Transcript The beginnings of media theory and research

Development of strong effects
theory
Theorists of communication
• Walter Lippmann
• Chicago School
– John Dewey
– Charles Cooley
– Robert Park
– George Herbert Mead
Importance of the Chicago School
• Rogers (1994) in his A History of Communication
Study: A Biographical Approach identified four major
contributions to communication study that came
from the Chicago School:
• 1. It represented the first important flowering of
social science in America, serving as the intellectual
beachhead for important European theories,
particularly those of the German sociologist Georg
Simmel.
• 2. It gave a strong empirical dimension to the social
science study of social problems in the United States.
The Chicago School was amelioristic, progressive,
and pragmatic, seeking to improve the world by
studying its social problems. At issue for the Chicago
School was whether American democracy, born in a
society of rural communities, could survive in the
crowded immigrant slums of rapidly growing cities.
• 3. Chicago scholars formed a theoretical conception
of personality socialization centering on human
communication. To the Chicago sociologists, to be
social and to be human was to communicate. They
attacked instinct explanations of human behavior
and instead stressed a viewpoint later known as
symbolic interactionism.
• 4. The Chicago School cast the mold for future mass
communication research on media effects.
Three Elements of the Looking Glass
Self
• The imagination of our appearance
to the other person
• The imagination of his judgment of
that appearance
• Some sort of self-feeling
–Pride
–Mortification
Cooley’s example:
• The real Alice, known only to her maker
• Her idea of herself
– “I [Alice] look well in this hat”
• Her idea of Angela’s idea of her
– “Angela thinks I look well in this hat”
• Her idea of what Angela thinks she thinks of herself
– “Angela thinks I am proud of my looks in this hat”
• Angela’s idea of what Alice thinks of herself
– “Alice thinks she is stunning in that hat”
•
© 1998-2002 by Ronald Keith Bolender
• Society is an interweaving and interworking of
mental selves. I imagine your mind, and
especially what your mind thinks about my
mind. I dress my mind before yours and
expect that you will dress yours before mine.
Whoever cannot or will not perform these
feats is not properly in the game.
• (Cooley 1927:200-201)
• Cooley, Charles Horton. 1927. Life and the
Student. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Public Opinion (as a social process)
• In Cooley’s view society consists of a network of
communication between component actors and
subgroups; therefore, the process of communication,
more particularly its embodiment in public opinions,
cements social bonds and insures consensus.
• Cooley saw public opinion as “an organic process,”
and not merely as a state of agreement about some
question of the day.
The Significance of Communication
• “By Communication is here meant the
mechanism through which human relations
exist and develop—all the symbols of the
mind, together with the means of conveying
them through space and preserving them in
time.”
– Make up “an organic whole corresponding to the
organic whole of human thought; and everything
in the way of mental growth has an external
existence therein.”
John Dewey
• Most expansive theorist of the School
– Actually, only taught at Chicago
for 10 years, but influenced
members throughout his long
and prestigious career
– Concerned with the dissolution
of community as a result of the
industrial age, the implications of communication for
democracy, education
– One of the true Renaissance scholars—his work influenced
philosophy (pragmatism), social sciences method and
theory, psychology, education, librarianship and other
disciplines
Pragmatism
• Dewey did not first develop this philosophical position, but
was probably its most eloquent and effective proponent
– William James
• Dewey’s view was that knowledge in the abstract was not only
of little value, but not really possible. Knowledge was a result
of the interaction of intellect and experience. The only real
knowledge was developed through interaction with the living
world—strong proponent of empirical study of society.
Pragmatism argues that knowledge is to be judged by its
usefulness in real life. The only uniquely American
philosophical school.
Dewey and communication study
• Though Dewey places communication at the very
heart of his philosophical and social concerns, his
actual theoretical work on communication is
fragmented and, at times, frustratingly difficult if not
obscure
– “Of all things, communication is most wonderful”
– Society can be said not only to live by transmission, by
communication, but in transmission, in communication.
• As was concurrently and subsequently true of Marx,
Gramsci, and others it was up to later scholars to try
to make sense of what he was saying (Carey)
Dewey’s idea of the role of communication
in society
• Societies are based on shared sentiments,
meanings, beliefs, norms, etc.
