exam2studyguidenotes.docx

Outline

•Hypodermic needle approach •Uses and gratifications approach •Needs audiences seek to gratify •Basic human needs

•Criticisms

Hypodermic Needle Approach

•The hypodermic needle view implied that mass media had a direct, immediate and powerful effect on viewers (like a drug injected into one’s bloodstream).

•This view of the mass media was prominent in the 1940s and 1950s •Factors contributing to this view:

–Fast of radio and television

–Emergence of the persuasion industries, such as advertising and propaganda. –1930s Payne Fund studies showed that films had a strong effect on children

–Hitler's monopolization of the mass media during WWII to unify the German public behind the Nazi party.

Uses and Gratifications Approach

•Changes the basic question about media’s role –Used to be: “What do media do to us?”

–Now: “What do we do with the media?” •Assumes an active audience

–We choose whether to use and what we use –We choose what content to view/hear/read –We decide how to interpret

–We decide how to respond Key Assumptions

•The audience is diverse. •The audience is active

–Goal-directed, purposive, and motivated

•People use the media to gratify their needs or wants

•The mass media compete with other sources of gratification.

•The same TV program may gratify different needs for different people. Needs Audiences Seek to Gratify

 To be amused

•To see authority exalted/deflated •To experience the beautiful

•To have shared experiences with others •To satisfy curiosity and be informed

•To identify with the deity and the divine plan •To find distraction and diversion

•To experience empathy

•To experience extreme emotions •To find models to imitate

•To gain an identity

•To believe in romantic love

•To believe in magic, the marvellous and the miraculous •To see others’ mistakes

•To see order imposed on the world •To participate in history

•To be purged of unpleasant emotions •To obtain outlets for sexual drives •To explore taboo subjects with impunity •To experience the ugly

•To affirm moral, spiritual and cultural values •To see villains in action

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

•Physiological/survival needs : Basic needs such as air, water, food, sleep, sex, etc. •Safety needs: Secure home and family.

•Social needs: Love and belongingness.

•Esteem needs: Self-esteem that results from competence or mastery of a task. Recognition from others.

•Self-actualization needs: Realize our full potential. Expressing ourselves uniquely. Criticisms

•It is atheoretical. It does not explain why people use the media in different ways. •Lack of conceptual clarity about what a motive, use, or gratification really is. •Lack of synthesis between typologies of uses and gratifications.

•It ignores the social context of media use.

•It ignores the fact that the media can create people’s needs •Unrealistic to assume that audiences are active.

•The problem with self-reporting:

–Do people actually know why they watch TV?

–Would people have a tendency to give a socially desirable reason? Weapons effect

 Presence of weapons initiates aggressive behavior



 Berkowits & LePage (1967) Study  Turner et al 1975 study

 Car idles in intersection-measures how many times someone honks behind them

 Indepentednt variable:

 Rifle visible in car and vengeance bumper sticker—two aggressive cues  Rifle visible in car and friend bumper sticker—one aggressive cue  No rifle no bumper sticker (control)

 Dependent variables:  Percent horn honking

 More people honked at the people with the rifles and vengeance sticker— 60%, friend sticker and rifles had a medium amount of honking percentage-40%, and 35% honked with no rifles and no stickers

 It would be common sense not to honk at the people with weapons, but the presence of weapons makes people angrier

 Meta analysis of Weapons Effect Studies

 A meta analysis of 56 studies showed that the mere sight of weapons increases aggression in both angry and non angry individuals

 Larger effects when the aggression target is an out group member or low in status

 Larger effects when the aggressive action can cause more harm to the victim  What is priming?

 •Prime an engine: Pump gas into the cylinder so that the spark plug will fire more easily, starting the engine.

 •Prime the pump: Government action taken to stimulate the economy, as spending money in the commercial sector, cutting taxes, or reducing interest rates.

 •Priming: Temporary increase in the accessibility of a concept in memory.  •If concepts “A” and “B” are associated in memory, then presenting “A”

should make “B” more accessible.

 zAfter seeing the word “DOCTOR” people have faster reaction times to the word “NURSE” than to the word “BREAD” (Meyer & Schvaneveldt, 1971)  •Repeated or frequent activation of a concept can lower its threshold of

activation, making it chronically accessible.  Lexical Decision Task

 •Fixation cue (490 msec)  •Letter string (154 msec):  –24 violent words (e.g., BLOOD)  –24 nonviolent words (e.g., BUTTON)  –48 nonwords (e.g., LEMPARKER)  •Mask (XXXXXXX) (490 msec)

 •Memory can be represented as a network consisting of nodes and links  •Nodes represent concepts

 •Links represent associations among concepts

 •When one concept is activated, the activation spreads to related concepts, making them more accessible in memory

 Scrambled sentence task  Lexical Decision Task

 Spreading Activation model

 Memory can be represented as a network consisting of nodes and links  Nodes represent concepts

 Links represent associations among concepts

 When one concept is activated, the activation spreads to related concepts, making them more accessible in memory

 Somatic network—meaning  Priming Effects of Violent Media

 Violent media prime violent nodes (e.g., gun, kill, murder) in the associative memory network.

