MEP 203 CONTEMPORARY
MEDIA THEORY
2. BEHAVIOURISM / MODERNITY
Behaviourist approaches
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Direct effects (the ‘stimulus–response
model’)
Social cognitive theories
Cultivation and agenda setting
Limited effects (the ‘active audience’
model)
Media and modernity (NOTE: a
different perspective)
Direct effects
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Media stimulus
audience response
Wertham’s (1955) five psychological effects of
media targeted at children (esp. crime comics
and TV): passivity, misconceptions of reality,
imitation, identification and desensitization
Audience assumed to be isolated individuals
Laboratory methods used in psychological
research are problematic (see Gauntlett 1995) –
artificial, can only measure short-term
responses/effects, neglect social influences on
respondents’ behaviour
Social cognitive theories
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Social learning / modelling theory
(Bandura): media provide sources of
observational learning, esp. for kids, as
evident from the BoBo doll experiment (?)
Priming: the process of mental association
between mediated and personal
experience (e.g. when music makes us
recall memories)
Cultivation and agenda setting
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Cultivation theory is based on levels of
reception to TV in particular
Content and survey analysis deployed
Heavy viewers are likely to change their
values and beliefs with increased exposure to
representations of violence
TV causes ‘Mean World syndrome’
Agenda-setting theory argues that the news
agenda affects the public agenda
Prominent news and views become important
to people’s everyday opinions and actions
Limited effects
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Two-step flow model (Katz and
Lazarsfeld 1955): media messages flow
to opinion leaders, who mediate these
messages to other individuals
Uses and gratifications theory:
individual needs generate expectations
of media – the media in turn gratify
these needs (needs precede effects)
Media and modernity
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The 2nd IR occurs in USA c.1870: electricity,
mass production, mass consumption,
advertising, cinema, automobile, radio
Modernists (e.g. the Leavises) promote a
minority culture (educated elite) to counter
the threat of cheap mass culture on the
individual personality
Individual character becoming other-directed:
‘mass media serve as tutors’ (Riesman 1961:
290) instead of parents, teachers, etc.
Conclusions
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Behaviourist theories of media effects are
diverse and draw on different methods and
modes of analysis
Long history of theory/debate continues
today: eg, Sigman (2005) links ADHD to
children who watch TV indiscriminately
But evidence to prove ‘effects’ remains
inconclusive e.g. role-play CVGs re: visual
impairments, relation to US gun/sniper culture