12

Media Theory
and Research
G
“ uns don’t kill people,” National Rifle Association (NRA) Executive Vice LEARNING OBJECTIVES
President Wayne LaPierre said at a press conference one week after the
mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, >> Explain the role of theory and
2012. “Video games, the media, and Obama’s budget kill people.” research for media
LaPierre elaborated: “There exists in this country, sadly, a callous, corrupt and cor- professionals.
rupting shadow industry that sells and stows violence against its own people >> Describe various types of
through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft media research.
Auto, Mortal Kombat, and Splatterhouse.”1 >> Critically examine the
The video game industry has long confronted charges from across the political strengths and weaknesses of
spectrum that violent games increase violence among children and teens, concerns various media-research
that have only intensified with the rise in popularity of video games and advanced approaches.
technology creating hyperrealistic graphics. And the fact remains that the incidence >> Discuss how digital media and
of gun-related deaths in the United States is higher than that of any other industrial- the Internet are being
researched in terms of new
ized country.
and old media theories.
Yet the results from numerous studies on gaming and violence are inconclusive
as to whether violent video games or TV programs increase the likelihood of aggres-
>> Examine the differences
between quantitative and
sive or violent behavior in real life. Some studies demonstrate a correlation while
qualitative research.
others do not. And even correlation cannot prove causation. Furthermore, Americans
play violent video games at the same rate as people in countries with little gun vio-
lence, such as South Korea and the Netherlands.2
Nevertheless, people looking for explanations for inexplicably brutal acts con-
tinue to blame the simulated brutality of video games. In September 2013, after
“Navy Yard shooter” Aaron Alexis killed twelve people and injured three others in
Washington, DC, early reports were quick to cite his apparent obsession with violent
video games. Subsequent inquiry, however, revealed that he might have been delu-
sional as the result of an undiagnosed mental illness. As Alexis was fatally shot by an
officer at the scene, the mystery of what drove him to mass murder will likely never
be resolved.

357

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Research findings on media and violence can have a tremendous impact on media
industries in the form of government censorship or regulations and sales of media
products such as games, movies, and books. Media effects have been an area of
keen interest since the dawn of the mass-communication era. Theories about media
and communication attempt to explain the underlying processes of media, how we
interact with media, and how media affect our cultures, societies, attitudes, and
lives. This research takes on special importance given how much time we spend
with media, demonstrated by the following findings from years of research:
Americans spend an average of just over five hours a day watching television.
By age 75, the average American will have spent nine years of his or her life
watching television.3
By age eighteen, a child has seen on TV two hundred thousand acts of vio-
lence, including forty thousand acts of murder.4
Half (47 percent) of violent actions include no depiction of pain.5
Fifty-four percent of children in the mid-1990s had a television set in their
own bedroom and often watched with a friend, unsupervised.6
Media research is the systematic and scientific investigation of communica-
tion processes and effects that often bases its explorations on theories of media
and communication. Some types of media research, such as that conducted by
market research firms, are more oriented to answering practical questions, such
as whether audience members remember a particular advertisement, their im-
pressions of a product or brand, or their media use and consumption habits.
Media-research methodology, or how research is carried out, takes many
forms. It can entail social scientific research using quantitative tools and statisti-
cal analysis of data, such as surveys and experiments; or it can involve critical
studies using qualitative methods, such as ethnography or focus groups.

Role of Theory and Research

For media professionals, research may seem more important than theory. Some-
one planning to work in journalism or advertising may see practical inquiry as
more significant than academic theory. Yet media theories have had a number of
profound effects. They play a foundational role, providing cognitive constructs
that help us organize and make sense of the world. They also play a key role in re-
search agendas, which then affect the questions asked during the course of inves-
tigation, the findings or discoveries, and the funding for such projects.
Research findings in turn shape public policies on the media and media indus-
tries, decisions about what and how items should be regulated, such as ratings
systems for movies, music, and video games. This of course has important implica-
tions for the organization and operation of media companies, which affects every-
thing from content development to job creation.
Media research carried out specifically for business purposes helps determine
audience numbers for particular shows or networks (thus determining advertising
rates and kinds of shows produced). It also helps identify which media campaigns
have been more effective and which messages more persuasive, and consequently,
which areas are of most interest to businesses, not-for-profit organizations, and
politicians.