 The activation of these nodes, in turn, activates other linked nodes in this network through the process of spreading activation.

 This process leads to an increase in the accessibility of violent thoughts.  Aggressive thoughts increase the likelihood of aggressive behavior.  Similarity Rating

 Relating aggressive words together

 Participant Comments in a Violent Film study

 Participants were given three minutes to list whatever they were thinking while watching the film clip.

 Comments made by two men who watched a violent film clip:

 –“I enjoyed the violence. It made me smile. I thought about the fight I got into this weekend.”

 –“At the end I would have emptied my pistol on the guy.”  Types of Subliminals

 Embedded images : pictures or words that are hidden or flashed quickly (in 100ths of a second)

 Sub-audible messages : sounds or words that are too faint to be heard, or are played at extremely high frequencies

 Electronically altered signals : backward masking and other voice alterations  Subliminal Drink Priming Study

 Participants came to the lab for a “marketing study”; they arrived thirsty  Participants performed the cookies taste test

 Half of the participants were given water, half were not (manipulation of thirst)

 Participants were … missed slide  Subliminal Mood Priming Study

 Strong

positive-- Mild positive—clown, parade  Strong negative—war, cancer  Mild negative—worm, monday  Mood measured

 Theoretical Models  Storage bin model  Storage battery model  Synapse view model  Storage Bin Model

 Memory viewed as a storage bin

 Recently primed concepts are at top of bin

 Frequently primed concepts are throughout the bin, including top  Recently is emphasized

 Storage Battery Mode

 •Frequent input “charges up” concepts in memory.

 •The more frequently a concept is primed, the higher the “charge” produced, and the stronger the effect.

 •Frequency is emphasized.  Synapse View Model

 •Recently primed concepts have a stronger effect for a limited period of time — “in the short run.” Seeing something ten times a day for three weeks  •Frequently primed concepts have a stronger effect over a long period of

time — “in the long run.” Seeing something once a day for a year  •Time is emphasized.

 Variables that Enhance Priming Effects  Intentional (vs. accidental) acts

 Justified (vs. unjustified) acts  Identify with Character

 Perceived as Real—if you are not a young child, up until age 7 children don’t know what is real and what is fantasy. Need to tell the children it is fake because they don’t understand. Fantasy violence can have as strong an affect as real violence.

 Triggers memories of prior experiences 

 CULTIVATION THEORY

 Cultivate—to foster the growth of

 George Gerbner 1919-2005--“Those who spend more time ‘living’ in the world of television are more likely to see the ‘real world’ in terms of the images, values, portrayals, and ideologies that merge through the lens of the television.”

 Counts murders on tv  Assumptions

 •Viewing of television is non-selective.  •Television viewing is habitual.

 •TV is a conservative socializing agent

 •TV viewing engenders a “mean world” view.  Mean-World Syndrome

 Chances of involvement with violence.  Fear of walking alone at night.

 Perceived activity of police.  General mistrust of people.  Content Analysis

 Since 1967, Gerbner and his colleagues have been counting violent acts in prime-time and daytime television programs.

 Violence is defined as: “the overt expression of physical force (with or without a weapon, against self or others).”

 2/3 of prime time programs contain violence.

 By age 18, the average viewer will see 13,000 violent deaths on TV.  Violence rates vary little from year to year.

 Cultivation Analysis

 Participants are placed into groups according to how much TV they watch; o Light viewers : less than 2 hours

o Heavy viewers : 4 or more hours o 50% of viewers watch 2-4 hours  More heavy viewers than light viewers

 The researcher determines the “television answer” for each question.  Cultivation exists when heavy TV watching is related to the TV answer.  Cultivation Differential

 •Ex: “What percentage of all males who have jobs work in law enforcement or crime detection? Is it 1% or 10%?”. On TV, about 12% of all male

characters hold such jobs. In reality, about 1% of males hold such jobs. So 10% would be the “TV answer” and 1% would be the “real-world answer.”  •Difference between heavy and light TV viewers is called “cultivation

differential.”

 Cultivaiton Effects  •crime

 •fear of victimization  •racism

 •feelings of alienation  •anxiety

 •gender stereotyping  •affluence

 •materialism  •values  •health issues

 •At least 300 scholarly publications.

 •Replications have been carried out in many countries (e.g., Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, Germany, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, Russia, South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan).

 •A meta-analytic review found an significant average correlation of .09, which is a “small” correlation (Morgan & Shanahan, 1997).

