MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY AND INFLUENCE

Week Two – Limited Effects Paradigm

Media Psychology and InfluenceSPICE 2012 (Erfurt)

ND Bowman PhD, Instructor

PreTalk: Mediation and Moderation

Variables – Direct Effect

IV(Caus

e)

DV(Effec

t)

Violent Media ContentAggressive Thoughts in

Children

Variables – Mediation Effect

IVMedV

DV

Violent Media ContentAggressive Thoughts in

ChildrenCo-location

Variables – Moderation Effect

IV DV

ModV

Violent Media Content Aggressive Thoughts in Children

Interactivity

Media Psychology and InfluenceSPICE 2012 (Erfurt)

ND Bowman PhD, Instructor

Day One: Limited Effects – Vott ist das?

Outline

State of Mass Communication Research – 1962

Mediation and Moderation What is it? Why we should be doing more of it?

Mass Communication, circa 1962 To study

communication is to study media; it is part of our ecology

Schramm was an early pioneer in the scientific study of communication

Took a marker of the current state of research affairs

It is possible to study human communication

without considering mass communication, but

hardly possible to study mass communication

without taking account many areas of

communication research which are not

themselves “mass” communication.

Mass Communication, circa 1962 Earliest research out of Columbia looked

the relationship between mass communication and personal influence

FOCUS: Television and Information and entertainment Commercials and children Shift from audience size (why?)

Mass Communication, circa 1962 Audience behaviors

Beyond exposure, what are they exposing to? 12% of newspaper overall

¼ read 30% ¼ read less than 4%

Comics (56%) > Photos (51%) Stories on

War, Defense Disaster Human interest Weather

Mass Communication, circa 1962 Shift to motivations and

usage of media Detroit newspaper strike

affects 59% of audience News > sports, features,

comics, editorials Personality’s influence on

entertainment/information News predicted by

perceived usefulness, interest (TAM?)

Perceived high- or low-brow motivation to use TV

Education level drives information-viewing

Mass Communication, circa 1962 Content and “indexing” by

contextualizing: Headlines Captions Colors Theme music

Aesthetics?

Cloze!

Mass Communication, circa 1962 Channel effects (the

“media” effect?) Recall highest from TV,

least from print information Both in the short-term

and the long-term (eight months)

Debates polarized rather than converged opinions

Audiences ‘insert’ emotion into speech content

Mass Communication, circa 1962 Two-Step Flow model

Mass Communication, circa 1962 Two-Step Flow modelWho are these (leading)

people?• Evenly-distributed

across SES; variance based on content

• Used more media• Were more socially-

connected

Mass Communication, circa 1962 Two-Step Flow model

Schramm to Klapper

One of Klapper’s more famous

arguments was that media

reinforces rather than challenges (cultural-moral)

status quos!

What is Moderation? (B&K)

Moderators are variables that change the direction or strength of a XY relationship

Can be qualitative or quantitative

Moderations can interact with predictors to understand an outcome

Moderation – Case 1

The simplest case, suggesting that an increase in the moderating variable has a multiplicative effect on the relationship between IV and DV (here, positive)

[IV X MV = DV]

Moderation – Case 2

Here, we see a similar effect, but with a dichotomous moderator (i.e., gender). This suggests that the influence of an IV on a DV is greater for one category than another.

[Male’s IV DV > Female’s IV DV]

Moderation – Case 3

A continuous ModV and a categorical IV; good for identifying the conditions for which a moderator’s influence is realized

[Males are influenced more by IV than females]

What is Mediation? (B&K)

Mediators account for an observed influence of an IV on a DV

Move us from SR to SOR, as they consider the “organism” in the process

Sort of like “greedy moderators” as they take all of the effect, no more (c)

Where does this all fit in to media?

Helps us understand potentially spurious relationships between content and affect

Implicates the role of the ‘organism’ in media output

Others?

Helps us understand conditions under which media would have a larger or smaller affect

Teases out influence channel effects and usage motivations

Others?

Mediation Moderation

Importance of Med/Mod Today Holbert and Stephenson argue that

understanding mediation is “a necessary but not sufficient condition” for media influence.

Specifically, then discuss SEMs and indirect effects

Mediation in Media Effects Research

Conditional effects model generally argues media’s limited influence on ‘CAB’

We can think of mediators and moderators as “conditions for a media effect to be realized”

These conditions exist at all levels Who is affected What is being affected How is this affect happening?

Examples of Mediation

“media vote result” influenced by: Likelihood to vote Information levels

about candidate issues Voter perceptions

about candidate quality

Trust in message?