• For a society to exist, the members must have
a feeling of communion with other members
– Shared self-interest, knowledge of the law, even
agreement to rules of democracy are not enough
– Difference between the “Great Society” and the
“Great Community”
The Great Community
• In any true community, individuals have a feeling of fellowship
with all the other members
– Concern over the fate of all members, but especially those in greatest
need, is a natural part of the community
– All members share equally in the feeling of fellowship even if material
wealth, etc. is unequally distributed
– The machinery of democracy is created to help carry out the natural
policy of a true community
• Cannot create a community
• Cannot substitute for a community
• In the absence of a true community, the machinery of elections, universal
suffrage, and on and on is simply an empty husk which will only forward
the interests of the most powerful or adept at its manipulation
• Community can only be created through communication
– Of all things communication is the most wonderful
Communities small and large
• The ideal of community is the small town
– Like Dewey’s native XXXX Vermont
• People know each other, develop bonds of affection and understanding,
through their face-to-face communication, shared religious experience
(communication), gossip, shared culture and all the other myriad ways
they communicate and thus come to share a deep understanding
supported by emotional bonds
– People take on as a personal goal the good of the community
• American democracy was born of, and grew within a system where this
was the actual experience for the great majority of citizens
• However, the industrial age had completely shattered this ideal, producing
instead vast cities of polyglot culture, chasms between rich and poor,
racial and ethnic conflict, self-centered individualism and political
opportunism
• While community was small and place-based, society was huge and
mobile
How to recapture community?
• Political chicanery, social disintegration, immorality and
economic abuse were largely due to a loss of the
communitarian spirit that was part of true democracy—the
community
– Must construct a mass community—the “Great community” that
would replace the “Great Society”
• Because of the society’s grand scale, communication would need to be on
an equally grand scale—harness the mass media to provide
communication widely and relatively uniformly to the differing groups
that make up the nation (or the city)
• “Thought News” project
• Continued to believe that harnessing the press by using it to disseminate
the ‘latest intelligence’ from the standpoint of social experts but in an
arresting and engaging manner would revitalize the public, imbue it with a
civic spirit and produce an effective and wise public opinion that could
lead the Great Community
Search for the Great Community
• “the idea of democracy is a wider and fuller
idea than can be exemplified in the state even
at its best. To be realized in must affect all
modes of human association, the family, the
school, industry, religion. And even as far as
political arrangements are concerned,
governmental institutions are but a
mechanism for securing to an idea channels of
effective operation.”
Louis Wirth
Consensus and mass communication
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Wirth, Louis (1948). Consensus and mass communication. American Sociological Review. 13(1) 1-15.
Classic (canonical) rendering of the theory of liberal pluralism (interest group democracy).
Wirth was giving his presidential address read before the annual meeting of the American Sociological
Society, NYC, December 28-30, 1947.
He began with his belief that “man” had developed technical capabilities that outstripped his ability
to control them through reason and ‘consensus’ and that this was a terribly dangerous state to be in.
This made study of sociology critically important so that man’s ability to rule with reason could control
the danger of nuclear holocaust that had developed.
Social scientists cannot treat their topic in the abstract or use many of the methods of physical
sciences.
