Term
| 1950s & 1960s: Limited Effects Perspective(2) |
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Definition
-Audience members are not all the same.
-Individuals react to media content in very different ways |
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Term
| Uses and gratifications theory(4) |
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Definition
Focused on individuals’ motivations for media use; assumes active audience
-Users seek media that meet their expectations for filling needs such as information, social interaction, and diversion |
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Term
| Assumptions of Uses and Grats(5) |
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Definition
-Audience is active; media use is goal directed
-Users take initiative in linking need gratification and media choice
-Media compete with other sources of need satisfaction
-Goals of media use can be derived from individuals themselves (self-report)
-Value judgments should be suspended |
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Term
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Definition
-Information
-Personal identity
-Integration and Social Interaction
-Entertainment |
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Term
| Children & TV: Uses and Grats - Arousal |
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Definition
-People are sensation seeking (high or low).
-High sensation seekers tend toward activities like skydiving and drug use. They may also like media content that is violent or frightening due to a greater need for arousal. |
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Term
| Children & TV: Uses and Grats - Relaxation |
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Definition
-Transition time between afternoon and evening
-Anytime
-Lowering arousal point |
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Term
| Children & TV: Uses and Grats - Learning |
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Definition
-U & G research suggests children deliberately use TV for learning
--Educational programming targeted at children
-More general educational programming |
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Term
| Children & TV: Uses and Grats - Companionship |
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Definition
-Television characters become “friends” to kids (adults too)
-Parasocial relationships |
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Term
| Children & TV: Uses and Grats - Escape |
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Definition
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Term
| Children & TV: Uses and Grats - Passing Time |
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Definition
-Waiting rooms
-Elevators
-Restrooms |
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Term
| Children & TV: Uses and Grats - Habit |
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Definition
*Television addiction
-Kubey & Csikszentmihalyi: “Television Addiction is no mere metaphor”
-Psychological dependence on TV that resembles addictive behavior in some respects. |
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Term
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Definition
-People aren’t aware of their motivations, etc.
-Self-report problems
-Surveys suggested uses
-Habitual use not adequately considered in early work |
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Term
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Definition
| The possibility that the large quantity of time spent with media was serving to displace time that would ordinarily be spent in other important activities e.g. Facebooking instead of studying for the 110 Exam. |
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Term
| Complexity of displacement hypothesis |
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Definition
-Negative relationship between TV viewing and academic achievement
-Relationship did not occur until TV viewing reached at least 10 hours pre week.
-Threshold effect |
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Term
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Definition
Imitating behavior seen in media
-The Doomsday Flight
-The Burning Bed
-Natural Born Killers
-Jackass Number 2 (copycat)
-Negative media portrayal lowers incidence of copycats |
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Term
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Definition
-Also called the “mean world” or “scary world” syndrome
-Exposure to media cultivate specific understandings of how the world works
-Example: Crime is over-represented in television programming, thus heavy viewers will view the world as more dangerous than light viewers. |
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Term
| Social Learning Theory: rewards and punishments |
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Definition
-Children who viewed “reward” videos and those who had seen the adult neither rewarded or punished behaved more aggressively than those who had seen the adult punished.
-Boys more aggressive than girls
-More impact if same gender |
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Term
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Definition
-Catharis: Greek for “purification”
-Feshbach randomly assigned boys to watch either a violent TV diet or a nonviolent TV diet for several weeks. The boys who watched TV violence behaved less aggressively than the boys who watched no violence. Thus, support for catharis. |
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Term
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Definition
*Facilitating effect of violent media
-Violence can prime thoughts that are related to hostility
-Media violence might facilitate aggressive behavior in the short term |
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Term
| Desensitizing Effect of media |
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Definition
| -Exposure to media violence “numbs” us to the real thing |
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Term
| Zillmann’s Theory of Mood Management |
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Definition
| Our entertainment choices are often a function of how we’re feeling at the moment and how we anticipate that exposure to certain media content is likely to make us feel during and following that exposure. |
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Term
| Commission on Obscenity & Pornography 1960s |
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Definition
“The Commission believes that there is no warrant for continued governmental interference with the full freedom of adults to read, obtain or view whatever such materials they wish.”
-Concluded from findings that the increase in availability of sexual materials did not increase sex crimes.
-Research following the commission report generally used content analysis and experiments |
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Term
| Commission on Obscenity & Pornography (1967): Conflicting Data |
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Definition
-Rate of sex crimes in Denmark following the relaxation of legal restraints on the flow of sexually explicit materials actually decreased.
This seems to support the idea that pornography is not a cause of sex crimes.
