Matakuliah
Tahun
: Sosiologi Komunikasi Massa
: 2009/2010
EFEK MEDIA
Pertemuan 5
What is an ‘effect’?
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•
Bina Nusantara University
Cause an identifiable change
– Hypodermic model
– Propaganda (Laswell)
– Cultivation theory (Gerbner)
– ‘pro-social’ effects?
Maintains a status quo?
– Uses & gratifications (Blumer)
– Dominant ideology thesis
– Legitimises certain types of violence?
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Media effects 1 - Columbine
• April 1999; 14 dead, 23 injured
• Marilyn Manson, Doom, Natural
Born Killers
• Psychological questions and answers
• Media as ‘reflexive’ institution
Bina Nusantara University
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Media effects 2 – James Bulger and Child’s Play 3
‘We looked at all the videos in their
houses and checked their list of rentals
from the shop. We did not find Child’s
Play 3, nor did we find anything in the list
that could have encouraged them to do
what they did. If you are going to link this
murder to a film, you might as well link it
to The Railway Children’
Ray Simpson, Merseyside police, The
Guardian April 13, 1994
Bina Nusantara University
•
•
Child, killed by two children (April 1994)
Similar to behaviour of ‘satanic’ child in
•
Causal explanations echoed earlier concerns
over ‘video-nasties’ (Barker)
Child’s Play 3
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Bina Nusantara University
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Media effects and research methods – ‘mad scientists and statistical
lies’? (Ruddock)
• Effects researchers located in psychology
• Often based on quantitative or experimental methods
• Early effects research is in the positivist tradition, i.e. imagines an observable,
knowable world and measurable relationship, between the things in it.
Bina Nusantara University
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Bobo the doll study
• ‘Social learning’ theory of aggression
• Showed children filmed images of an
adult hitting an inflatable doll
• Observing their subsequent ‘play’,
children appeared more aggressive
• Experimental setting; researcher
effects; not ‘real’ media’
Bina Nusantara University
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War of the Worlds Study
• Cantril, The Invasion from Mars: A
Study in the Psychology of Panic
• 1938 broiadcast of War of the
Worlds; a significant proportion of
the audience thought it was ‘real’
• 1,000 surveys sent to school
administrators
• 135 qualitative interviews
Bina Nusantara University
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Who does the media effect? Age
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•
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Image from Gillespie 2005: 22. The Daily Mail Jan 1999.
Newsom report (1994) – media violence is
‘electronic child abuse’
Related to different cognitive capacities of
children
‘Children’ a homogenous category?
Concern reflects the social construction of
childhood
‘For some children under some conditions
some television is harmful. For some
children under the same conditions, or for
the same children under other conditions, it
may be beneficial. For most children, under
most conditions, most television is neither
particularly harmful nor particularly beneficial’
(Schramm 1961)
Bina Nusantara University
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Who does the media effect? - Class
• Fear of effects and ‘respectable fears’ (Pearson)
• ‘the dominant ‘effects’ tradition has proved so resilient because it chimes with a
deeply rooted formation of social fear which presents the vulnerable, suggestible
and dangerous as living outside the stockade of maturity and reasonableness that
the rest of us take for granted (Murdock 1997: 83)
• Fear of media effects a ‘fear of the mob’; a fear of the ‘underclass’; a fear of
incorrrect interpretations or reactions?
Bina Nusantara University
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MEDIA EFFECTS
Model
Key
Concepts
Influence of
media on
audience
Key points
Studies
Evaluation
Hypodermic
Syringe
Passive
Direct
Audience
Bandura, Ross &
Ross (1963) –
study
demonstrates
how children
imitate
violence/aggressi
on in films shown
to them
audiences do
not all react in the
same way
audience
Injected
effect on
behaviour
unable
to resist media
messages
cause and effect
may be in reverse
e.g. watching
violent films may
be the outlet for
aggression rather
than being the
cause
Doesn’t take
into account the
different uses
audiences make
of the media
Influential in
media regulation
May explain
some aggression
in society
Bina Nusantara University
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MEDIA EFFECTS
Model
Key
Concepts
Influence of
media on
audience
Key points
Studies
Evaluation
Two Step Flow
Opinion
Indirect
Media
Katz and
Lazarfeld (1955)
There might not
be an opinion
leader
Leaders
through
opinion leaders
messages
reach members of
audience
The
audience
understanding of
the message is
shaped by
discussion with
others – in
particular opinion
leaders
Media’s influence
of American
voters.
