Com 250 Final

Front 1

The effects of media messages on audience members are usefully divided into three major realms:

Back 1

Behavioral- actions,hardest
Emotional- attitudes
Cognitive- knowledge, easiest

Front 2

More research has been conducted on _______ than on any of the other questions.

Back 2

media violence

Front 3

Current Research on Media Violence

Back 3

-relatively small long-term effects compared with other influences
-exposure to media violence accounts for, at most, nine percent of aggression in humans (the range is 2% to 9%)
-This amount is small, yet meaningful

Front 4

correlation coefficient

Back 4

-captures the (linear) relationship between two (or more) quantitatively measurable variables.
-Correlation coefficients range in magnitude between -1.0 and +1.0.
- Must square the r value to find the percent

Front 5

Negative (minus, inverse) correlations

Back 5

indicate relationships in which the two variables move in different directions; as the value of one variable increases, the value of the other variable decreases.

Front 6

Positive correlations

Back 6

indicate relationships in which both variables move in the same direction.

Front 7

mathematical correlation between two variables is _____ evidence to conclude that one is causing the other.

Back 7

not sufficient

Front 8

Even though the contributory role of TV on human aggression is small, the American Academy of Pediatrics advised parents to (3):

Back 8

limit children’s TV viewing to no more than two hours of “quality” programming a day

discourage television viewing for children younger than two years of age

forbid television sets in children’s bedrooms or other locations where they might engage in unsupervised viewing

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POWERFUL MEDIA EFFECTS
time period

Back 9

-1920 to 1940, many scholars thought that mass-media messages had uniform effects on audiences

- fear that propaganda was successful in world war one

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POWERFUL MEDIA EFFECTS
Theoretical perspective

Back 10

Early media researchers assumed that humans were governed by instincts and hence reacted to mass-media messages in similar ways (e.g., bullet theory, hypodermic-needle analogy, magic keys of persuasion).

Front 11

The Payne Fund Studies (1929)

Back 11

the first major investigation into the social effects of entertainment media (motion pictures), focused on the relationship between young viewers and juvenile delinquency.

Front 12

LIMITED MEDIA EFFECTS

Back 12

Since 1941, scholars have understood that individual differences among audience members mitigate the influence of mass-media messages.

Front 13

LIMITED MEDIA EFFECTS
Historical context:
Theoretical perspective:

Back 13

Historical context: Unexpected reactions to a 1938 radio show, followed by similar unanticipated findings from a 1940 study on voting decisions

Theoretical perspective: A revised assumption that audience members react to mass-media messages in individual ways, rather than uniformly

Front 14

LIMITED MEDIA EFFECTS
Evidence

Back 14

careful examination of panic reactions following the 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast on the CBS radio network
Listeners who panicked did so for various reasons, all checked differently so they reacted differently

Front 15

survey conducted in Erie County, Ohio

Back 15

mass-media messages played only an
indirect role in the formation of voting intentions
media messages flowed first to opinion leaders, and then from opinion leaders to other members of the public in a “two-step flow of communication.”

Front 16

The great comic book scare

Back 16

What: A link between reading comic books focused on crime (content) and juvenile delinquency (behavior)

When: During the late 1940s and early 1950s

Who: Dr. Frederic Wertham, a New York City psychiatrist

Evidence: Dr. Werthan’s clinical estimate that the “average child” read comic books two to three hours per day

Outcome: Much buzz about “crime comic books,” but social intervention was limited by the First Amendment

Front 17

Also in the 1960s, Congress began to f_______________

Back 17

fund the quantitative study of social problems.

Front 18

Two government investigations during the late 1960s provided important scientific data on television and human aggression.

Back 18

National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (1968)

The Surgeon General’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Television and Social Behavior (1969)

Front 19

Dr. George Gerbner

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analysis of prime-time television content broadcast by the three national commercial television networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) which together captured 90-percent of the TV audience in the 1960s.

Front 20

Dr. Gerbner reported:

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80 percent of prime-time dramatic programs portrayed violence (newscasts were not analyzed)

60 percent of prime-time characters portrayed violence

Front 21

More important, Dr. Gerbner found that

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most violent portrayals involved instrumental violent acts committed by strangers

50 percent of portrayed killers suffered no portrayed consequences

Front 22

Results of a 1995 study paid for by the National Cable Television Association:

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57 percent of all TV programs contained violence

the perpetrator of violence went unpunished in 73 percent of violent scenes

Front 23

1995 study paid for by the National Cable Television Association:
Research Question

Back 23

could exposure to media violence cause aggression in some people under some circumstances?