-Data from Japan: increase in availability of porn correlated with increases in rape & sexual assault. |
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Term
| Commission on Obscenity & Pornography (1967) |
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Definition
*Opposing theoretical perspectives:
-Trigger hypothesis
-Safety valve theory
-Overall assessment of commission: porn not generally associated with harmful outcomes |
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Term
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Definition
-Suggest causal relationship between porn and sex offenses, although only correlation found
-“But the fact that correlational evidence cannot definitively establish causality does not mean that it may not be some evidence of causality, and we have treated it as such” |
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Term
| History of Technologies and Sex |
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Definition
Adoption of many new technologies associated with sex
-VCRs, camcorders, cable pay-per-view, computers, Internet
-Easier access; more privacy |
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Term
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Definition
*Movie market
-Stag films, peep shows, “loops”
-Full-length features in theatres
*Playboy
-Consumed in private
-Follow-ups market-niches through specialization
*VCR
-Cheaper than film, huge market, could be consumed in privacy of own home |
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Term
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Definition
| According to one literature review: “In sum, the evidence indicates that pornography and related sexual media can influence sexual violence, sexual attitudes, moral values, and sexual activity of children and youth.” |
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Term
| Exp. to sexual media related to sexual activity and attitudes of adolescents |
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Definition
-Surveys: exposure to MTV & R-rated films assoc. with premarital sexual permissiveness
-“In a field experiment, college students viewed R-rated films suggesting positive effects of sexual aggression (e.g., the sexual arousal of the victim). Viewing this type of film made male students significantly more accepting of the use of aggression against women in sexual and nonsexual interactions” (Malamuth & Check, 1981). |
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Term
| Greenfield Lit Review: Additional Findings |
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Definition
-“Pornography has an adverse effect on older adolescent boys and young men already at high risk for aggressive behavior”
-“Memories of impactful sexual media from childhood and adolescence are overwhelmingly negative” |
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Term
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Definition
-How to “protect” “children”?
-First amendment issues
-Regulation of media: TV/Radio vs. written material
Where does the internet fit in?
-Distributed, global nature of network
-Filters (for end users)
Differences among parents regarding what should be filtered (violence, racist content, sex, commercialism)
Invisible “black lists”
May limit exposure to legitimate sites (ie breast cancer information, breast of chicken recipes) |
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Term
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Definition
Obscenity, illegal, as defined by Miller v California, 1973:
(a) “whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest,
(b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law, and
(c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.” |
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Term
| Theory of Excitation Transfer |
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Definition
| If people become aroused as a result of watching sex on television, whatever emotions they experience immediately after viewing may be much more intense. |
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Term
| Zillmann’s Theory of Mood Management |
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Definition
| Our entertainment choices are often a function of how we’re feeling at the moment and how we anticipate that exposure to certain media content is likely to make us feel during and following that exposure. |
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Term
| Zillmann’s Theory of Mood Management: Four dimensions of media |
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Definition
*Excitatory potential
-Influence levels of physiological arousal
*Absorption potential
-Losing yourself and forgetting about your mood
*Semantic affinity
-Association with a person’s positive and negative moods. Possibly intensify feelings
*Hedonic valence
-Pleasant media -> feeling happy
-Unpleasant media -> feeling bad |
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Term
| Ten Fundamental Flaws with Media Effects Research |
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Definition
-The effects model tackles social problems “backwards”
-The effects model treats children as inadequate
-Assumptions within the effects model are characterized by barely -concealed conservative ideology
-The effects model inadequately defines its own objects of study
-The effects model is often based on artificial studies
-The effects model is often based on studies with misapplied methodology
-The effects model is selective in its criticisms of media depictions of violence
-The effects model assumes superiority to the masses
-The effects model makes no attempt to understand meanings of the media
-The effects model is not grounded in theory |
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Term
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Definition
| Media advertising contains hidden or subliminal appeals that penetrate into the unconscious mind of the consumer. |
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Term
| Key principles of media persuasion |
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Definition
Power of the Source (credibility)
-Expertise & Trustworthiness
Message Features
-Simplicity and Repetition
Fear/Guilt
Humor |
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Term
| Protection Motivation Theory |
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Definition
Success of fear appeals depends on:
1) The perceived severity of a threat
2) The perceived probability of the occurrence of, or vulnerability to the threat
3) The ability to respond effectively to the threat |
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Term
| Weapons of Influence (Cialdini) |
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Definition
-Reciprocity
-Commitment & Consistency
-Social proof
-Liking
-Authority
-Scarcity |
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Term
| Elaboration Likelihood model of persuasion |
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Definition
**2 routes to persuasion
*Central route
-Highly cognitive
-If message is counter-attitudinal, more likely to undergo critical scrutiny
*Peripheral route
-Messages are scrutinized less because individuals aren’t expecting to be persuaded
-Eg when watching entertainment tv show |
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Term
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Definition
-Also called “scary world” or “mean world” syndrome
-Media messages gradually persuade by encouraging (or cultivating) certain attitudes or ways of thinking about or viewing social reality
-Heavy TV viewers will eventually adopt a view of social reality that mirrors that presented on TV |
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Term
| Media Cultivation Theory (2) |
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Definition
*Mainstreaming: when people of different groups are exposed to the same media, the differences between them become less pronounced because everyone is being similarly cultivated by media messages.
-TV as melting pot
*Resonance: when a person’s real-life environment strongly resembles the environment depicted in the media, the cultivating effect is stronger. |
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Term
| Critiques of Media Cultivation Theory |
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Definition
-Cultivation Theory can’t be tested with experiments
-Surveys – self-report, correlations (vs causality).
-Spurious relationships?
--E.g. Heavy TV viewers tend to fear being victims of crimes. Could be spurious when the level of crime in the neighborhood is considered. |
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Term
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Definition
| -Images that stand out, are deviant, and consequently more important viewing experiences |
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Term
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Definition
*The cognitive structure that organizes one’s knowledge and provide a framework for understanding future events
-Role schema relate to schema around specific roles (e.g. mother, profession, etc.) |
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Term
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Definition
| “Television programming generally portrays men and women in traditional gender stereotypical roles…. All content analyses illustrate the consistent findings that men are more often on TV, in higher status roles as characters, and are represented as having greater power than women.” |
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Term
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Definition
-Body dissatisfaction: Negative feelings, thoughts or experiences about one’s body; a negative body image
-Social comparison: Looking to outside images in order to evaluate oneself |
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