Historical trends in the study of media

effects: Theory and method

Historical change
Late 19th Century till 1940s saw a fear of
powerful media effects
1940s through early 1970s was the era of
limited effects
From 1980s media studies splinter into a
wide variety of approaches, with the
mainstream view moving toward partial and
mediated effects

Early 20th century

Professionalization of advertising
Development and growth of new mass
media technologies
The Great War
England and the U.S. develop propaganda on a
large scale
After the war, Bernays and others claim to be
able to engineer consent

Popular fears of mass manipulation

Sudden and rapid growth of
mass media
Newspapers
Periodicals
Movies
Radio

Social fears
Growth and increasing sophistication of
persuasion professions
Advertising
Public relations/propaganda

Massive WWI propaganda output

Exorbitant post-warclaims of efficacy post-war
by Creel Committee members
Creel
Bernays

Committee on Public Information

Woodrow Wilson re-elected President
in 1916
Ran on a platform emphasizing He kept
us out of war

Within a year, was leading the country

into war with Germany
Created the Committee on Public
Information (CPI) on April 13, 1917

 "Lead this people into war, and they'll

forget there was ever such a thing as
tolerance. To fight, you must be brutal and
ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality
will enter into the very fibre of national life,
infecting the Congress, the courts, the
policeman on the beat, the man in the
street."

Edward L. Bernays
Freuds nephew
Attempted to apply psychoanalysis to
propaganda

Used psychological research methods,

advertising methods to manufacture
consent
Tireless promoter of PR as way to control
public opinion

Lasswells study of propaganda

Interested in the application of symbol
manipulation to influence psychological
unconscious
Nationalism and ego-involvement
Manipulation of emotions via propaganda
Tried to take a distanced, uninterested position toward
propaganda

Identified goals and methods of propaganda

Harold D. Lasswell, Propaganda Technique in the
World War (New York: Knopf, 1927).

Creel Committee Emphases in their

propaganda

Emotional Appeals
Demonization
The War to End All Wars
Dishonesty

 "Propaganda in the broadest sense is the

technique of influencing human action by
the manipulation of representations. These
representations may take spoken, written,
pictorial or musical form."

 "Some of those [persons who participated in World

War I] who trusted so much and hated so
passionately have put their hands to the killing of
man, they have mutilated others and perhaps been
mutilated in return, they have encouraged others to
draw the sword, and they have derided and
besmirched those who refused to rage as they did.
Fooled by propaganda? If so, they writhe in the
knowledge that they were the blind pawns in plans
which they did not incubate, and which they neither
devised nor comprehended nor approved."{2}

2. Harold D. Lasswell. Propaganda Technique in the World War. First

edition, 1927. Reprint. New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc.,
1972. Page 8.

Payne Fund Studies: The effects

of movies on children
Conducted in the late 20's and early 30's
this series of studies occurred in two categories:
1. assess content of films and audience size and
composition (Dale)
2. audience effects of themes and messages
a. acquisition of information (Holaday and Stoddard)
b. attitude change (R.C. Peterson and Thurstone)
c. stimulating emotions (Dysinger and Ruckmick)
d. harming health (Renshaw, Miller and Marquis)
e. eroding moral standards (C.C. Peters)
f. influencing conduct (Shuttleworth and May, Blumer and
Hauser)

Payne Fund
Conclusions:
Movies affected the way children dressed, their
expectations with regard to sex, led to fear and
lost sleep.
Movies also provided some positive role
models, innocent entertainment, etc.
Some disconfirmation of the worst fears found
in popular culture

The War of the Worlds

An accidental occurrence seemed to
validate some of the worst fears about mass
society and the power of the newest mass
medium, the radio
Orson Welles Mercury Theater of the Airs
broadcast of an adaptation of H.G. Wells
War of the Worlds on Halloween eve, 1938

Research on the broadcast

The invasion from Mars: A study in the
psychology of panic (1940: Princeton
University)
Cantril, Gaudet, Herzog

The establishment of the limited

effects paradigm
End of the powerful effects model
of media influence

Columbia School
Paul Felix Lazarsfeld emigrated from Austria to the U.S. in the
1930s.
A mathematician
Interested in the application of mathematics, especially the new statistics, to
study of social problems

Sets up research programs at Princeton (Radio Research Bureau)

and at Columbia (Bureau of Applied Social Research) that combine
study of practical problems with academic methods of research
Model that would be followed by the field from then on.

First studies focus on audience size, reactions to and use of radio

programming
As well as a wide array of social concerns that were not communicationoriented

The Peoples Choice

Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet
Study of the 1940 presidential election in Erie
county, Ohio
20th Century--strong, commercially successful
newspapers, radio, magazines, that had the ability
to say what they wanted to in Western European
countries
The research comes from vague ideas of what is
worth studying

Research Questions
1.

How do people decide to vote as they

do?
2. What were the major influences on
them?
"Social characteristics determine political
preference."