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In short, media theories not only help media professionals better predict or
explain various phenomena, they also help us better understand the world we live
in and the forces at work in it. As we will see, questions about the fundamental
nature of communication and media are not new.

Mass Society, Mass Communication

A number of larger social, political, cultural, and scientific factors throughout the
course of history have greatly influenced the study of mass communication and
media theories. Here we will explore some of these historical and sociopolitical
forces.
The dramatic societal and political changes that took place in Europe and the
United States during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, thanks largely to
industrialization, provide the backdrop for early theorizing on mass communica-
tion. The new demands of factory work and mass migrations to the quickly grow-
ing cities changed traditional ways of life that had remained largely the same for
generations. Harsh working and living conditions produced clashes between work-
ers and authorities, leading to various social and political movements that called
for greater democracy and workers’ rights.
Elites threatened by these developments found various rationales for why
they should lead and most should simply follow, such as the notion of “the masses”:
people were largely uneducated, lacking in culture, and not intelligent enough to
rule themselves. Others opposed elitism, claiming that more participation, better
education, and greater distribution of wealth were necessary to create a more
democratic and just society.
During these debates, which still echo today, film was starting to be recog-
nized as an important medium of mass communication. Literacy was not needed
to understand the stories in silent films, and moving images were regarded as
powerful influencers, especially for the uneducated, passive masses, or other sup-
posedly vulnerable groups such as women and children. Messages in various
media could help educate, persuade, or control the masses; the question then
became how best to do accomplish these goals.

Media-Effects Research
The obvious way to study media influence was to identify effects of media expo-
sure. The notion that media could harm people was already well established,
dating back to the ancient Greeks. With new and powerful communication tech-
nologies that could reach millions at once, such as film, radio, and, later, televi-
sion, it was not hard to imagine the power that mass communication could have
over people.
Media effects have been a dominant concern in the history of media research
and continue to be important today. Findings from these studies have influenced
the creation of the movie-rating system, dictated regulations for the television
industry, and determined what types of advertisements we view. Although earlier
assumptions of direct and powerful media effects have been scaled back as newer,
more complex theories developed, the idea that media affect us directly (usually

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Propaganda posters during World War I led researchers to
hypothesize how persuasion worked on the public.
propaganda
The regular dissemination of a
belief, doctrine, cause, or
information, with the intent to
mold public opinion.
hypodermic-needle
model
A model of media effects, also
called the “magic bullet,” that
claims media messages have a
profound, direct, and uniform
impact on the public.
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negatively) is still prevalent. The history of effects research reveals
the interesting roles of communication technologies in relation to
social issues and norms deemed important.
PROPAGANDA AND THE MAGIC BULLET
Some of the earliest media-effects research was conducted to
better understand how mass communication persuaded people.
During World War I, both the United States and Germany em-
ployed film and other media (including posters) as instruments
of propaganda to generate public support for their positions in
the war.
Attempts to influence an audience through mass communica-
tion, propaganda usually involves total control of the transmis-
sion of information, often without the audience knowing who is
controlling the message. Although perhaps hard to imagine today,
many people through much of the twentieth century had ex-
tremely limited sources of information—perhaps only a govern-
ment radio station or a single government television station
broadcasting a few hours a day.
Political scientist Harold Lasswell, during his analysis of
World War I propaganda efforts, used the term “hypodermic
needle” to describe the concept that media can act like a drug being
injected into a passive audience. The hypodermic-needle model
assumes that messages have a profound, direct, and uniform
impact on individuals. This model has also been called the “magic
bullet” model of communication and derives largely from learning
theory and simple stimulus–response models in behavioral
psychology.
As film became more popular and began to share space with radio as a form of
mass communication in the 1920s, research about both mediums looked beyond
specific political or propaganda uses and examined effects on the general public,
especially children.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: Do you think propaganda is more or less likely to happen
today with social media? Why or why not?
PAYNE FUND
Between 1928 and 1933, some of the most prominent psychologists, sociologists,
and educators of the day conducted the Payne Fund studies. Published in 1933,
they included a twelve-volume report on the impact of film viewing on children.7
The studies provided a detailed examination of the effects of film in wide-ranging
areas, including sleep patterns, attitudes about violence, delinquent behavior, and
knowledge about foreign cultures.
The Payne Fund studies concluded that the same film would influence children
differently depending on their backgrounds and characteristics, including age,
sex, life experience, predispositions, social environment, and parental influence.
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The Payne Fund studies in the 1920s examined the effects of violence and sex in movies on young people.