Front 24

To determine if one variable caused another variable, scientists use experimental designs... which are:

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All experiments require at least two conditions, or groups of research participants: An experimental group, and a control group for comparison purposes.

Each research participant in a study has an equal chance of being assigned to any of the conditions in the study.

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basic experimental design

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R = random assignment to create equivalent groups
X = manipulated procedure (e.g., message type)
O = observed variable (e.g., aggression)

Front 26

SYMBOLIC CATHARSIS

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-Dr. Seymour Feshbach
-catharsis might work in the context of media violence?
-predicted that exposure to media violence would purge or sublimate aggressive drives (i.e., transform them in socially acceptable ways).

Front 27

SYMBOLIC CATHARSIS
What, then, should happen in the psychological laboratory if Dr. Feshbach were correct?

Back 27

Exposure to media violence should lower aggression in angered humans.

Front 28

SYMBOLIC CATHARSIS
Dr. Feshbach’s basic experimental design

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Treatment (manipulated) group:: participants were angered, shown a violent televised depiction, and then given the opportunity to aggress.

Control (comparison) group:
Research participants were angered, shown a nonviolent televised depiction, and then given the opportunity to aggress.

Front 29

SYMBOLIC CATHARSIS
Results:

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angered research participants who saw violent media depictions tended to be more aggressive than angered research participants who saw non-violent media depictions.

Front 30

two additional theoretical explanations for the observed experimental results for symbolic catharsis.

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Instigation (aggressive cues)
Excitation Transfer

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INSTIGATION (AGGRESSIVE CUES)

Back 31

Dr. Leonard Berkowitz
Certain environmental cues trigger aggression

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INSTIGATION (AGGRESSIVE CUES)
What should happen in the lab:

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Media depictions that feature cues will stimulate aggression in angered research participants, compared with media depictions that do not feature such cues.

Front 33

INSTIGATION (AGGRESSIVE CUES)
Results

Back 33

Media depictions that featured portrayals of violence (e.g., a boxing film) or items with aggressive cue value (e.g., guns) stimulated aggression in angered research participants, compared with media depictions that did not feature such cues.

Children played more aggressively with toys that cued aggression (e.g., toy guns) than without such toys.

Front 34

EXCITATION TRANSFER

Back 34

Dr. Dolf Zillmann
Certain media depictions (e.g., suspense, violence, sex) cause emotional arousal.

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EXCITATION TRANSFER
What should happen in the lab:

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Media depictions that heighten emotions, regardless of the nature of content, will lead to greater post-exposure emotional responses than media depictions that do not heighten emotions.

Front 36

Basic experimental design for experiments on excitation transfer

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Treatment group: measure of baseline arousal, exposure to arousing televised depiction, post-exposure response

Control group: measure of baseline arousal, exposure to non-arousing televised depiction, post-exposure response

Front 37

EXCITATION TRANSFER
Results

Back 37

Independent of content, arousing media depictions led to heightened emotional responses while research participants remained in a state of heightened arousal.

violent content is not required for arousal

prosocial possibilities (e.g., sharing, helping)

Front 38

OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING (MODELING)

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Dr. Albert Bandura
Humans learn by cognitively integrating witnessed behaviors, such as those depicted on television.

Front 39

OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING (MODELING)
What should happen in the lab:

Back 39

Research participants should learn to refrain from spontaneously modeling socially undesirable behaviors seen on TV after viewing negative consequences for such behavior.

When given sufficient incentives, research participants should nevertheless be able to model socially undesirable behaviors learned from TV depictions, even after viewing negative consequences of such behavior.

Front 40

OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING (MODELING)
Three treatments

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one of three experimental conditions:

a televised character’s aggression depicted as rewarded

a televised character’s aggression depicted as punished

a televised character’s aggression depicted with no consequences

Front 41

OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING
The researchers measured how much the children imitated what they saw depicted on TV in two ways:

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for all children in the study, spontaneous modeling during “free play” after viewing the three televised depictions

for children in the “punished” condition, modeling after being offered incentives leading to “disinhibition” (loss of inhibition)

Front 42

OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING
Result

Back 42

Strong and compelling support for observation as a human-learning mechanism

inhibition affects only spontaneous imitation

children also imitate cartoon characters

prosocial possibilities

Front 43

Perspective on prosocial media effects

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Prosocial messages are usually subtle, likely to be verbal, and hence comparatively harder to grasp.