• Information = resource = knowledge
• each new medium increases knowledge gap between information rich (high SES) and information poor (low SES)

• difference in communication skills between SES groups
• difference in amount of stored information - means of information
• SES groups have greater relevant social contact
• selective exposure, attention and retention - for economic and political news specifically
• mass media's nature - most highly relevant news caters to those with a high SES

• When perceived conflict of an issue increases, knowledge gap decreases. Because when people see something newsworthy, there is more investment
• In more pluralistic communities (communities that are very heterogeneous), we notice that the knowledge gap is more likely to occur. This is because they have differences in interest and selectivity
• If an issue is high relevance in a given community then the gap goes down

• education
• SES
• motivation
• knowledge acquisition

• It is a very traditional communication paradigm—what about the relevance of the issue or the worthiness of the knowledge?
• How do we decrease the gaps? Audience segmentation? Try to get everyone on the same education level?
• Correlation DOES NOT equal causation
• What about relevance of the issue? Worthiness of knowledge?

• hard news -> any report of an event that happened or was disclosed in the past 24 hours
• soft news -> human interest stories, universal appeal, not contingent on time or place

• (1) Personalized—about individuals
• (2) Dramatic and Conflict-Filled
• (3) Features Action—observable occurrence
• (4) Novel/Deviant
• (5) Linked to Ongoing Current Interest

• Inoffensive

• Local Hook

• Packageable

• Credible

importance placed on issues by news media -> importance of issues to public

news agenda -> public agenda

• Mad Cow Disease: Graph shows that after it is talked about a lot on TV, people become more concerned with it. Behavioral Effects? When they are concerned about Mad Cow, there is also a dip in beef consumption 
• Chapel Hill Study: Voters queried before 1972 election to identify and rank issues of importance to the public. High association between topics that public deemed “important” and topics most commonly covered in news. Identical agendas for both public and news media—it was a very high correlation

1st: what to think about (topic)

2nd: how to view the issue (attributes)

(2nd level -> framing)

• correlation does not equal causation
• Individual differences—socialization, peer influence, political views, etc.
• Selective Exposure and Perception of News aren’t accounted for
• New technologies help us become more active in choosing our media content
• Social Learning/Repetition Implications
• Uniformity of news—they all cover the same things, like the Malaysia flight
• Too media deterministic

(different from media frames) mentally stored clusters of ideas, guiding information processing 

• episodic frames: present a portrait, focuses on the story of a person, people are less likely to consider society responsible example: stories featuring homeless and unemployed -> laziness and low education
• thematic frames: present a landscape, trends, less likely to consider individuals responsible example: stories featuring homeless and unemployed -> blame governmental policies beyond victim's control

News coverage tends to focus on the game of politics and competition between players instead of the features of policy—particularly true during elections

• Frame Building: how news professionals construct frames

• Frame Setting: Examines effects on audiences from news frames, like agenda setting research

• Societal norms and values
• Pressure and constraint of news organizations
• Policy-maker or interest group pressures
• Professional routines
• Own political attitudes
• Influence of elite members of society
• Cultural environment

anyone can be a journalist, scholars argue may lessen agenda setting because of more control over content (although some argue blogs rely on media agenda, in which case it may stregthen agenda setting effects)

example: CNN iReport, OhMyNews

-Intermedia agenda setting

-Influence that agendas of different media have on each other

-EX:

-Fox calls 2000 election early—Ellis, Bush’s cousin called Bush the clear winner when it was actually too close to call—within minutes a ton of other networks claimed the same thing 

-Oprah Effect—strong advocate for Obama and her “favorite things” popularity proves that she is influential

• Influence of synergy on content (EX: rejection of news stories by conglomerate-owned media)
• Credibility of news organizations
• Power distribution in favor of large organizations
• Less diversified/homogeneous content

-Central organizing idea for news, involving:

-Selection

-Emphasis

-Exclusion

-Elaboration

EX. OJ simpson covers

• (1)Attention—frequency and length of stories
• (2)Placement—top story, “above the fold”
• (3)Content Cues—headlines, photos, tone
• (4)Number of Sources/Outlets
• -EX: Sandy Hook was considered very important because it had high attention, placement, content cues and was covered by every major station

(1) We live in a very media saturated environment -> we can’t avoid 

(2) Heavy viewing of television “cultivates” common perspectives. 