One study of movies, delinquency, and crime, for instance, found that the impact
of film on criminal behavior may vary with the range of themes presented as well
as the social context, attitudes, and interests of the viewer. Contrary to the origi-
nal assumption about largely negative effects, the Payne Fund research also re-
vealed that children could learn some positive lessons from film and that
information retention was a function of grade in school.8
The Payne Fund studies also created a “school of the air” that would use radio
to educate children on a variety of subjects.9 This led to the formation of the Na-
tional Committee on Education by Radio (NCER) as well as the allocation of some
$300,000 in the early 1930s to support U.S. broadcasting reform, which at that
time meant radio.

RADIO’S WIDER IMPACT

Radio’s social effects reached far beyond children, as dramatically illus-
trated by events that unfolded on October 30, 1938, when Orson Welles
broadcast a radio program created to sound like a news event. At 8 p.m.,
the Columbia Broadcasting System’s Mercury Theater of the Air began its
radio broadcast from a New York City studio. Regular listeners and others
who heard the introduction understood perfectly well what was about to
follow, a radio adaptation of the famous 1897 novel War of the Worlds by
science fiction writer H. G. Wells.
Those who missed the introduction tuned in to a supposedly live orches-
tra, a performance whose calm ambiance was abruptly interrupted by
breaking news—an announcement that Martians had landed at a farm near
Grovers Mill, New Jersey. The frequent and increasingly disturbing news
flashes sounded very much like reports by Walter Winchell, the radio stand-
ard of the day. As the invasion ensued so did the panic. When it became ap-
parent that the Martians had vastly superior weaponry, numerous residents
Orson Welles and his War of the Worlds radio
of the eastern seaboard, especially in the New York and New Jersey area, broadcast had many listeners believing that
opted to hide in their basements or even flee their homes. Martians were actually invading the East Coast.

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A study by a psychologist showed that one in six listeners—1 million people—

believed the broadcast and the Martian invasion to be real, although not all 1 mil-
lion panicked and fled. Studies of the War of the Worlds broadcast and other radio
programming demonstrated that media effects could be dramatic but were not
uniform. Certain factors, including individual personalities, demographics, and
psychological variables such as good critical-thinking ability, could mediate re-
sponses to media exposure.
This event focused American attention on the power of mass communication
and triggered one of the first major investigations of a media program on the sub-
ject of social panic and mass hysteria as well as a debate about the government’s
control over the radio industry. As spectacular and strange as these incidents may
be, by far the major concerns of researchers have been depictions of sex and vio-
lence, particularly since the advent of television.

TELEVISION AND VIOLENCE

Bobo doll studies
Media–effects experiments in the
1950s that showed children who
watched TV episodes that
rewarded a violent person were
more likely to punch a Bobo doll
than children who saw episodes
that punished a violent person.
Depictions of violence on television continue to be a concern among many groups. ment television but also on its quality. How did
Much television programming is educational and entertaining, and much is pep-
pered with violence, sex, and profanity. Consequently, many adult viewers and
policy makers have pondered the effects of extended television viewing on the
next generation. Are children learning to be overly aggressive, imitating what
they see on the television screen? Are they learning more about the Three Stooges
than the three branches of government?
Hundreds of studies have been conducted and millions of dollars spent to in-
vestigate how TV violence affects children. Among the first was a study that
claimed television had become the new Pied Piper, providing a model (often not a
good model) for children to imitate. Yet few early analyses could provide conclu-
sive evidence that exposure to TV violence would have negative consequences in
the real world.
Laboratory research in the 1950s by psychologist Albert Bandura and others
demonstrated that children exposed to TV violence were more likely to repeat the
behavior they had witnessed (e.g., beating a “Bobo doll”) as well as become more
aggressive—while they were still in the labora-
tory. Although these studies suggested that
children learned by watching others, effects
were documented in a laboratory setting only.
Researchers who conducted the Bobo doll
studies could not confirm that the children re-
mained more aggressive once they left the
laboratory.
Social unrest and violence in public, much
of it politically motivated, rose dramatically in
the 1960s. Concerned about a broad range of
violence and its social causes, President Lyndon
B. Johnson convened the National Commis-
sion on the Causes and Prevention of Violence
in 1968. Violence and the Media, a report by the
commission’s media task force, focused not
only on the quantity of violence on entertain-

