History of Media Effects

Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 2008 History of Media Effects Esser, Frank Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-8070 Book Section Originally published at: Esser, Frank (2008). History of Media Effects. In: Donsbach, W. The International Encyclopedia of Communication. London: Blackwell, 2891-2896. © 2008 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd BLACKWELL PUBLISHING 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK 550 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia The right of Wolfgang Donsbach to be identified as the author of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. 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First published 2008 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd 1 2008 Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data The international encyclopedia of communication/edited by Wolfgang Donsbach. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4051-3199-5 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Communication—Encyclopedias. I. Donsbach, Wolfgang, 1949– P87.5.158 2008 302.203—dc22 2007047271 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Set in 10/13pt Minion by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong Printed in Singapore by C.O.S. Printers Pte Ltd The publisher’s policy is to use permanent paper from mills that operate a sustainable forestry policy, and which has been manufactured from pulp processed using acid-free and elementary chlorine-free practices. Furthermore, the publisher ensures that the text paper and cover board used have met acceptable environmental accreditation standards. For further information on Blackwell Publishing, visit our website at www.blackwellpublishing.com Media Effects, History of 2891 Milavsky, J. R., Stipp, H. H., Kessler, R. C., & Rubens, W. S. (1982). Television and aggression: A panel study. New York: Academic Press. Mundorf, N., Drew, D., Zillmann, D., & Weaver, J. (1990). Effects of disturbing news on recall of subsequently presented news. Communication Research, 17(5), 601–615. Singer, J. L., & Singer, D. G. (1981). Television, imagination, and aggression: A study of preschoolers. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Tewksbury, D., Jones, J., Peske, M. W., Raymond, A., & Vig, W. (2000). The interaction of news and advocate frames: Manipulating audience perceptions of a local public policy issue. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 77(4), 804–829. Zillmann, D. (1989). Effects of prolonged consumption of pornography. In D. Zillmann & J. Bryant (eds.), Pornography: Research advances and policy considerations. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 127–157. Zillmann, D., & Brosius, H.-B. (2000). Exemplification in communication: The influence of case reports on the perception of issues. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Zillmann, D., & Weaver, J. B. (1999). Effects of prolonged exposure to gratuitous media violence on provoked and unprovoked hostile behavior. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 29(1), 145–165. Zillmann, D., Hoyt, J. L., & Day, K. D. (1974). Strength and duration of the effect of aggressive, violent, and erotic communications on subsequent aggressive behavior. Communication Research, 1, 286–306. Zillmann, D., Chen, L., Knobloch, S., & Callison, C. (2004). Effects of lead framing on selective exposure to Internet news reports. Communication Research, 31(1), 58–81. A00??????OriginalMEDIAugust 2007 EFFECTS,Articles HISTORY OF Media Effects, History of Frank Esser University of Zurich The established history of media effects research is characterized by a series of phases marked by fundamental paradigm shifts (see McQuail 1977, 72–74; 2005, 457–462; Lowery & DeFleur 1983, 22–29; Severin & Tankard 2001, 262–268; Baran & Davis 2006, 8–17). Each of these phases is associated with particular concepts, researchers, studies, and historical circumstances that influenced ideological development regarding media effects (→ Communication as a Field and Discipline). THE FOUR PHASES OF MEDIA EFFECTS PARADIGMS The first phase, from World War I to the end of the 1930s, was characterized by the assumption that the effects of the media on the population would be exceedingly strong. The media were credited with an almost limitless omnipotence in their ability to shape opinion and belief, to change life habits, and to mold audience behavior more or less according to the will of their controllers (McQuail 2005, 458). The power of media messages over unsuspecting audiences was described in drastic terms: the mass media supposedly fired messages like dangerous bullets, or shot messages into the audience like strong drugs pushed through hypodermic needles. These descriptions gave rise to the “hypodermic- needle concept” (Berlo 1960, 27), the “magic bullet theory” (Schramm 1973, 243), and the 2892 Media Effects, History of “transmission belt theory” (DeFleur & Ball-Rokeach 1982, 161). Instinct psychology and the theory of mass society were interpreted to show that people in urbanized and industrialized society were rootless, alienated, and inherently susceptible to manipulation. As a result, they were defenseless against and at the mercy of the capricious stimuli of the media – particularly as early ideas maintained that the mass media were run primarily by people and organizations that were deliberately trying to exert a targeted influence upon recipients (→ Stimulus–Response Model). The second phase of the standard history lasted approximately from the end of the 1930s to the end of the 1960s and was distinguished by the assumption that the media were largely not influential. The research group of → Paul F. Lazarsfeld ushered in the deconstruction of the bullet theory. The results of their empirical, social-scientific election study, The people’s choice (1944), moved interest away from what the media did to people and toward what people did with the media. Rather than seeing a society of fragmented individuals receiving all-powerful messages from the mass media, the view shifted to one of a society of individuals who interacted within groups and thus limited the effects of media messages. Early on, Lazarsfeld et al. (1944) defined all three key concepts that Joseph T. Klapper (1960) later united and used as the basis of his limited effects theory. These three concepts also characterized the second phase of effects research. They state that: (1) people use → selective exposure and selective perception to protect themselves from media influences, accepting almost exclusively only such information as corresponds to their previously established attitudes (→ Selective Perception and Selective Retention); (2) → opinion leaders initiate a → two-step flow of communication by absorbing ideas and arguments from the mass media and then communicating these – transformed – ideas to less active individuals; (3) social group formation enhances the role that → interpersonal communication plays in protecting an individual member from a change of opinion, as members do not wish to lose membership in their relational group (→ Katz, Elihu). The third phase, from the end of the 1960s through the end of the 1970s, was characterized by the rediscovery of strong media effects. According to standard media effects history, an essay by → Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann entitled “Return to the concept of powerful mass media” (1973) may be considered to have set the program for the movement into the third phase (see Severin & Tankard 2001, 264; McQuail 2005, 460). A number of highly regarded studies showed that it was possible for the media to overcome some selectivity processes in a television-saturated environment. Near the end of the 1940s Herbert Hyman and Paul Sheatsly (1947) published a study in Public Opinion Quarterly entitled “Some reasons why information campaigns fail”; then, a quarter of a century later, Harold Mendelsohn (1973) used the same forum to proclaim the exact opposite: “Some reasons why information campaigns can succeed.” Three distinct features are attributed to this phase: more sophisticated methods of analysis (→ Research Methods), more specific hypotheses, and more highly differentiated theoretical appro- aches. Thus, survey data and content analysis data could be combined long-term with the help of time-series analyses or panel design studies (→ Survey; Content Analysis, Quantitative). In addition, effects research since that time has been less focused on crude changes in attitude or behavior, and more interested

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