CF 101 COMMUNICATION & MEDIA

(Are There) Powerful Media Effects?

Hypodermic Needle (Magic Bullet) Theory

Assumption: Audience members are vulnerable targets easily influenced by media message.
Audience

members are passive and equally susceptible to media messages

Media is thought to be able to shape public opinion toward any point that the creator of the message desires.
All

audience members are struck equally and the effects are uniform.

Called Hypodermic Needle or Magic Bullet

Hypodermic Needle (Magic Bullet) Theory

Classical example:
October
War

30, 1938

of the Worlds by Orson Welles. A radio prank (joke) where Orson creates a fake news story about Marsians attacking the earth. Called the Panic Broadcast Mass hysteria, chaos, looting and people escaping from cities.

Why the Strong Effects Assumption?

The fast rise and popularization of radio and television, The emergence of the persuasion industries, such as advertising and propaganda, The Payne Fund studies of the 1930s, which focused on the impact of motion pictures on children, Use of propaganda as a tool to mobilize people during WWI & WWII and against rise of communism. Hitler's monopolization of the mass media during WWII to unify the German public behind the Nazi

Payne Fund Study

Between 1929 - 1932, a large amount of funding was used to examine movies and their effects on children.
Children who went to movies performed worse in school than those who went less frequently Sleeping patterns of children were disturbed. Children going to movies exhibited emotions related to fear. They imitated favorable behavior but also delinquent behavior Childrens attitudes concerning ethnic, racial and social issues were changed

Propaganda Research

Harold Lasswell
Conducted

quantitative and qualitative analysis of propaganda over the world. He analyzed the content of propaganda He studied its effects on audiences Argued that as more people were reached by war propaganda, the war effort became more effective.

Propaganda Research

Karl Hovland:
He

conducted studies on how to design messages that could boost soldier morale and influence their attitudes in combat.
He

showed the soldiers a propaganda film called Why We Fight? By Frank Capra

Propaganda and Wartime

Especially in WW1, WW2 and beginning of Cold War, findings from Lasswell and other political scientists turned communication studies to a magic wand for governments.

Example Nazi Propaganda Film - Triumph of the Will (by Leni

Riefenstahl)

Example U.S. Anti-Communism Propaganda Cartoon

Two-Step Flow Model

Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson and Hazel Gaudet did a study called Peoples Choice (1944). The study examined the effects of mass media on political behavior. The researchers tracked the opinions of 600 respondents from Ohio throughout election campaigns. The study suggested that media might not be as directly effective as people thought it was.

Two-Step Flow Model

Findings from Peoples Choice Study: Personal contacts appear to have been more frequent and more effective than mass media in determining voting decisions" The flow of personal influence was "activated by certain individuals who were to be found on every level of society and, presumably, were very much like the people whom they influenced."

Another important communication scholar called these people gatekeepers.

The relationship between the mass media and opinion leaders was a two-step flow of communication. "Ideas often flow from radio and print to opinion leaders and from them to the less active sections of the population

Two-Step Flow Model

Findings from Peoples Choice Study:

Conversion: In the Peoples Choice Study, only eight percent of voters made a switch from their normal, intended voting patterns.

So why do political parties spend this much money on advertising during election campaigns?
Parti Cumhuriye t Halk Partisi Adale t v e Kalkinma Partisi M illiye tci Hare t Partisi ke Demokrat Parti Ge nc Parti Kaynak: Bilisim Medya Reklam Harcama Tutar (YTL) 18,560,937 14,556,484 5,686,728 4,624,950 3,645,799

Two-Step Flow Model

Findings from Peoples Choice Study:

Activation:
Message

Takes place in several stages.

arouses interest Increased interest brings increased exposure Increased attention causes voter to select information Votes crystallize.
Reinforcement:

Many people had made their choice before the campaigns began. The campaigns head to reach out to these people so that they stayed with their current decision.

Reinforcement
The idea that media reinforces rather than changing ideas took a life of its own in later media theory. Paul Lazarsfeld and Robert Merton

One

important function of media are to create conformity. reproduces and reinforces dominant ideology.

Critical Theory
Media

Reinforcement & Critical Theory

Critical Theory was developed by scholars from Frankfurt School (Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Max Horkheimer).
With Hitler in power they fleed to U.S. They saw that the American media was overly commercial and industrialized.

They coined the term culture industry.

Production of media content was highly standardized, commercialized. Regardless of variations in the subjects, forms and genres, the media produced a uniform product. Alternative ideas were ignored and not mentioned. Reinforce the status quo.

Status quo & the Media: Current Perspective

Noam Chomsky:
If

you want to understand how a particular society works, you have to understand who makes the decisions that determine the way a society functions. In the U.S., the major decisions over what happens in a society (investment, production, distribution, etc.) are in the hands of a relatively concentrated network of major corporations, conglomerates, and investment firms. They're also the ones who staff the major executive positions in the government, and they're the ones who own the media, and are the ones who are in the position to make decisions. They have an overwhelmingly dominant role in the way life happens, what's done in this society. Noam Speaks