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the media portray violence? Who used which weapons to kill whom? What moti-
vated these acts? What were the consequences? Were aggressors rewarded or
punished?
Professor George Gerbner of the Annenberg School for Communication at the
University of Pennsylvania, who oversaw this content analysis and follow-up re-
search, defined violence as “the overt expression of force intended to hurt or kill.”
Overall, Gerbner and his colleagues found the consequences of television violence
unrealistic. There was rarely much pain or blood. Good guys, often as violent as
bad guys, did not suffer negative consequences for their actions. And bad guys
were usually punished by cops rather than courts. Whites were often the victims,
while young black males and other people of color, as well as immigrants, were
typically the perpetrators.
Research on TV violence continued in the eighties and nineties. In 1992, the
American Psychological Association issued its TV violence report, Big World, Small
Screen: The Role of Television in American Society: “The accumulated research clearly
demonstrates a correlation between viewing violence and aggressive behavior.
Children and adults who watch a large number of aggressive programs also tend to
hold attitudes and values that favor the use of violence.” Correlation is not causa-
tion, however: A relationship between television-violence viewing and aggressive
behavior does not mean one necessarily causes the other.
A team of researchers at UCLA led by Jeffrey Cole conducted one of the most
important studies of TV violence in the 1990s, research that indicated American
network television series had become somewhat less violent while the number of
“shockumentary” reality-based specials had increased dramatically. Funded by
the networks themselves, the UCLA Television Violence Report found that overall
violence decreased on ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC during the 1994–1995 season. But
reality-based programs, most commonly encountered on Fox, were especially vio-
lent, featuring real and recreated footage of police shootouts, car chases and
crashes, and animals attacking people, in some cases killing them on air.

LIMITED EFFECTS
Conducted by Wilbur Schramm, Jack Lyle, and Edwin Parker, Television in the Lives
of Our Children, a 1960 landmark investigation of the impact of television on chil-
dren in North America, concluded that some children under some conditions were
likely to exhibit some negative consequences of exposure to television violence.
But there was no magic bullet of media effects. From these results and similar
findings developed various kinds of limited-effects models.
In this view, media are a component in a much larger and more fundamental
system of influences to which we are all subject. Institutions such as the family,
school, and religion are much more influential forces that shape individual tastes,
attitudes, and behaviors. Media exposure contributes to and often reinforces the
individual’s worldview but is clearly secondary.

cultivation analysis
Cultivation Analysis
George Gerbner’s research on the long-term impact of television watching gener- A theory of media effects that
claims television cultivates in
ated the theory of cultivation analysis, which argues that television cultivates audiences a view of reality similar
in audiences a view of reality similar to the world portrayed in TV programs. to the world portrayed in television
Rather than emphasizing the impact of individual programs on individual programs.

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CONVERGENCE CULTURE
How Free Is Academic Freedom?
The open and free-wheeling nature of social media would In November 2013, a satirical blog reported that in his
seem a natural forum for academics to exchange a variety of final class before retirement, Massachusetts College of Art
ideas grounded in their research, assertions that challenge and Design Professor Noel Ignatiev, author of How the Irish
our perceptions and enrich our dialog about society and cul-
ture. In recent years, however, a number of incidents on social
media involving politically insensitive tweets, inappropriate
comments about students or colleagues, and hoaxes have
raised questions about academic freedom and have even
cost some professors their jobs.
In fall 2014, two weeks before Professor Steven Salaita
was to start a new position, the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign rescinded their job offer because of in-
flammatory tweets Salaita had made regarding Israeli settlers
in the West Bank. Salaita has authored a number of books on
Arab Americans, including Arab American Literary Fictions,
Cultures and Politics; and Anti-Arab Racism in the USA: Where It
Comes from and What It Means for Politics Today. Salaita sued,
arguing the university had violated his free speech rights and
“trampled on principles of academic freedom,”10 and stu-
dents at the school marched to protest his dismissal, a deci-
sion trustees nevertheless reaffirmed in January 2015. Became White, stated, “If you are a white male, you don’t de-
Early in 2015, the Marquette administration began serve to live. You are a cancer, you’re a disease. White males
the process of terminating political science professor John have never contributed anything positive to the world. They
McAdams’s tenure after he criticized a philosophy teaching only murder, exploit and oppress non-whites.”11 Ignatiev was
assistant on his blog for her handling of student comments not retiring, nor did he make this over-the-top, inflammatory
she considered homophobic. McAdams has spent some statement, a direct quote falsely ascribed to him, but with a
forty years in academe, most of them at Marquette. His case disclaimer acknowledging the material was satire. Even so,
raises issues of academic free speech and shines a spotlight several conservative talk shows, including Rush Limbaugh,
on a university’s apparent inclination to strip faculty of picked up this fiction and ran with it as fact. This “true story”
tenure, a power that would have a chilling effect on open occasionally resurfaces in social media, a hoax that generates
debates. new rounds of vitriolic hate mail for Ignatiev.