Chose to discuss consensus “because I believe it provides both an approach to the central problem of
sociology and to the problems of the contemporary world.” (2)
“Because the mark of any society is the capacity of its members to understand one another and to act
in concert toward common objectives and under common norms, the analysis of consensus rightly
constitutes the focus of sociological investigation.” (2)
Compares modern mass societies to Roman Empire. Modern mass societies are more integrated, with
people participating in common life and in democratic societies participate in control of public policy.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Mass societies are a creation of the modern age and are a product of:
Division of labor
Mass communication
More or less democratically achieved consensus
Characteristics of the mass:
Great numbers
Aggregates of men widely dispersed over the face of the earth
Heterogeneous members
Anonymous individuals
Does not constitute an organized group
No common customs or traditions
– Open to suggestions
– Behavior is “capricious and unpredictable”
•
Consists of unattached individuals
– Do not play roles in a group
•
•
•
•
•
Everyone is in some respects characterized by mass behavior
Members of multiple organizations with disparate interests
Fragmentation of human interests
Maintaining two-way communication between leaders of structures and members,
and contact among members is necessary for the future of democracy
Dynamic equilibrium
–
•
•
“One of the principal conditions of effective collective action is the accuracy and
speed with which the shifting interests and attitudes of great masses of men, whether
organized or unorganized, can be ascertained and brought to bear upon the
determination of policy.” (4)
Instability of interests and motives of members and correspondingly frequent
changes in leadership lead to uncertainty in the locus of decisive power at any one
juncture of events
Mass societies--Vast concentrations of power and authority and complicated
machinery of administration
– “Perhaps the most urgent need that goes unmet in such a society is the capacity for
prompt decisions in the face of recurrent crises.” (4)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Consensus
Equivalent for society to mind for individual
“Consensus is the sign that such partial or complete understanding has been reached on a number
of issues confronting the members of a group sufficient to entitle it to be called a society.”
Not imposed by coercion
Not fixed by custom
Therefore, “always partial and developing and has constantly to be won” (4)
“If men of diverse experiences and interests are to have ideas and ideals in common they must have the
ability to communicate. It is precisely here, however, that we encounter a paradox. In order to
communicate effectively with one another, we must have a common knowledge, but in a mass society it is
through communication that we must obtain this common body of knowledge.” (4-5)
Must initially be content to “grope haltingly” for “elementary understandings” supplied by
superficial common experiences
Assumption that human beings the world over are sufficiently alike in their basic nature and in
their life careers that they have some “elementary capacity to put themselves in the place of the other”
(5)
Two major aspects of modern society
Organized groups
Detached masses
“held together, if at all by the mass media of communication
Society has developed many ways of
inducing consent
•
•
•
•
Force and authority
– Dictatorship
– However, even the dictator “does not enjoy unlimited opportunity to coerce his
subjects” (5)
–
If conditions too onerous, subjects may revolt
– Contact with communication about other types of conditions may be necessary for
subjects to be aware of their own negative conditions
• Law
• Religious sanction
Leadership
Common identification with great heroes or leaders
– Reinforced by:
– Propaganda and education
– “Ideas and ideals and the symbols with which they become identified” (6)
• mass communication lends itself particularly well to the dissemination of symbols and ideals
“on a scale hitherto thought impossible” (6)
A common history, culture and set of traditions
– “It is this basis of common social life as patterned by these traditions that makes it
possible in the last analysis for any group to think of itself and to act as a society, to
regard itself as a “we” group and to counterpose this “we” experience to all that is alien.
• Public opinion
– “formed in the course of living, acting and making decisions on issues”
(8)
– Individuals’ role is not determined by demographics. “What counts,
rather, is their power, prestige, strategic position, their resources, their
articulateness, the effectiveness of the organization and leadership.”
(8)
– “Decisive part of public opinion . . . is the organization of views on
issues that exercise an impact upon those who are in a position to
make decisions.”
• Individuals affiliated with a variety of organized groups
• Another large mass of individuals unattached to any stable group
– unorganized masses, leave the decision-making to those who are organized
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
“The fact that the instrumentalities of mass communication operate in situations
already prepared for them may lead to the mistaken impression that they or the
content and symbols which they disseminate do the trick. It is rather the
consensual basis that already exists in society which lends to mass communication
its effectiveness.” (6-7)
Conditions that led to mass society have combined to “disintegrate local cohesion
and to bring hitherto disparate and parochial cultures into contact with each other.
Out of this ferment has come the disenchantment of absolute faiths.” (7)
--“skepticism toward all dogmas and ideologies”
--substitution of rational grounds for believing
where reason fails, to seek “legitimation for a belief in personal
tastes,
preferences and the right to choose”
Increasing sophistication among the populace led to “perfection of the means of
persuasion”
“disintegration of unitary faiths and dogmas” concurrent with a blending of
the elements “in such a way as to attract the greatest number of followers”
Political parties blending ideas into incongruous conglomeration of ideas
Means for reaching consensus:
“Force and fraud on the one hand, and persuasion and rational agreement
on the other hand.” (8)
•
•
•
Democracies must resort to the art of compromise.
