Readings:

• Mass Media and American Politics (by Johanna Dunaway and Doris. A. Graber)
  • Chapter 10: Political Socialization and Learning
  • Chapter 11 Persuasion, Campaigns and Bias in the Media
•  The People’s Choice

Mass Media are essential in any type of political communication campaign. I am using, by the way, the term MEDIA in plural, even though it is an extended linguistic practice to use the word in singular (Mass Media is, Mass Media has, …). The singular form is MEDIUM. I consciously use the term in plural because there is not a single MEDIUM, but a variety of them. It is important in political communication to know the nature and characteristics of every single medium to use it effectively.

The channels political actors use to get their messages to their audiences are the MASS MEDIA. Therefore, professionals working in the field of political communication are – should be – media experts. It is very important, then, that they learn and accept the rules of the Mass Media.In this learning unit, we discuss several theories that try to explain the effects of mass media.

We will follow the chronological order. There have been three main phases in the study of mass media effects. In the first era of mass communication studies, researchers tended to believe that mass media were formidable instruments of mass persuasion. In a second step, mostly after World War II, a number of theories appear that minimize the impact of mass media. In the late 1960s and early 70s, some scholars started to return to the idea or powerful mass media. 

In this first learning unit, we focus on the two first phases.

The Powerful Mass Media

Mass Media effects research starts in the 1930s. There is a curious episode in the history of mass communication that opened the eyes of the scholarly community.

The Halloween evening of 1938, Orson Welles directed a life radio broadcast program with the title: “The Invasion from Mars”. The fictional radio show was based on “The War of Worlds”, a popular science-fiction novel by H.G. Wells.

Welles’s program – and the novel – was about the invasion of the earth by inhabitants of the planet Mars. The amazing event of that Halloween evening of 1938 was that almost 6 million American citizens believed that America was actually being invaded by Martians. Many of them panicked and left their houses trying to escape from the invasion to who knows where. The radio shock made Orson Welles famous overnight. He signed a contract with the film studio RKO and became one of the most relevant American filmmakers (two years after “The Invasion from Mars”, he released “Citizen Kane”, which is regarded by many film critics as the best movie ever).

This episode – which belongs now to American History – opened the eyes of the Communication Researchers. If the people believe that they are being attacked by extraterrestrials, this was the starting thought, they will believe everything we tell them through the Mass-Media.

Of course, this is not the only reason why researchers started to investigate which the actual effects of Mass-Media on individual and society are. We have already studied in the learning unit on propaganda, how the National-socialist regime in Germany was systematically using propaganda to solidify the political system and create a Feindbild, an image of the enemy (the Jewish population). Mass communication technologies were growing rapidly. I was becoming urgent to start researching the potential benefits and dangers their broad dissemination could bring about.

The first theoretical approaches seemed to ascribe to mass media an unfathomable power.

Hypodermic Needle Model / Bullet Theory

According to the hypodermic Needle Model, each audience member receives messages directly from the source of a given medium, like an injection. The flow of communication is very simple. We consume the contents of the media, and these contents affect us directly. This was the prevailing idea in the first decades of the 20th Century (as a result of the spectacular success of Orson Welles’ the invasion from Mars and the impact of the soviet and national-socialist propaganda).

Scholars also refer to this model of mass media effects as the “bullet theory”. As already mentioned in the second learning module, mass media were thought to be a powerful instrument to influence public opinion and to achieve political power. The idea of powerful mass media started to be challenged very soon, though.

Minimal Effects

Ironically, the first outcomes of empirical Mass Media Research during the 1950ies seemed to deny any influence of Mass Media on individuals or society. Empirical methodologies are based on the epistemological assumption that we can only considered true knowledge what is the result of scientific experimentation. Only when we are sure that, under the same circumstances, we are going to obtain the same results, we can call it true knowledge. In social sciences, empirical methodologies started with the use of the so-called Moral statistics: Illegitimate children, criminal behaviors, violent deaths, poverty, mental health, abortions, divorces, … Quantitative research methodologies are based on the definition of a series of measurable criteria and the design of statistical instrument to measure the significance of the outcomes, meaning, to what extent the finding of our research might be applied to the entire target population. 

Two-Step Flow of Communication

Paul Lazarsfeld and his fellow researchers at Columbia Bernard Berelson and Hazel Gaudet were one of the first research teams who questioned the hypodermic needle model. Based on the evidence gathered in several projects, they came to the conclusion that  the influence of mass media on individual and society was not always direct.

These authors revealed the role of the informal opinion leaders in the process of mediated communication. Informal opinion leaders are those who do not have access to the media, but are influential in other circles of their lives, such as family, work, friends, etc.  Ideas and opinions flow from the mass media to the opinion leaders – and from these to the rest of the less active population. Lazarsfeld also found that informal opinion leaders tend to consume more media that the average individual.

Multiple Step Flow of Communication  

This Theory is a development of the previous one. There are different levels of opinion leadership (Family, Work, Studies, friends, …). People who are opinion leaders in their families may adopt a rather passive role in the work environment.  And there are also Media that form the opinion of other media, opinion leadership among media. (The New York Times is more influential than The Hartford Courant, and The Hartford Courant more than The New Britain Herald).

Selective Exposure Theory

Individuals expose themselves only to those messages that are in consonance with their previous opinions, while they tend to ignore messages that is in contradiction with their world of values and beliefs.

This phenomenon is called in communication research SELECTIVE EXPOSURE.

The selective exposure theory is based on Leon Festinger’s concept of “cognitive dissonance”. The individual, according to Festinger, needs to avoid ideas that are in dissonance to each other. When the individual becomes aware of this dissonance, one of the ideas needs to be rejected in order to keep the inner balance and avoid discomfort. For instance, a convinced democrat voter may avoid negative messages about the democrat candidate (or positive ones about the republican candidate). Accepting those dissonant messages might force him/her to reconsider his/her own political standpoints, which again requires a strong cognitive effort associated to high doses of discomfort.The Selective Exposure theory minimizes the power of Mass Media. The only possible effect would be reinforcing what we previously believed. If we avoid those messages that are in contradiction with our previous beliefs, the media can impossibly change our minds.

Uses and Gratifications Theory

According to this theory, the main motivation to use the media is the gratification we get from them. This is a rational model because it implies the free choice of the individual. In the process of socialization, we learn the different Media, their characteristics and uses. And then, in the adulthood, we consciously choose to use different Media according to our rational expectations, meaning, the kind of gratifications we can get from them. The audience, in this model, is not passive at all, the individuals who form this audience are mature and independent. They are also immune against the potentional persuasive attempts disseminated through the print or audiovisual outlets. Obviously, this rational model tends to play down the effects of the Mass-Media.