“media behavior” influenced by: Views on message Views on behavior Social norms

surrounding behavior Self-efficacy to stop

behavior Trust in message?

Political Communication Health Communication

Example: Four Variable Mediation

Cost-Benefit of Facebook

Cost-Benefit of Twitter

Media Psychology and InfluenceSPICE 2012 (Erfurt)

ND Bowman PhD, Instructor

Day Two: Effects on Individuals

Outline

An overview of individual differences Priming and Exemplification Social Cognitive Theory

Individual Differences in Media Effects

Media research has evolved to be more subtle in understanding the S R influence

Understanding ∆ in individuals between and within social groups is key to understanding observed variance in media effects

“The idea that media have a direct or uniform effect on

viewers is a position that is generally understood to be a simplification of the way that researchers in the discipline

conceptualize media influences”

~Oliver, 2002

Enjoyment and Emotions

Individuals differ in… What they “need” from the media

e.g. need for cognition, sensation-seeking Their ‘readiness to respond’ to media

e.g. emotional contagion qua empathy, coping, anxiety

Personality and other traits e.g. aggressiveness, neuroticism, extraversion

Evaluative dispositions e.g. of characters, narrative, show aesthetics

Exposure, Interpretation and Memory

Cognitive dissonance strategies imply by definition individual differences

Important, as dissonance drives media selection

wo könnte es ein Medien-Effekt hier zu sein?

Exposure, Interpretation and Memory

Watergate scandal Interest in coverage was

Highest with McGovern supporters

Lowest with Nixon supporters

Moderate with undecided voters

Rush Limbaugh interest Follows almost identical

patterns among Red > Blue interest

How do we get folks to ‘counter-expose’? Goals? Availability?

Refutability?

Exposure, Interpretation and Memory

Interpretation and Perception Klapper (1960) argues that media is

produced to maintain a status quo… …so it stands to reason that audiences will

use and interpret media in line with their status quo

“Archie Bunker effect” (Vidmar & Rokeach, 1974)

“All In The Family” topped Nielsen charts from 1971 to

1983.

Exposure, Interpretation and Memory

Selective memory If we differ in what

we need from media and how we process it, we likely differ in what we take from it

Memory recall is highest for ‘congruent information’ that fits our a priori world view

Media Priming

Priming is “the effect of some preceding stimulus or event on how we react…to some subsequent stimulus”

Applied to media, we study how media content at T1 might affect a behavior at T2

Media Priming and Violence

K I _ _

Trait aggressiveness (+)External violent cues (+)Frustration (+)Passage of time (-)

Media Priming and Politics

Foreign

Policy

Domestic Policy

Media Priming in other areas Music videos and misogyny “Rape Myth” and sexual media Stereotyping and social judgments

Cognitive Neo-Association

Concepts become linked in memory

These links can become stronger with Similarity Repetition

Accessibility of concept a function of strength of link How is this model

adapted for Political Communication?

Health Communication?

Priming and Mental Models

Mental models represent a merging of

semantic memory (knowledge of the

world) and episodic memory

(experience)

Priming and Mental Models

Issues with the ‘network’ approach? Effects are fleeting, requiring constant rebuilding of

networks (chronic accessibility) Recall the Cognitive Miser hypothesis?

Mental models might serve as readily-available cognitive scripts that are shaped through experience and expectation1. We can either create a new model or tap and old

one2. Information within a model can be primed,

activating our reliance on the model as a whole for that information

Exemplification

In essence, using examples to tell a story

Exemplars vs. base-rate information

*

Also, let’s not forget the role of non-

mediated (i.e. personal)

experience!

Exemplification

Assumes that:1. Events of consequence attract

more of our short- and long-term attentional resources

2. Comprehension and storage of concrete events is easier than abstract ones

3. We make assessments about events based on our ability to retrieve them from memory

We also tend to make to major

boo-boos by relying on failed

heuristics related to:

• Representativeness (of the

event)• Availability (of

examples in our mind)

Six exemplification predictions1. Concrete examples

influence perceptions more than abstract accounts

2. Visual (concrete) exemplars are most effective

3. Emotional exemplars are more effective (when concrete)

4. Variance in event-

relevant characteristics aids in accuracy of perception

5. Emotionally-arousing exemplars foster overestimation

6. Increased attention paid to an event fosters overestimation

In Bandura’s famous “Bobl Doll” studies, children who witness (via television) an adult model assault a Bobo Doll without punish were more likely to enact the behavior, even when no ‘weapons’ were included in a room.