viewers, cultivation analysis stresses cumulative effects. Coined by Gerbner,

mean-world syndrome
A syndrome in which people
perceive the world as more
dangerous than it actually is, the
result of viewing countless acts of
media violence.
mean-world syndrome can result from viewing countless acts of media violence
that make viewers perceive the world as more dangerous than it actually is. De-
signed as mainstream entertainment that is easy to understand, TV programs are
powerful instruments of socialization, especially for children.
According to research by Gerbner and others, not only are those who watch
more television more likely to consider the real world a more dangerous place, they
are also more likely to support a more powerful system of law enforcement. Senior
citizens who watch more television are more inclined to stay at home, fearful of
perceived dangers. Cultivation effects are not uniform, however.

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Watching too much television over years, especially news shows, can lead viewers to believe the world is
more dangerous than it actually is. CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS: Do you feel more fearful in public
places after viewing news like that on the Boston Marathon bombing? Is your fear greater if the violent
event seems to be everywhere in the news?

Spiral of Silence
German communication scholar Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann developed the spiral spiral of silence
of silence as a theoretical construct to explain why people may be unwilling to A theoretical construct that
publicly express minority opinions. Derived from her observations of Germans explains why people may be
during the Nazi regime in the 1930s and 1940s, the spiral of silence has been unwilling to publicly express
tested widely and shown to be valid in a variety of circumstances. It is based on opinions they feel are in the
minority.
three premises:
1. People have a natural fear of isolation.
2. Out of fear of isolation, people are reluctant to publicly express views that
they feel are in the minority.
3. A “quasi-statistical organ,” a sort of sixth sense, allows people to gauge the
prevailing climate of opinion and determine majority views on matters of
public importance.
A number of factors affect how people assess public opinion, particularly the
media as well as their experiences and interactions with others. If a person feels a
point of view matches the prevailing one, then that person will feel more comfort-
able expressing it publicly. If, on the other hand, a person feels out of step with
public opinion, then that person will be less likely to express that opinion, thus
producing a spiral of silence. In some instances, even a majority opinion, if per-
ceived to be a minority position (possibly through biased media reporting), may
not be expressed publicly.

Third-Person Effect
third-person effect
Among the most interesting of media effects is the third-person effect of com-
munication, the tendency for people to underestimate the effect of a persuasive The tendency for people to
underestimate the effect of a
message on themselves while overestimating its effect on others. This tendency persuasive message on themselves
sometimes encourages one group to shield another from messages it thinks will while overestimating its effect on
harm them. others.

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Although many researchers have demonstrated the widespread and varied

impact of the third-person effect, W. Phillips Davison first identified this commu-
nication phenomenon when examining World War II records. The Japanese had
dropped propaganda leaflets to black servicemen who were going to take part in
the invasion of Iwo Jima (at that time whites and blacks were segregated in the
military). Stating that the Japanese were fighting white imperialists and had no ill
will toward blacks, the leaflets encouraged them to surrender or desert—to no
effect, however, according to records. The campaign did persuade white officers of
these black troops, though, to transfer them from the combat area to avoid any
potential loss of morale.