“democracies rest upon the ultimate agreement to disagree, which is the
tolerance of a divergent view” (8)
“Coercion can achieve spurious agreement on all issues, but consent can be
obtained only provisionally and perhaps only on those issues which do not
threaten too deeply the interests, the ideas and the ideals of the heterodox.” (9)
– Consensus . . . is the established habit of intercommunication, or discussion, debate,
negotiation and compromise, and the toleration of heresies, or even of indifference, up
to the point of “clear and present danger” which threatens the life of the society itself.
Rather than resting on unanimity, it rests upon a sense of group identification and
participation in the life of society, upon the willingness to allow our representatives to
speak for us even though they do not always faithfully represent our views, if indeed we
have any views at all on many of the issues under discussion, and upon our disposition
to fit ourselves into a program that our group has adopted and to acquiesce in group
decisions unless the matter is fundamentally incompatible with our interests and
integrity.” (9-10)
•
•
•
•
Mass media “direct their appeal to the mass” and constantly tempted to “reduce
their content” to the “lowest common denominator”
“Mass communication is rapidly becoming, if it is not already, the main framework
of the web of social life.”
“we live in an era when the control over these media constitutes perhaps the most
important source of power in the social universe” (10)
Hitler’s use of media
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Vast areas of ignorance
Even on most important issues
“Astonishing degree of apathy and indifference”
Therefore: “the price we must pay for the survival of a way of life that we cherish calls for
the expenditure of an immensely greater share of our resources than thus far we have been
willing to devote to information and education.” (11)
Success of entertainment content means that information and education services
must be interesting to be successful
“The media of communication tend toward monopolistic control”
“may threaten the free and universal access to the factual knowledge and balanced
interpretation which underlie intelligent decision.” (11)
control over media becoming “one of the principal sources of political, economic and
social power”
Access to alternative views through the media “does of course open the door to the
disintegration of all existing social solidarities, while it creates new ones.” (12)
Considers three cases—race relations, class relations, international relations
Wants to see how to build consensus in each
Chicago School concerns
• Fear over loss of “community”
– consensual forms of social control no longer
working
– rise of vice, demagoguery, mass movements
– crowd-like, mindless behavior
• Concern over viability of democracy in
industrialized, mass society
• How to reinvent the social conditions of the
small town within an industrialized society?
– no going back to an earlier age
Mass culture
• Mass culture is culture produced as a
commodity
• Undermines high culture and absorbs folk
culture
• Leads to “lowest common denominator”
culture and demeaning of public
consciousness
Mass culture
• Individuals unprotected from propaganda
• Propaganda able to move masses, leads to
radical action
• Media powerful and broad-based, leading to a
number of negative social outcomes
DeTocqueville (Democracy in
America 1835):
• “It would be to waste the time of my readers
and my own, if I strove to demonstrate how
the general mediocrity of fortunes, the
absence of superfluous wealth, the universal
desire for comfort, and the constant efforts by
which everyone attempts to procure it, make
the taste for the useful predominate over the
love of the beautiful in the heart of man.”
• Democratic nations, among whom all these
things exist, will therefore cultivate the artes
which serve to render life easy, in preference
to those whose object is to adorn it. They will
habitually prefer the useful to the beautiful,
and they will require that the beautiful should
be useful.”
Jose Ortega Y Gasset (The Revolt
of the Masses, 1932)
• “There is one fact which, whether good or ill, is of
utmost importance in public life at the present
moment. This fact is the accession of the masses
to complete social power. As the masses, by
definition, neither should nor can direct their own
personal existence, and still less rule society in
general, this fact means that actually Europe is
suffering from the greatest crisis that can afflict
peoples, nations, and civilization.”