(3) Reception of themes on TV

(4) Little choice and diversity

(5) People aren’t too selective

(6) TV as central cultural arm of American society or centralized system of story telling

an effect of cultivation, heavy TV viewing has caused some people to feel that the world is unsafe because TV news focuses so much on violence

(1) Chance of involvement with violence

(2) Fear of walking alone at night

(3) Perceived activity of police

(4) General mistrust of people

heavy viewing leads to convergence of outlooks across groups through consistent exposure to the same images

-It doesn’t matter what the social group distinctions are, but somehow over time TV is blurring these distinctions

cultivation effects boosted for certain groups of the population. Repeated symbolic portrayals reinforce real life experience of viewers

-> certain group get a double dose from tv viewing aka people who experience it in real life experience a much stronger cultivation effect

(1) Generalizability

-What about heavy viewers who do not believe the world is violent?

(2) Testability

-To what extent can you really argue that it is the TV starting it—causality?

(3) Homogeneity of TV content should be questioned

(4) Selective Exposure—we choose what we watch so

(5) Meta-analysis of cultivation studies examining the link between TV viewing and tendency to give “television answers” and they have found that there is a WEAK correlation

• Repeated exposure to media violence (psychological saturation or emotional adjustment) that results in initial levels of anxiety eventually diminishes or weakens
• We are highly aroused the first time, but over time we eventually stop showing strong emotional impact to violence, we become more tolerant

• see Oliver article
• after slasher films, college males had less sympathy for victims of rape

• We see news and violence everywhere we go and we can even get news updates regularly
• With Netflix and Hulu you can binge watch so there’s a lot of repeated exposure

- missing more?

- desensitization theory does not take new media into consideration

• psychological responses, first time a theory tries to explain multiple stimuli -> transferring of arousal states

• Early state of arousal gets transferredà something else in an entirely different form
• Time One: A situation occurs that elevates physiological arousal -> a subsequent

Lasts for some period of time

-Time Two: a subsequent emotion-inducing stimuli is encountered; time 1 arousal energizes time 2 arousal leading toàExcitation Transfer Effect—time 2 arousal even more magnified

Examples

Meeting your Future In-Laws

-Route 1: Heightened arousal, residual arousal, frustration (delay at gate), arousal and irritation are attributed mainly to “meeting the parents”, aggression is not increased—Aggression is increased

-Route 2: Heightened arousal, residual arousal, frustration (delay at gate), arousal and irritation are attributed mainly to delay at the gate, screaming at airport person—Aggression is not increased

Peddling Example

-Who shocks the provoker more (hypothetically—shocking is the retribution)

-Condition One: ½ participants provoked by a confederate, then rest 6 minutes, pedaled on a cycling machine. Those who pedal last attribute the level of arousal to cycling, not the confederate so they shock them less

-Condition Two: ½ participants provoked by a confederate, pedaled on cycling machine, and then rested for 6 minutes. They rest at the end so their ability to not misattribute the arousal is lower so they attribute their arousal to the provoker, shocking them more

• Explanatory: does it apply to combination of both positive and negative emotions? Sex is a positive arousal and death is negative so do they cancel each other out and that’s why we don’t see it supported in the death scene.
• Predictive: Can excitation transfer theory inform conditional effects model? If John is violent and Joe isn’t John is aroused at the sex and death but Joe is just aroused by sex—not everyone is affected the same way. We all have a different baseline arousal so it affects us differently
• What about impact of negative emotions? If they had a negative reaction to the sexual scene then were they even more disgusted by the death scene?
• What about change in the focus of the stimulus? If you really wanted to prove excitation you should test different stimuli
• major: desensitization argument: reduced arousal over time, not an increase
  

• Why do behavioral effect not take place (like abstaining from sex because we see people die after having sex)? We go through the attention and retention stage but we’re not going through motivation and reproduction
• Leaning appropriation and reproducing learned behaviors.

(1) Desensitization to fiction vs. real life—we can become desensitized to violence or sex in films but then in real life we are still sensitized to it—if you see a dead body in real life you will still be sensitized to it

(2) Sexual violence in programs (Law & Order: SVU): desensitization or agenda setting? Are they desensitized or are they just becoming more aware? The more you see a theme, like violence, the more you think it is prevalent in your own society.

-There are many ethical issues for desensitization

(1) Link between selection of sexual material (pornography) and previous sexual attitudes

-Our previous attitudes hold a stake; could our previous sexual attitudes make us more willing to select and seek out sexual content more than others?

-It’s not about excitation transfer having an effect; it is about people seeking it out

(1) Reinforcement of gender schemas/expectations

(2) Gender and cultural socialization/selective perception

-What if people don’t watch it for horror or sex, but for meaning and elevation?

(3) Masculinity of female characters

-We are combatting the gender-schemas that exist

(4) Gender and attribution: what if the killer was female?