Results
Lazarsfeld could predict with 76% accuracy which
candidate someone would vote for based on his
demographics. That was better than the people
themselves could predict.
Prediction is taken as the criterion of validity
"Cross-Pressures"

Opinion Leaders (21%)

("Have you tried to influence someone on a political issue
recently?"; "Has anyone asked your advice recently on a
political issue?")
opinion leaders were thought to be a relatively small group of
influential people
Lacked evidence of actual influence

Media influence
Whenever a person in the sample changed
his/her vote intention, the interviewer asked
why:
Democrats mentioned radio most often
(30% vs. 20% for newspapers)
Republicans mentioned newspapers (31%
vs. 17% for radio).

 Over half the voters said the media had the

most important impact, 2/3 said news media
were helpful
Two-step flow
Conclusion--interpersonal communication
most important

 Those most likely to be predisposed to vote

Democratic were exposed to more pro-Democratic
propaganda
the analogous situation was true for Republicans

Lazarsfeld decided this showed selective

exposure--those who were predisposed to vote
one way or another chose to expose themselves to
propaganda that was positive toward the preferred
party

When did they make up their

minds?
1/2 made up their minds before May
Once they knew who won the nomination,
another 1/4 made up their mind
1/4 made up their mind between the
nomination and the election
Columbia did another campaign study in 1948,
then turned to other concerns
Voting, by Berelson, Lazarsfeld and McPhee

Impact of the studies

The studies set the parameters of political
communication research for over a decade
and still influence the field now
Major studies of elections did not even ask
about media for several election cycles

Hovland
Experiments on mass communication: Persuading the
American soldier in World War II
Hovland, Lumsdaine and Sheffield (1949)

Studied the impact of showing Frank Capras

propaganda films in Why We Fight series to American
soldiers in a training camp
Many were draftees and did not want to fight

Attempted to measure the effects of movies on

information acquisition and modification of soldiers'
interpretations and opinions, attitudes toward allies, and
motivation

Why We Fight
Films from the series included in the study:
Prelude to War, The Nazis Strike, Divide
and Conquer, The Battle of Britain

Battle of Britain
Men in two camps--some were exposed to a
film, some not
2100 in one camp (before/after control group)
900 in another camp (before/after control
group)
1200 (after-only control group)
Sampling by company units
Units were matched on several demographic
variables

The Battle of Britain

Before and after questionnaires were
slightly different
Tried to distract men from wondering why they
were answering twice by writing revised on
the questionnaire

One week between exposure and the second

measure
Anonymity was assured

Results
The movies had a significant impact on
factual knowledge
Ex. Why werent the Germans successful
at bombing British planes on the ground?
Ans. because the British kept their planes
scattered at the edge of the field
Experimental group: 78% correct
Control group:
21% correct

Results: Learning from films

dependent upon education

Results
Opinions and interpretations
Effects were not as great
the heavy bombing attacks on Britain
were an attempt by the Nazis to . . .
Answer: invade and conquer England
Experimental group: 58%
Control group:
43%

Results
General attitudes
Effect was slight
Do you feel that the British are doing all
they can to help win the war?
Experimental group 7% greater than control
In many cases, only 2-3% positive difference
was found

Results
Morale
Almost no impact at all
Preference to serve overseas rather than in the
United States
Experimental group
Control group
39%

42%

Unconditional surrender by Nazis is an important

war aim
Experimental group
Control group
60%

62%

Sleeper effect
9 weeks after exposure
Factual material was forgotten
Retained only about 50% of factual items that 1-week groups
remembered

On 1/3 of opinion issues, the long-term group showed

less change
However, on more than half of the fifteen issues under
study, the long term group showed greater change than
the short-term group

One-sided v. two-sided argument

Radio presentation saying war would be
lengthy
Presented either as one-sided argument or with
additional 4 minutes discussing view that it
would be short
Before/after with control group

Results
One-sided argument more effective with soldiers
who:
Initially supported the idea that it would be a lengthy
war
Had not completed high school

Two-sided arguments more effective with soldiers

who:
initially felt the war would be short
had a high school degree education or greater

Yale School
Hovland et al. set up Yale School of
research on persuasion
Studied the effect of:

Source characteristics
Message characteristics
Order of presentation
Psychological characteristics of audience

Source characteristics
Credibility
Topic: Atomic submarines
Sources: J. Robert Oppenheimer/Pravda

Topic: Future of Movie Theaters

Sources: Fortune magazine/A woman movie gossip
columnist

Greater persuasion with more credible source

However, after 4 weeks differences had disappeared

Content
Fear appeals
The more fearful the message, the greater the
effect on interest, tension
Less fearful message had a greater effect on
intension to change behavior
Fear was thought to invoke some sort of
interference

Channel
The main study here tends to indicate that
interpersonal channels are more effective at
changing attitudes than are mass media
channels.

Audience factors
Scouts who valued group membership
highly were least influenced by speaker
who criticized wood craft learning

Personality
Personality variables such as self-esteem,
anxiety and depression have an influence on
persuadability. Janis's research suggests that
people with low self-esteem are likely to be
relatively easily persuaded.