• "Some of those [persons who participated in World War I]
who trusted so much and hated so passionately have put
their hands to the killing of man, they have mutilated
others and perhaps been mutilated in return, they have
encouraged others to draw the sword, and they have
derided and besmirched those who refused to rage as
they did. Fooled by propaganda? If so, they writhe in the
knowledge that they were the blind pawns in plans which
they did not incubate, and which they neither devised nor
comprehended nor approved."{2}
•
2. Harold D. Lasswell. Propaganda Technique in the World War. First edition,
1927. Reprint. New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1972. Page 8.
Lasswell
The Theory of Political Propaganda
•
•
•
•
•
"Propaganda is the management of collective attitudes by the
manipulation of significant symbols."
"Deliberation implies the search for the solution of a besetting problem
with no desire to prejudice a particular solution in advance. The
propagandist is very much concerned about how a specific solution is to
be evoked and "put over.""
definite and restricted objectives vs. general and diffused purpose
"Every cultural group has its vested values. . . . An object toward which it
is hoped to arouse hostility must be presented as a menace to as many of
these values as possible. . . . If the plan is to draw out positive attitudes
toward an object, it must be presented, not as a menace and an
obstruction, nor as despicable or absurd, but as a protector of our values,
a champion of our dreams, and a model of virtue and propriety."
Harold D. Lasswell, Propaganda Technique in the World War (New York:
Knopf, 1927),
• "The strategy of propaganda, which has been phrased in
cultural terms, can readily be described in the language of
stimulus-response. Translated into this vocabulary, which
is especially intelligible to some, the propagandist may be
said to be concerned with the multiplication of those
stimuli which are best calculated to evoke the desired
responses, and with the nullification of those stimuli
which are likely to instigate the undesired responses.”
• "Propaganda rose to transitory importance in
the past whenever a social system based upon
the sanctions of antiquity was broken up by a
tyrant. The ever-present function of
propaganda in modern life is in large measure
attributable to the social disorganization which
has been precipitated by the rapid advent of
technological changes. Impersonality has
supplanted personal loyalty to leaders.
• Literacy and the physical channels of communication
have quickened the connection between those who
rule and the ruled. Conventions have arisen which
favor the ventilation of opinions and the taking of
votes. Most of that which formerly could be done by
violence and intimidation must now be done by
argument and persuasion. Democracy has
proclaimed the dictatorship of the palaver, and the
technique of dictating to the dictator is named
propaganda.“
Studies of mass communication
• Radio Panics America
– Cantril, Gaudet, Herzog
The invasion from Mars: Radio panics
America
– -Hadley Cantril (1940)
– -personal interviews, scientific surveys, analysis of
newspaper accounts and mail
– -attempts were made to answer:
– 1. what was the extent of the panic?
– 2. what about this specific broadcast was so frightening?
– 3. why did it frighten some people and not others?
– -contributions:
– -theory-contributed to notions of selectivity-all three types
– -affirmed public opinion about media power
Two questions (p. 67)
• Note: “Even this broadcast did not affect more
than a small minority of listeners.”
• Why did this broadcast frighten some people
when other fantastic broadcasts do not?
• Why did this broadcast frighten some people
but not others?
Why were people frightened?
• Realism of the program
– “sheer dramatic excellence” of the program
– early parts of the broadcast “fell within the
existing standards of judgment of the listeners”
– “If a stimulus fits into the area of interpretation
covered by a standard of judgment and does not
contradict it, then it is likely to be believed.”
Standards
• “Radio as accepted vehicle for important
announcements.”
• “Prestige of speakers.”
– astronomers
– military men
– Secretary of the Interior
• “Specific incidents understood.”
– colloquial English/bureaucratese
– real places, buildings, highways
Standards
• “Everybody baffled.”
– on-air personalities claim bewilderment
• “The total experience.”