 Mainstreaming

 •Diverse groups become more similar at high levels of television use.  •TV homogenizes views within a society

 Resonance—TV resonates with your personal experiences

 •Cultivation effects are greater when what you see on TV is similar to what you see in the real world.

 Solutions

 Not all stories are bad: Mister Rogers  TV ratings

 Cultural environment movement

 Gerbner Speaks About Mr. Rogers—not all tv is bad

 •Fred Rogers always has something to tell, rather than something to sell. He has a message that respects the viewer and what the viewer may need, rather than what the viewer may be induced to buy.

 •Mister Rogers decreases rather than increases fear. In one episode, he goes behind the scenes of The Incredible Hulk to show how the transformation is made.

 TV Rating System Problems

 •Ratings do little to protect children from violence. In one study, programs rated TV-G (suitable for all ages) contained only one-third fewer violent scenes than programs rated TV-14 (unsuitable for children under 14).  •Ratings are assigned by the industry

 •Ratings may make programs containing violence and sex “forbidden fruits.” 

 Outline

 •Forecasting the future

 •Bell-shaped and S-shaped curves  •Diffusion of innovations

 •Diffusion and adoption process  •Adopter categories

 •Factors affecting adoption rates  Bell-shaped and S-shaped Curves

 •Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855) developed the normal distribution. Y ~ Normal(, ) if

 mean, median, mode

 normal distribution is symmetrical on either side of the mean value

 68% probablility of a measuremnt lying within one standard deviation of the mean

 95% probability of a measurement lying within 2 standard deviations of the mean

 16 % probability that a measurement lies more than 1 standard deviation below the mean

 Bell shaped and S shaped curves

 •An S-shaped curve can be obtained simply by adding up the probabilities from a bell-shaped curve.

 •In a bell-shaped curve, the Y-axis is probability.

 •In an S-shaped curve, the Y-axis is cumulative probability.  Diffusion of Innovations, Everett Rogers (1962, 1995)

 •Diffusion: the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system.

 •Innovation: an idea, practice, or object perceived as new. The more novel the innovation, the slower the diffusion.

 •Adoption: the process by which a consumer begins to buy and use a new good, service, or idea.

 Diffusion and Adoption Process  •Knowledge

 •Persuasion  •Decision

 •Implementation  •Confirmation  KNowledeg

 An individual (or other decision-making unit) is exposed to an innovation’s existence and gains some understanding of how it functions.

 Persuasion

 An individual (or other decision-making unit) forms a favorable or unfavorable attitude toward the innovation.

 Decision

 An individual (or other decision-making unit) engages in activities that lead to a choice to adopt or reject the innovation.

 Implementation

 An individual (or other decision-making unit) puts an innovation into use.  Confirmation

 An individual (or other decision-making unit) seeks reinforcement of an innovation-decision already made, or reverses a previous decision to adopt or reject the innovation if exposed to conflicting messages about the

 Adopter Categories  •Innovators

 •Early adopters  •Early majority  •Late majority  •Laggards  Innovators

 •Venturesome, mobile, daring.   •Technology enthusiasts.

 •Risk takers who are willing to try an unproven product.  •Have financial resources to absorb unprofitable innovations.  •Require a shorter adoption period than any other group.  Early Adopters

 •Visionaries who are respected for their willingness to try new innovations.  •Seek greater knowledge of innovations.

 •Educated opinion leaders.

 •More highly connected in social systems.  •Greater exposure to mass media channels.  •More literate and upward mobile.

 Early Majority  •Pragmatists.

 •Prefer to deliberate before making a decision.  •Careful consumers who tend to avoid risk.

 •Rely on recommendations from others who have experience with the product.

 •They legitimate an innovation.  Late Majority

 •Skeptical, conservative, and cautious — even after others embrace the innovation.

 •Wait until the rest of the community has adopted it first.  •Peer pressure may be a motivator.

 •Economic necessity.  Laggards

 •Adopt only when certain the technology will not fail, or when forced to change.

 •Traditional — don't see a need to change.  •Tied to the past — reluctant to try new things.  •Suspicious of innovations.

 •Innovation-decision process is lengthy.  •Limited resources.

 Innovation Adoption Curve  •Starts with an innovator.

 •When the number of adopters reaches a critical mass (5% - 15%), the process takes off and is probably irreversible.

 •As more and more people talk about the innovation, it has a life of its own.  •Eventually it reaches saturation level, where virtually everyone who is going

to adopt the innovation has done so.  Self-efficacy—can I use it?