Katz and Lazarsfeld

Personal influence: The two-step flow of
communication
Katz and Lazarsfeld (1955)

Based on ideas originating in the "People's

Choice"
Concerned with the movement of information
from media through interpersonal networks
Decatur study of opinion leaders conducted by the
Bureau of Applied Social Research at Columbia

 Assessed opinion leaders role in four areas of influence:

1. marketing
2. fashion
3. public affairs
4. film choice

Delineated the characteristics of opinion leaders

position in the life cycle, SES, social contacts

Marketingmiddle-aged women, especially with families

Fashionyounger and single women
Public affairsolder and more educated
Film choiceyounger and single

Research on information
campaigns
Cincinnati United Nations campaign
Star & Hughes (1950)
Large-scale information campaign to generate
knowledge of and support for UN
Very little effect on knowledge or support
Effects that did occur were concentrated among the
already informed rather than those targeted by the
campaign

Some reasons why information

campaigns fail
Hyman and Sheatsleys (1947) review of findings from
several surveys conducted by the National Opinion
Research Center
Psychological barriers to information dissemination
The Chronic Know-Nothings in relation to information
campaigns
The role of interest in increasing exposure
Selective exposure produced by prior attitudes
Selective interpretation following exposure
Differential changes in attitudes after exposure

Klappers (1960) The Effects of

Mass Communication
1. Mass communication ordinarily does not
serve as a necessary and sufficient cause of
audience effects, but rather functions among
and through a nexus of mediating factors
and influences.

 2. These mediating factors are such that they

typically render mass communication a
contributory agent, but not the sole cause, in a
process of reinforcing the existing conditions.

 3. On such occasions as mass communication

does function in the service of change, one of
two conditions is likely to exist. Either:
a. the mediating factors will be found to be
inoperative and the effect of the media will be
found to be direct; or
b. the mediating factors, which normally favor
reinforcement, will be found to be themselves
impelling toward change.

 4. There are certain residual situations in

which mass communication seems to
produce direct effects, or directly and of
itself to serve certain psycho-physical
functions.

 5. The efficacy of mass communication,

either as a contributory agent or as an agent
of direct effect, is affected by various
aspects of the media and communications
themselves or of the communication
situation (including, for example, aspects of
textual organization, the nature of the
source and medium, the existing climate of
public opinion, and the like).

 People just dont change their minds all that

easily
They have stable attitudes that flow from their
socialization and experience
Can predict attitudes from demographics

 An excellent example of this is provided by

Kendall and Woolf's analysis of reactions to
anti-racist cartoons. The cartoons featured Mr
Biggott whose absurdly racist ideas were
intended to discredit bigotry. In fact 31% failed
to recognise that Mr Biggott was racially
prejudiced or that the cartoons were intended to
be anti-racist (Kendall & Wolff (1949) in Curran
(1990)).

Selectivity

Selective exposure
Selective attention
Selective perception
Selective interpretation
Selective recall
Usually tied to balance models of cognitive
psychology
Especially cognitive dissonance

Modern effects study

In the 1970s and 1980s effects study came
under powerful attack from more critical
approaches, many developed in Europe
British cultural studies (neo-Marxist) and
popular culture studies, postmodernist
philosophy, etc. criticized many of the
underlying assumptions of effects research

 Followed the lead within psychology away

from social psychology to cognitive
information processing
Move away from a narrow focus on persuasion
to learning, beliefs, etc.

Renewed belief in media power

Move toward a belief in stronger effects

Agenda setting effect

Spiral of silence
Social construction of reality
Cognitive effects/learning
Mediation

Lowered expectations for the effects

Contemporary media effects

Search for multiple types of effects and the impact of
medium and context as well as content
Interactions with multiple concepts
For example, what types of appeals are most effective
with elderly men with regard to influencing exercise
behavior?
What forms of humor are the most enjoyable for teen
girls?
What are the relative influences of fantasy violence on
television, movie and videogame audiences?

Common methods
Laboratory experiments
Surveys
Becoming more common:
Focus groups
Depth interviews
Content analyses tied to social statistics

Cognitive information processing

Contemporary models of learning/thinking
present a series of steps in these processes
Modeled after computers, information theory

Patterns of stability and change have been

identified that need explanation
When do similar stimuli elicit similar
behaviors, different behaviors or simple
inattention?

CIP
Steps:

Stimulation of sense organs

Maintenance in sensory registers
Short-term memory
Working memory
Stimulation of content in long-term storage
Evaluation and encoding
Storage
Behavioral response

Stimulation of sense organs

Limited perception of light spectrum, sound
waves, touch, etc.
Registers react to environmental change by
generating variable electrical impulses that
are carried by the nerve system

 Sensory registers maintain patterns of

electrical stimulation for a short time
Separate registers for visual, auditory, olfactory,
tactile information

Pattern recognition
Letters, etc. are recognized and sent along to
the short-term memory or
lost/discarded/ignored

Short-term memory
The small minority of information that
passes through the sensory registers and
reaches short-term memory is evaluated for
the allocation of attention
Limited processing capacity
Practically limited information in the
environment

What draws attention

Physical characteristics of the signal
Contrast
Movement
Intensity

Survival value

What draws attention

Transitory physical needs
Hunger
Emotion

General human tendencies

Human faces

Generalized learned interests

Politics
Chick flicks

What draws attention

Transitory intellectual demands
Decision making
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