– projected environment
– “experienced as a unit”
• individual features of broadcast not adequate to
explain reaction
Tuning in late
• CBS survey found that 42% of audience
tuned in late
– after intro
– strong relationship to belief that broadcast was
news report rather than play
• “Contagion the excitement created”
– Someone suggested respondent tune in after
show had begun [21% in AIPO survey; 19% in
CBS survey]
Effect of late tune-in
80
70
60
50
40
News
Play
30
20
10
0
From the beginning
(n=269)
After beginning
(n=191)
Not paying attention to first
announcements
• “widespread habit”
– station IDs and advertising
• accounted for about 10% of those who
misinterpreted the broadcast
– actual n quite small (10% of 54 people who
thought it was news reports)
Not paying attention to first
announcements
• most were casually scanning for something to
listen to--not looking for Mercury Theater
• Competing with Charlie McCarthy
– vastly more popular than Mercury Theater
• (34.7 to 3.6)
– 18% of McCarthy listeners said they heard WOW,
of which 62% said they changed after the first act
(“Eddie Cantor effect”)
Classifying listeners
• Researchers chose following scheme from
among a wide array of possible classifications:
• 1. Those who analyzed the internal evidence of
the program and knew it could not be true.
• 2. Those who checked up successfully to learn
that it was a play.
• 3. Those who checked up unsuccessfully and
continued to believe it was a news broadcast.
• 4. Those who made no attempt to check the
authenticity of the broadcast.
Checked internal evidence
• Did not remain frightened
• 1. “Specific information they possessed and
were able to project into the situation”
– knew it was Mercury Theater
– recognized Orson Welles
– knew that time changes were too fast
– knew that there weren’t three regiments of
infantry in area
– just recognized the events as too fantastic
Successfully checked the broadcast
against other information
• Checked other stations (most common)
– “I turned to WOR to see if they had the same thing on and
they didn’t so I knew it must be a fake.”
• Looked up program in newspaper
– “I tuned in and heard that the meteor had fallen. Then
when they talked about monsters, I thought something was
the matter. So I looked in the newspaper to see what
program was supposed to be on and discovered it was only
a play.
• Asked friend, looked out window
– (1 respondent each)
Unsuccessfully checked broadcast
against other information
• “Difficult to determine from interviews why
these people wanted to check anyway”
– seemed to be checking whether they were in
personal danger yet rather than whether reports
were authentic
• Type of checking behavior was “singularly
ineffective and unreliable”
Unsuccessful checks
• Methods
– Look out window or go outdoors (employed by
2/3 of this group)
– Called friends or ran to consult neighbors
– Telephoned police or newspapers
– “Only one turned his radio dial. Only one
consulted a newspaper.”
Reasons checks were unsuccessful
• New information only verified their
interpretation
– “I looked out of the window and everything
looked the same as usual so I thought it hadn’t
reached our section yet.”
– “I went outside to look at the stars. I saw a clear
sky but somehow was not reassured.”
Reasons checks were unsuccessful
• Observed data were interpreted as additional
evidence that the broadcast was true
– “We looked out of the window and Wyoming
Avenue was black with cars. People were rushing
away, I figured.”
– “We tuned in to another station and heard some
church music. I was sure a lot of people were
worshiping God while waiting for their death.”
• “I looked out of my window and saw a
greenish-eerie light which I was sure came
from a monster. Later on it proved to be the
lights in the maid’s car.”
• Others felt unable to trust their own
observation, believing others knew more
about the situation than they did.
– Trusted the announcer on the radio as a source
– “My son came home during the excitement and I
sent him out to find one of the elders in the church
to see what it was all about.”
Made no attempt to check
the broadcast
• “Over half of the people in this group were so
frightened that they either stopped listening,
ran around in a frenzy or exhibited behavior
that can only be described as paralyzed.”
Reasons for not checking
• So frightened they never thought of checking
– “We didn’t try to do anything to see if it were
really true. I guess we were too frightened.”
• Adopted an attitude of complete resignation
– “I didn’t do anything. I just kept listening. I
thought if this is the real thing you only die once-why get excited?”
Reasons for not checking
• Some felt they needed to take action. They
prepared immediately for escape or death.
– “My husband said we were here for God’s glory
and honor and it was for Him to decide when
we should die. We should prepare ourselves.”
– “I couldn’t stand it so I turned it off. I don’t
remember when, but everything was coming
closer. My husband wanted to put it back on
but I told him we’d better do something instead
of just listen, so we started to pack.
Some remained constantly tuned in to
see how to escape