CRITICISMS OF MEDIAEFFECTS RESEARCH

Although subsequent research quickly discredited the direct-effects assumptions
and hypodermic-needle model of media power, many members of the public and
policy makers continue to believe in these effects. When tragedies occur such as
the shootings at Columbine High School in 1999; Virginia Tech in 2007; Sandy
Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012; or the DC Navy Yard
in 2013, the killer’s media use is always discussed. Experts may not blame comic
books and radio anymore, but television, movies, the Internet, and video games
are all fair game when trying to explain violent or antisocial actions.
Much media-effects research is flawed by the belief that the audience has no
will of its own. The assumption that the audience is a passive dupe easily manipu-
lated by media messages derives directly from the belief that the masses are inca-
pable of governing themselves. Although researchers today do not believe that
people can be programmed by media messages to behave a certain way, even some
of the limited-effects models perceive audiences as more passive than active.
A further complication in media-effects research is how to measure media ex-
posure. Self-reporting, a common research technique, has been unreliable because
people either intentionally or unintentionally under- or overreport media expo-
sure. Furthermore, simply measuring exposure does not really capture how we
interact with media and how it may influence us.
Media-effects researchers may use new ways of assessing audience interac-
tions. Tracking Facebook Likes, tweets, or re-tweets, for example, helps quantita-
tively measure audience engagement in different situations. New developments in
social-media listening software are helping researchers measure media consump-
tion and interaction, although concepts like sentiment and engagement are still
often open to interpretation.
Even if we accept the premise of media influence, separating intertwined
social, cultural, psychological, and other factors and identifying clear cause-and-
effect explanations remain difficult. That certain programs, songs, or video games
produce predictable and widespread behaviors or attitudes has largely been dis-
proven, given all the other influences in our lives and the different circumstances
in which each of us interact with media.
Examining the wrong dimension of the communications process is another
arguable fault in media-effects research. Some scholars claim that we have to un-
derstand the processes and economics of media products to understand the role of
media in our lives. Others, such as audience-focused researchers, focus less on
what media may or may not do to us and more on what we may or may not do with
media.

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: Do you think that a highly interactive medium like video
games could have greater effects on media users than a more passive medium such as
television? Why or why not?

Understanding the Audience

To a certain extent, mass-communications research
has always been about trying to understand the audi-
ence. For advertising and public relations, knowing
how the audience thinks and how to persuade it can
make or break a campaign or new brand. For political
communication, the audience, broadly conceived, is
essentially the public and public opinion. For media
companies, knowing what shows, books, music, and
films audiences will like is a vital element. In scholarly
communications research, the trend in audience stud-
ies in recent years has been toward seeing the audi-
ence as increasingly active in how it makes sense of
the world and uses media.
Teaching children media and computer literacy will help them succeed in
the twenty-first century.

AUDIENCES CREATING MEANING

The idea that audiences create new meaning from the media content they consume
may seem odd. Yet scholars who use new audience-studies approaches question
the assumption that a media product comes with a predetermined and unchange-
able meaning that audiences simply ingest like fast food. Earlier discussion in this
book about semiotics indicated that a given meaning of a sign or symbol, once
learned, tends to be taken for granted. In the following section, however, we focus
on active participation in the creation of new meaning around the media we en-
counter and among an audience. Some approaches look at psychology, others focus
on the social aspects of creating meaning, and still others examine broader cul-
tural issues and power relations.

Uses and Gratifications

Uses-and-gratifications research looks at why people use particular media. uses-and-gratifications
It examines what people do with media rather than what media do to people. Pop- research
ular in the 1970s and 1980s, uses-and-gratifications research posits that people A branch of research on media
have certain needs, especially psychological needs, which they seek to satisfy effects that examines why people
through media usage. This research makes three basic claims: use media, what they do with
media rather than what media do
1. People use the media actively for their own purposes. to them.
2. People know what those purposes are and can articulate them.
3. Despite individual differences in media use, basic common patterns exist
among people.
Modeled on an audience more active than passive, whose members hope to satisfy
certain needs through the media they seek out, uses-and-gratifications research
may lend itself to research on the Internet and interactive media.

