions
5. Physiological—automatic body response
6. Behavior—overt actions of individual

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Organizing Individual Level Media Effects

4 Media influenced functions

1. Acquiring—element of message retained
• An immediate effect
• Applicable to all types of effects, except
physiology
2. Triggering—element of message retained
• Activates something that exists in person
• Applicable to all types of effects

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Organizing Individual Level Media Effects

3. Altering
• Changes something already present in
person
• Works with all types of effects
• Can show up immediately or take a long
time
4. Reinforcing
• Repeated media exposures add weight to
something already in person
• Applies to all six types of effects
• Media’s presentation of same beliefs and
attitudes, person’s behavioral patterns
harder to change

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Organizing Individual Level Media Effects

Media effects template (MET) for individual level

effects
1. Information about media effects on
individuals shown in template
2. The 24 boxes—results of crossing media
effects with media influences

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©2012, SAGE Publications, Inc.

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Organizing Macro Level Media Effects

Media influences public, institutions and media (called

aggregates)
MET modified for macro level effects
1. Eliminated physiological effects
2. Eliminated acquiring, triggering, altering,
reinforcing as column heads
3. Column heads are public, institutions and
media

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Tasks for Seminar 11
1. Based on the readings and video materials, prepare to discuss
media effects on both: individual level and macro level.
2. What are the media effects on an individual? Refer to the video
materials and reflect on your personal experience of how media
has effected you.
3. What are media effects on different institutions?
4. Which of those institutions do you think has been most influenced
by the media?
Materials to watch:
How to Become TripAdvisor’s #1 Fake Restaurant
FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened

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Schedule of work for December

1. 12.01 – Media Effects

2. 12.08 – Seminar 11 – Cultural Industries
3. 12.15 – Revision – Test 2 – Seminar 12
4. 12.22 – Rewriting of Test 2 – Accounting for
unfulfilled tasks

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