Print Media Effects

eHow
May 2, 2011

Mass media have significant influence on society, and although print has been supplanted by broadcast in many cases, it is still a viable medium with powerful effects on audiences. Many conflicting theories exist about the effects of print media. Most are based on the theory of uses and gratifications, which focuses on what people do with media, rather than what media does to people.

Agenda-Setting
Agenda-setting theory, developed in 1972 by Maxwell McCombs and David Shaw, suggests that media do not tell us what to think, but what to think about. Media determine what is newsworthy by giving those stories prominence. A topic that is prominent in news coverage gains salience in public opinion. This results in the media dictating the topics on the public agenda.

Related to agenda-setting is priming theory, which suggests that media prime the mind to make associations by bringing certain ideas to the forefront. Political campaigns make use of priming by establishing what criteria people use to evaluate candidates. If Candidate A focuses on integrity, audiences evaluate Candidate B's integrity as well.

Framing is often discussed alongside priming. Media frame information by giving it particular context and by making some aspects of a text more salient than others. An example of framing is the media discussion of health care changes through the lens of economic considerations versus ethical considerations.

Media Violence
The media have been charged with promoting violent behavior in audiences, and several theories describe this phenomenon. The social learning model, first proposed in the 1960s by Albert Bandura, asserts that through observing media models, viewers learn which behaviors are rewarded and which are punished. The desensitization effect suggests that prolonged exposure to media violence can lead to emotional desensitization to real-world violence. The third media violence effect is the fear effect, which purports that heavy exposure to media violence causes viewers to become fearful of the world around them, afraid to become victims of violence.

Political Media
Endless research has been done on the effects of political campaigns on viewers. One theory of political media effects is the third-person effect. The third-person perception refers to the tendency for people to believe that others are more affected by media messages than they are themselves. The effect on those affected by third-person perception is a decrease in voter turnout, likely because they believe that others are receiving a powerful message whose effects they cannot overcome.

The reinforcement theory states that people seek out and retain information that is supportive of their already held beliefs. This is consistent with the partisan breakdown of Fox News and MSNBC viewers. People engage in reinforcement through selective exposure (avoiding challenging viewpoints), selective perception (skewing information to coincide with their viewpoints) and selection retention (remembering only information they agree with.) Reinforcement theory is closely related to cognitive dissonance theory, which describes how people are motivated to reduce uncertainty when faced with conflicting ideas. People attempt to reduce dissonance through rationalization, denial and adaptation of beliefs.

Spiral of Silence
Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, who introduced the Spiral of Silence theory in 1974, wrote, “To the individual, not isolating himself is more important than his own judgment.” The spiral of silence refers to the tendency for people to silence their unpopular opinions to comply with the masses. Media reinforce the spiral by giving the illusion of public consensus when they repeat dominant messages.

Resources
Communication Monographs; "Audience Activity and Media Use"; Alan M. Rubin; March 1993
McGraw Hill Learning Center: Theories of Mass Communication


References
The Public Opinion Quarterly; "Uses and Gratifications Research"; Elihu Katz, et al.; Winter 1973
Political Communication; "Framing and the Public Agenda: Media effects on the importance of the federal budget deficit"; Amy E. Jasperson, et al.; 1998
McQuail's Reader in Mass Communication Theory; "Children and Television Violence in the United States"; Ellen Wartella, et al.; 2002
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly; "Third-Person Effects on Political Participation"; Stephen A. Banning; Winter 2006
Pew Research Center: Partisanship and Cable News Audiences
Journal of Communication; "The Spiral of Silence: A theory of public opinion"; Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann; June 1974