Suzie and the Bobo Doll

Observational Learning @ SCT/SLT

Basic logic of the theory A person learns by observing the actions of

others and the consequences of those actions. If Action A is rewarded, then Action A is

good If Action A is punished, then Action A is

bad We model those behaviors that are ‘good’ Non-punishment = reward

Triadic reciprocal causation

Based on Four Distinctly Human Traits

Symbolizing Capacity The ability to use symbols to transform

experiences into cognitive models for the future (e.g., words)

Self-Regulatory Capacity The ability to evaluate and motivate oneself

Self-Reflective Capacity The ability to verify thoughts to see if they

are right Vicarious Capacity

The ability to learn without direct experience

Modeling

The reenactment of observed behavior1. Attention2. Retention3. Motor reproduction4. Motivation

Can be either anti-social or pro-social

Modeling

Social Learning Theory (Bandura) We learn through response consequences

Informative We learn which responses are appropriate through

observation Motivational

Anticipation that behavior will be rewarded leads to modeling

Reinforcing Reinforcement of behaviors subsequently

performed leads to further learning and motivation

Social Learning Theory (Bandura) Role of Moral Judgments

Violating moral principles is aversive

We learn by experience how to weight moral factors

Transgressions are regulated by two major sanctions social sanctions internalized self-sanctions

We can learn to override these judgments!

What motivates us to be bad?

Media Psychology and InfluenceSPICE 2012 (Erfurt)

ND Bowman PhD, Instructor

Day Three: Effects on Society

Outline

Cultivation Theory and Social Reality Agenda-Setting Theory Third-Person Effects

Cultivation Theory

TV is… a centralized

storytelling system…

…that creates broadly shared images…

…and presents a limited world view…

…that becomes shared by audience members

But giving primary attention to those aspects and terms of traditional media effects research risks losing sight of what is most distinctive and significant about television as the common storytellerof our age.

Cultivation Theory

Heavy viewing overrides differences in perspectives that ordinarily stem from other group influences

people from different backgrounds develop same social perceptions

At times, heavy television viewers might experience the very content they view on screen

Mainstreaming Resonance

Cultural Indicators Project

1967, George Gerbner Investigated the cultivation effect:

For people who watch TV, real world = TV world

Cultural Indicators Project

Three steps of the project Institutional Process Analysis, where we see

how messages are created Message Systems Analysis, where we assess

the content in mass-produced messages Cultivation Analysis, where we examine the

influence of these messages on audience thoughts and feelings

Cultivation Research looks at long-term effects!

Findings from cultivation research TV viewers diverge from reality

Underestimate number of elder Overestimate chances for being assaulted General believe in the violent urban areas

(and bucolic rural areas) Tend to know less about their environment Tend to dream about “the bachelor life” Label themselves as political moderates

Example: Mean World Syndrome

(c) 2010 by N.D. Bowman, YHC

65

How

vio

len

t is

th

e

worl

d?

Schrum and the heuristic model TV viewing enhances construct

accessibility Repeated priming causes certain aspects to

be salient Shared social perceptions serving as

indicators of a cultivation effect are constructed through heuristic processing

Cultivation Hypothesis Assumptions

1. Messages are relatively uniform2. Viewing of television is non-selective3. Television viewing is habitual

**What do you think?**

Cultivation Hypothesis Assumptions Is TV still a universal story-teller?

Increase in cable and radio channels New networks focus on narrowcasting

and tailoring “1000 True Fans” hypothesis eschews

large audiences

Cultivation Hypothesis Assumptions

Agenda-Setting

The press “may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about” (Cohen, 1963, p. 13)

Increases salience of an event/idea/concept

*

Agenda-Setting

McCombs and Shaw (1972)

*

Agenda-Setting

What increases salience? Placement of a story Total time/space devoted Duration of coverage Framing?

Who sets the agenda today?

*(c) ND Bowman, 2011

Framing

*

Choosing how to package a story to maximize some intended effect

Information Effects Persuasion Effects

Accompanying a story about abortion Which image is more likely to garner support for Planned Parenthood? Support for anti-abortion legislation?

Example: Mad Cow

Example: OJ Simpson

Example: Sports Coverage

Analysis of adjectives used to describe finalists shows reporters to use “Brawn” and “Brain” frames to describe Black and White athletes’ success

More here

Looking at the portrayal of nude athletes, females were more likely to be out of context and to engage in self-touching than males

More here

Heisman Trophy ESPN Body Issue