Blog #13

·       What were the earliest types of media studies, and why weren't they more scientific?

In the early days of the United States, writings like philosophical and historical, which tried to explain the nature of news and print media. In the nineteenth century, the media analysis was based on moral and political arguments. Not until the late 1920s and 30s, Walter Lippmann’s Liberty and the News called on journalists to operate more like scientific researchers in gathering and analyzing factual material.

·       What were the major influences that led to scientific media research?

The four major influences that led to scientific media research are propaganda analysis, public opinion research, social psychology studies and marketing research. Propaganda analysis is considered a positive force for mobilizing public opinion during the war. Public opinion research on diverse populations has provided insights into citizen behavior and social differences. Social Psychology studies measure the behavior and cognition of individuals. Marketing research developed when advertisers and product companies began conducting surveys on consumer buying habits in the 1920s.

·       What is content analysis, and why is it significant?

Content analysis is a systematic method of coding and measuring media content. Content analysis was first used during World War 2 for radio, more recent studies have focused on television, film, and the Internet. Most influential content analysis studies were conducted by George Gerbner and his colleagues at UPenn, they coded and counted acts of violence on network television. The limits of content analysis have been well documented. This technique does not measure the effects of the messages on audiences, nor does it explain how those messages are presented. Problems of definition occur in content anaylsis, in the case of coding and counting acts of violence. Critics point out that as content analysis grew to be a primary tool in media research, it sometimes pushed to the sidelines other ways of thinking about television and media content. Critics of content analysis have objected to the kind of social science that reduces culture to acts of counting.

·       What are the differences between the hypodermic-needle model and the minimal-effects model in the history of media research?

The concept of powerful media affecting weak audiences has been labeled the hypodermic-needle model; it suggests that the media shoot their potent effects directly into unsuspecting victims. According to the hypodermic-needle model,, not all listeners thought the radio program was a real news report. Minimal effects model was laid out by Cantril’s research. With the rise of empirical research techniques, social scientists began discovering and demonstrating that media alone cannot cause people to change their attitudes and behaviors. People generally engage in selective exposure and selective retention with regard to the media. People expose themselves to the media messages that are most familiar to them, and they retain the messages that confirm the values and attitudes they already hold. Minimal-effects researchers have argued that in most cases mass media reinforce existing behaviors and attitudes rather than change them.

·       What are the main ideas behind social learning theory, agenda-setting, the cultivation effect, the spiral of silence, and the third-person effect?

The main ideas behind social learning theory are that Bandura concluded that the experiments demonstrated a link between violent media programs, such as those on television, and aggressive behavior. Bandura developed social learning theory as a four-step process: attention(the subject must attend to the media and witness the aggressive behavior), retention (the subject must retain the memory for later retrieval), motor reproduction (the subject must be able to physically imitate the behavior), and motivation (there must be a social reward or reinforcement to encourage modeling of the behavior). Social Learning theories often cite real-life imitations of media aggression as evidence of social learning theory. Agenda setting is the idea that when the mass media focus their attention on particular events or issues, they determine the set the agenda-the major topics of discussion for individuals and society. Agenda-setting researchers have argued that the mass media do not so much tell us what to think as what to think about. Agenda-setting research has demonstrated that the more stories the news media do on a particular subject, the more importance audiences attach to that subject. The cultivation effect suggests that heavy viewing of television leads individuals to perceive the world in ways that are consistent with television portrayals. The cultivation effect suggests that the more time individuals spend viewing television and absorbing its viewpoints, the more likely their views of social reality will be “cultivated” by the images and portrayals they see on television. The spiral of silence theory links the mass media, social psychology, and the formation of public opinion. The theory proposes that those who believe that their views on controversial issues are in the minority will keep their views to themselves-that is, become silent-for fear of social isolation, which diminishes or even silences alternative perspectives. Third person effect theory suggests that people believe others are more affected by media messages than they are themselves. In other words, it proposes the idea that “we” can escape the worst effects of media while still worrying about people who are younger, less educated, more impressionable, or otherwise less capable of guarding against media influence.

·       What are some strengths and limitations of modern media research?

Some strengths of modern media research include valuable contributions to our understanding of the mass media, submitting content and audiences to rigorous testing. This wealth of research exists partly because funding for studies on the effects of the media on young people remains popular among politicians and has drawn ready government support since the 60s. Media critic Richard Rhodes argues that media effects research is inconsistent and often flawed but continues to resonate with politicians and parents because it offers an easy-to-blame social cause.

·       Why did cultural studies develop in oppositioon to media effects research?

The cultural studies develop in opposition to media effects research pointed to at least three inadequacies of traditional scientific approaches to media research, arguing that they reduced large “cultural questions” to measurable and “verifiable categories”; depended on “atmosphere of rigidly enforced neutrality”; and refused to place “phenomena of modern life” in a “historical and moral context.” This historical and cultural approaches were also necessary to focus critical attention on the long-range effects of the mass media on audiences.

·       What are the features of cultural studies?

Cultural studies focuses on issue of race, gender, class, and sexuality, and on the unequal arrangements of power and status in contemporary society. It emphasizes how some social and cultural groups have been marginalized and ignored throughout history. Cultural studies have attempted to recover lost or silenced voices, particularly among African American; Native Americans; Asian and Asian American; Arabic; Latino; Appalachian; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender; immigrant, and women’s cultures. The major approaches in the cultural studies research today are textual analysis, audience studies, and political economy studies.

·       What is the major criticism about specilization in academic research at universities?

Alan Sokal, who is a New York University physics professor has worries that jargon and intellectual fads cause academics to lose contact with the real world and undermine the prospect for progressive social critique. Increasing specialization in the 1970s began isolating many researchers from life outside of the university. Academics were locked away in their ivory towers, concerned with seemingly obscure matters to which the general public couldn’t relate. Academics across many fields began responding to this isolation and became increasingly active in political and cultural life in the 1980s and 1990s.

·       How have public intellectuals contributed to society's debates about the mass media? Give examples.

Public intellectuals have also encouraged discussion about media production in a digital world. Professor Lawrence Lessig from Harvard law, has been leading advocate of efforts to rewrite the nation’s copyright laws to enable noncommercial amateur culture to flourish on the internet. Public intellectuals based on campuses help carry on the conversation of society and culture, actively circulating the most important new ideas of the day and serving as models for how to participate in public life.