Livingstone and
Bovill (2001)
media usage by
children and
young people and
influence of peer
group discussion.
Are people
vulnerable to
influence –
people may have
their own views
and opinions
The meaning of
the media
messages may be
imposed on the
audience by the
powerful
Are there just
two steps?
Has been used
to develop the
multi step flow
Does deal with
differing
interpretations of
the media
Bina Nusantara University
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MEDIA EFFECTS
Model
Key
Concepts
Influence of
media on
audience
Key points
Studies
Evaluation
Uses and
Gratifications
Individual
Audience
People
Katz (1959) and
McQuail (1972) –
Identified 4
possible uses of
the media by the
audience –
diversion,
personal
relationships,
personal identity
and surveillance
ignores the fact
that the media
can create
people’s needs
needs
Social
characteristics
Diversion
Personal
relationships
Personal
identity
surveillance
actively decides
upon the
influence of the
media according
to their needs
use the
media to meet
their own
different and
individual needs
Focuses on the
individual to the
detriment of wider
social and
cultural factors
Does not explain
why people use
the media in
different ways
Shows that the
media is used by
people in different
ways
Bina Nusantara University
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MEDIA EFFECTS
Model
Key
Concepts
Selective filter
Selective
exposure
Selective
perception
Selective
retention
Influence of
media on
audience
Key points
Studies
Evaluation
Audience actively
choose which
media to
experience,
control, engage
with.
Fiske (1988)
Audiences move
between different
levels of
involvement with
the media –
engagement to
detachment to
referential.
focuses on the
individual,
ignoring the role
of subcultures in
shaping the
audiences
interpretations
People only
watch or read
media that fits in
with their existing
views
People react
differently to the
same message
depending on
whether it fits in
with their own
views
Bina Nusantara University
It
underestimates
the powerful
nature of media
messages and
how strongly they
can be reinforced
Doesn’t assume
a generalised
audience
response to
media
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MEDIA EFFECTS
Model
Key
Concepts
Influence of
media on
audience
Key points
Studies
Evaluation
Structured
interpretation
model
Preferred
Individuals
Process
Morky’s
reading
actively choose
the media they
wish to engage
with
overly
deterministic - are
individual’s
views largely
determined by the
social group they
belong to?
Subcultures
Social
context
of
choosing the
media to engage
with takes place
in a social setting
The
social
context creates a
`preferred
reading’ of the
media message.
Different
subcultures tend
to interpret
messages in
different ways
Bina Nusantara University
(1980)
study illustrates
the
intererpretation of
news and
documentaries
varies according
to social group.
Post modernists
deny social
groups have a
strong influence
on media
interpretations
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MEDIA EFFECTS
Model
Key
Concepts
Influence of
media on
audience
Key points
Studies
Evaluation
Cultural Effects
Diverse
Media
The
Cantril
(1940) –
analysis of Orson
Welles 1938
broadcast of HG
Wells’ story The
War of the Worlds
Media
audience
a powerful
influence
audience
interpretation of
the media takes
place in the
context of its
existing culture.
The
effect of the
media is not the
same for
everyone and the
process of media
influence is very
complex.
Bina Nusantara University
professionals
expect the
audience to
respond to their
work in a
particular way
(preferred
reading), but this
is unlikely if
messages are
interpreted
dependent upon
people’s
background
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MEDIA EFFECTS
Model
Key
Concepts
Influence of
media on
audience
Key points
Studies
Evaluation
Postmodernism
Reality
Media
People
Turkle
Social context
still affects the
way the media is
used and
interpreted
is part of
our lifetyle rather
than a provider of
information
have
begun to treat
media messages
as reality and so
the distinction
between image
and reality has
broken down.
(1996)
believes
television is part
of the
postmodern
culture of
simulation.
Still a need to
look at who
creates the media
information and
for what purpose
Does
encompass the
changes in media
and its greater
role in society.
Bina Nusantara University
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Conclusions
• Media effects research manages to be both discredited and to provide the
dominant ‘story’ through which the media is understood
• It demonstrates the reflexivity of the media as a social institution – it comments on
itself.
• Media effects research emerges from a particular social scientific research tradition
(positivism)
• Particular social groups (women, the young, lower socio-economic groups) are
disproportionately ‘at risk’ from the media - and in need of protection from it
Bina Nusantara University
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