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encoding/decoding
A theoretical model that states
media producers encode media
products with meanings, decoded
in various ways by various
audiences.
Studying pop culture can often reflect aspects of a society that other
forms of media, such as news, cannot explain adequately.
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Uses-and-gratifications research has its detractors, however. It has been criti-
cized for being hard to test empirically and for circular reasoning. In other words,
it’s hard to know which came first—the social/psychological need or the media
use. Other criticisms include its focus on psychological needs while ignoring social
forces and the assumption that audiences always do know (and can articulate) why
they are using media.
Encoding/Decoding
The encoding/decoding model, developed by Stuart Hall in the 1970s, launched
what is known as the active-audience approach. A response to dissatisfaction with
previous media-effects research, it tries to examine audiences within larger socio-
cultural contexts. The model is complex but essentially states that media produc-
ers encode media products with meanings, decoded in various ways by various
audiences.
There is no guarantee the producer’s preferred meaning will be accepted. Au-
dience members have three basic options when decoding. They can choose the
dominant, or hegemonic, reading, the one that the media producer likely intended
and the one most people would recognize as common sense or natural. They can
select an oppositional reading in which they recognize the codes being used but
reject them for their own meanings. They can also choose a negotiated reading,
largely accepting the dominant meaning but adding certain variations. Decoding
skills and tendencies will vary with background, education, identity, and other
social factors.
Reception Analysis
Reception analysis was a major break in audience research
in a number of respects. First, it assumed that audience
members actively make meaning from the media they
consume. Second, researchers looked at popular enter-
tainment such as soap operas, women’s magazines, and
romance novels rather than the traditional news or other
“serious” programming studied in earlier years. Third, the
areas of study allowed feminist and other scholars to
study women in media and women as active consumers of
media.
The 1980s findings challenged long-held assump-
tions about why women read romance novels or watch a
soap opera such as Dallas, or how teen girls perceived
Madonna. Contrary to some prevailing feminist argu-
ments that maintained these forms of popular culture
demeaned women, encouraging them to see themselves from a patriarchal view-
point as sex objects, scholars found that women actively and freely chose a variety
of meanings for such content.
Reception analysis attempts to fill the holes in previous theorizing and re-
search by looking at cultural and social patterns of media production and power
relations between different groups. Some critics object, however, to the active
nature it ascribes to audiences, claims that make media seem almost powerless.
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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: Identify your three favorite television shows or films in recent
years, along with a brief sentence on why you like(d) each one. Compare lists with class-
mates, and discuss your choices. What do your similarities and differences tell you about
each other?

FRAMING
We discussed framing briefly in Chapter 2, noting that the presentation of a mes- framing
sage colors perceptions of it. The concept of framing appears widely in media stud- The presentation and communication
ies and in other social sciences, such as sociology and psychology, sometimes in of a message in a particular way that
conjunction with media-studies research. influences our perception of it.
We use frames to make sense of the world in which we live, a set of filters that
help us categorize and understand our social reality. Frames emerge through our
daily interactions with media and are shaped by our culture and social norms.
Often our exposure to certain issues and people is solely through media in various
forms (news, entertainment, advertising, etc.), framing our perceptions even
more.
Message framing can have a profound effect on behavior, depending on
whether a message is framed as a gain or a loss. In 1984, psychologists Daniel
Kahneman and Amos Tversky presented two different scenarios to different
groups of participants who were asked to make a choice regarding a hypothetical
disease outbreak expected to kill six hundred people. The “gain-framed” scenario
emphasized saving lives: Option A would save two hundred people, whereas option
B specified a one-third probability of saving everyone but a two-thirds probability
of saving no one. Overwhelmingly, participants chose option A, which seemed the
less risky choice.
Other participants were given “loss-framed” choices that emphasized lives
lost: Option A would kill four hundred people, while option B had a one-third
probability of killing no one but a two-thirds probability of killing everyone. A
large majority of participants chose option B, the risky option. This difference in
selection can be explained only by how the messages were framed because identi-
cal scenarios were presented to both groups.
The aspects of framing messages are more numerous and complex than one
experiment can suggest. Still, Kahneman and Tversky’s research has special impli-
cations for social marketing campaigns and strategic communications. When
messages are framed in terms of potential gain, people choose what seems to be
the safer option to pursue a guaranteed gain. When framed in terms of losses,
however, people choose the riskier option to avoid a guaranteed loss.
Consider framing’s role in a social marketing campaign for reducing a sexually
transmitted disease like AIDS. If the message is framed in terms of potential loss
rather than potential gain, people may actually opt for the riskier behavior (un-
protected sex) than what sounds like a safer option. For example, a campaign that
discusses the chances of dying from AIDS without using a condom may actually
encourage unprotected sex, whereas a campaign that focuses on the benefits of
condom use could promote that behavior. Of course, many more factors are in-
volved in social marketing that targets public behavior, but a poorly chosen frame
could doom a campaign from the start.

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