 Status incentives—I want to be cool  Relative advantage—will this help me  Compatibility—does it fit into my life  Complexity—needs to be easy to use  Trialability—can you try it out

 Observability—are the effects of what I purchase visible 

Adopter Categories

1. innovators: adventersome, risk takers, have the meas

2. early adopters: seek greater knowledge of innovations, more literate, upward mobile

3. early majority: dilberate before making decisions, careful consumers, rely on recommendations,

4. Late Majority: skeptical, conservative, cautious, economic necessity 5. Laggards: traditional, don’t see need to change, limited resources

6. S Curve chart—innovators adopt technology really early on, and then the product will “take off” and the graph spikes up and then the early adopters use it, then the early majority, then the late majority, then the laggers finally start using the product.

7. Exposure effect—if you have a neutral or positive attitude to something initially the more you see it the more you will like it

8. The best way to predict that people will buy the new Wu-Tang album is to asses their attitudes towards what? Asses their attitudes towards previous Wu-Tang albums. Peoples attitudes are easier to change than their behavior but if you have a positive attitude of something in the past it will stick in the future.

9. Consummatory behavior—you play because you want to play and have fun, you get affective reward, you do something becaue it makes you happy 10. Instrumental behavior—you do something to get money or to get to

something else, I work hard so I get money. Do something to get something else because u cognitively know you need it.

11.

12. Which component of attitude is the best predictor of consummatory

 Heider’s Balance Theory—when something is not balanced you need to change something to make it balanced. You can change attitude or you can change behavior (harder to change behavior) to get balance. Used to explain human phenomenon, and used to say that people need to feel balanced in their choices. Related to cognitive dissonance, Cognitive dissonance is that there is unbalance because your behavior does not match your thoughts or attitudes.

 Elaboration likelihood Model (ELM)—People can’t evaluate all messages. Two factors influence whether people “elaborate” on a message. Motivation: is there a reason for me to pay attention to this message? Ability: Can I evaluate this message?

 ELM—We start with a message. Then we take either the central route or the peripheral route. If we take the central route we go through cognitive

elaboration. If the message follows the peripheral route then we don’t really think about what the message is saying, there is little to no elaboration.  Central processing: When messages are being centrally processed, the

messages QUALITY is extremely important. Motivation can depend upon: personal relevance or need for cognition. Ability can depend upon: prior knowledge, message comprehensibility, amount of distraction or repetition.  Peripheral processing—people rely upon simple cues to evaluate messages

(elaboration likelihood is low). Sources (attractive or experts), number of messages (the more the better), inability to process centrally (e.g. unclear message or distraction)

 Central vs. peripheral processing. Central—expertise is not important: argument quality is crucial. Peripheral--expertise cues acceptance— regardless of argument strength.

 Example—central—commercial with UPS, it tells you exactly what UPS can do for you

 Example—peripheral—commercial for coke with the Simpsons. Don’t tell you anything about coke

 Example—central—google add shows you what you can do with it, what you can search and how it helps you.

 Example—peripheral—perfume add with scarlett johanson—doesn’t tell you anything about the perfume specifically just associate good things with it  Strong vs. weak arguments:

 Strong Arguments: encourage central processing, provide many arguments and repeat, emphasize personal relevance, do not distract viewer

 Weak arguments: encourage peripheral processing, distrac viewer (lots of pictures… missed end of slide

 You are least likely to experience cognitive dissonance when you are paid a large sum of money to be a GSI

continue to play in travic, even though it bothers him that his life is possibly threatened.

 COGNITIVE APPROACHES

 Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)  Most influential theory of attitude change.  People cannot evaluate all messages,

 Two factors influence whether people “elaborate” on a message. Two factors whether you think about a message at a deeper level

 1. Motivation: is there a reason for you to pay attention to this message?  2. Ability: can I evaluate this message?

 Memorize chart in slides…

 Two routes to persuasion, central route (message elaboration) mental effort is high, peripheral route (no message elaboration, don’t think about the message more) mental effort is low

 Persuasive communicationmotivated to process (if the answer is yesare you able to process the message? Are you free from distraction and do u have sufficient mental ability to understand (if the answer is yes type of

cognitive processing, arguent quality initial attitude … look at chart

 Peripheral cues—speaker credibility, reaction of others, external rewards, is the source attractive,

 Two routes to persuation

 Peripheral route : People rely upon simple cues to evaluate messages (elaboration likelihood is low).

 Central route: People carefully think about the message (elaboration likelihood is high).

 Examples of Peripheral cues  “Experts know best.”

 “The more arguments, the better.”  “Good products are more expensive.”  “What is beautiful is good.”

 Motivation

 IF you are motivated you don’t care about peripheral cues, if you are not motivated then you look for peripheral cues

 Motivation comes before ability and for central processing it is the most important, its whether or not you care about the message enough to pay attention to it.

 Factors affecting elaboration likelihood

 Motivation: situationpersonal relevance. DispositionNeed for cognition.  Ability: Situationexternal distraction. Dispositiongeneral intelligence  Personal Relevance: Petty and Cacioppo (1979) Study 1

 Independent variables: independent aspect, people randomly assigned to stuff

 Source: expert vs non expert