T10: Media Effect Model_20mar

COMM 2071 Media Audiences and Consumer Behavior 20/3/2009

Content Flow Background

Assumptions

Conclusion

Critique

What’s next

So what is the Effects Model? • Part of a broader “Audience in Media Theory” Commodity Marketplace Model

Effects Model

Model

• Assumptions • Manifestations • Serves a “Legislative” purpose

ASSUMPTIONS

Assumptions The Audience • Media is “Omni-present” • Audiences may be exposed to content that are not in their best interest The Relationship • Media can cultivate an appetite for vulgar, hateful or trivial programming The Public Interest • Is served by a media system that: • Limits exposure to undesirable programming • Promotes exposure to meritorious content

CRITIQUE OF THE EFFECTS MODEL

Laying down the “Gauntlett” • David Gauntlett’s challenge to the Effects Model with his 10-Flaws Model. • Mostly technical critique, with a few challenges to the fundamentals.

THE AUDIENCE

Critique of Assumptions The Audience • Media is “Omni-present”

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“Omnipresent” Yes “Omni-potent” No

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2008 Media Comparisons Study TimeSpent(Minutes) Television, 236.6, 50%

Internet, 98.5, 21% Radio, 20%

Magazines, Newspapers, 16.7, 3% 26.7, 6%

http://www.tvb.org/mediacomparisons/07_Adults_TimeSpent.a sp?mod=R

Television Internet Radio Newspapers Magazines

The True Picture TimeSpent(Minutes) Life, 963.5, 67%

Television, 16%

Radio, 7%

Internet, 7%

http://www.tvb.org/mediacomparisons/07_Adults_TimeSpent.a sp?mod=R

Life Television Internet Radio Newspapers Magazines

Omni-present, Not Omnipotent

Situational Factors “There are situational factors (e.g., frustrations, guns and Age insults) over which one can have little Sex control that can stimulate aggression and non-aggression in almost Family, Peer and Level of Education anyone” (Dorothy G. Singer, Jerome L. Singer) Community Characteristic

Family, Peer and Community Characteristics Levels of involvement (primary, secondary, tertia “Family attitudes and social class are stronger Purpose of access determinants of attitudes toward aggression than is the amount of exposure to TV, which is nevertheless a significant but weaker predictor” (Huesmann and Bacharach) Media Type "Any statement that a specific act of violence is "caused" (e.g. TV, Internet, Radio) 

by a single event is an oversimplification."

Handbook of children and the media  By Dorothy G. Singer, Jerome Contextual factors L. Singer (pg. 223)

Critique of Assumptions The Audience • Audiences may be exposed to content that are not in their best interest

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Exposure to Undesirable content can promote “Best Interest”

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Case Study: Japan’s Porn Industry

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Study concludes that “massive increase in available pornography in Japan has been correlated with a dramatic decrease in sexual crimes and most so among youngsters”

Source:http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/online_artcls/pornography/prngrphy_rape _jp.html

Juvenile crime rate %

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… Juveniles committed 33% of the rapes in 1972 but only 18% of the rapes committed in 1995.

Source:http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/online_artcls/pornography/prngrphy_rape _jp.html

So what? The Audience • Media is “Omni-present” • Audiences may be exposed to content that are not in their best interest

• Instead of working backwards from the effects, understand the audiences’ 1st. • Understand that audiences needs a balance of content.

THE RELATIONSHIP

Critique of Assumptions The Relationship • Media can cultivate an appetite for vulgar, hateful or trivial programming

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1 sided view and gives negative media too much credit.

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Appetite for Media • 2nd side of the coin – Media content cannot be clearly defined to be good or bad. – There are no neutral or value-free media messages.

• Does this appetite manifest into physical vices? E.g. violence, compulsive behavior etc – Is the Media solely responsible?

The necessity of Balance Good

Balanced

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Bad

Children need violent entertainment in order to explore the inescapable feelings that they've been taught to deny, and to reintegrate those feelings M Moore, Ph.D., into a more whole, more complex, more Psychologist who works with resilient selfhood. urban teenagers

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So what? The Relationship • Media can cultivate an appetite for vulgar, hateful or trivial programming

• Do not rigidly censor/limit content because the good and bad cannot be decoupled. • Once again balance is the key for media content

THE PUBLIC INTEREST

Critique of Assumptions The Public Interest • Is served by a media system that: • Limits exposure to undesirable programming • Promotes exposure to meritorious content

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Technology has changed everything

Traditional Media Models Hypodermic Needle Model Media

Audience

2 Step Flow Model Media

Opinion Leader

Audience Audience

Uses and gratification Model Audience

Media

Today’s Media Model External Factors

Audience

External Factors

External Factors

Media

Multi-way model that retains its overarching structure but consists of “all-the-above” traditional media models , and then some.

The New Media factor • The Internet is a Media Utopia • Anonymity and Free-for-all access. • Communities can form that defies all boundaries, e.g. geography, legal jurisdiction • Physical manifestation of “Audience being victims” is the most evident with the new media.

The New Media • Ease of Access

The New Media • Suicide Club – A record 91 people died in 34 internet-linked suicide cases in Japan in 2005 – Depressed, young people and the internet — it's a very dangerous mix

So what? The Public Interest • Is served by a media system that: • Limits exposure to undesirable programming • Promotes exposure to meritorious content

• New Media reinforces the need for this model • Same objectives, new approaches • Adopt a balance of subtle grass-root engagements and rigid legistrations.

CONCLUSION

Conclusion • The effects model is a solid model, albeit having some flaws. • Along with time and change, additional items need to be taken into consideration for the model to stay relevant. • The legistrative function and objective for this model have not and should not change.

THANK YOU!