Marital Communication

Chris Segrin

University of Arizona

Marital communication refers to the communication that transpires between spouses. Many people feel that communication is the key to marital success, and therefore interest in marital communication is often undertaken to discover why some marriages fail and to help couples maintain a successful marriage.

Researchers have identified distinct types of marriages on the basis of couples’ communication behaviours. Fitzpatrick’s (1988) couple typology describes three types of marriages. “Traditional couples” hold conventional values toward their marriage, are interdependent, and are willing to engage in conflict when serious issues emerge. “Independent couples” are unconventional in their marital ideology, somewhat interdependent, and generally unrestrained in their conflict engagement. Finally, “separate couples” are the most autonomous and least likely to engage in conflict, while also holding somewhat conventional values. Gottman (1994) presented findings on a comparable typology of marriages, based on the nature of couples’ conflicts. ‘Validators’ tend to be mostly positive during their conflicts, showing mutual respect and validation of their partner’s emotions and perspective. ‘Volatile couples’ tend to be more explosive and argumentative, while also expressing substantial positivity. In contrast, ‘avoiders’ prefer to minimize their disagreements and avoid discussing them altogether. Gottman observed obvious connections between his marital typology and that of Fitzpatrick (i.e., traditionals = validators, independents = volatiles, and separates = avoiders).

The study of conflict has a privileged status among marital communication researchers because of the belief that effective conflict management is vital to marital success and that excessive conflict is destructive to marriage (→ Interpersonal conflict). It is not conflict per se that is harmful to marital satisfaction, but how conflict is handled. Particularly destructive marital conflict behaviours include demand–withdrawal (one spouse presents a complaint or criticism and the other becomes defensive and avoids discussion), negative affect reciprocity (the negative emotional expression of one spouse is met with a comparable expression of negative affect from the other), complaining/criticizing (the commingling of a complaint with criticism of the partner), defensiveness (protecting the self by denying any responsibility for wrongdoing), contempt (mocking or insulting the partner), and stonewalling (showing no signs of listening to the partner).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Fitzpatrick, M. A. (1988). Between husbands and wives. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
2. Gottman, J. M. (1994). What predicts divorce: The relationship between marital processes and marital outcomes. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Marketing

Franz-Rudolf Esch

EBS University of Business and Law

Kristina Strödter

Justus Liebig University

Marketing can be defined in the sense of market-oriented business leadership. This market orientation is characterized by all relevant activities and processes of the company that focus on consumers’ needs and wants (Esch 2012). To focus on consumers and the market, it is one of the basic tasks of marketing to find out about relevant consumers’ needs and wants. Therefore, it is important to thoroughly analyze consumers. Once marketers know consumers’ needs, the next step is to develop products and services that satisfy them.

In the twenty-first century, companies face changing customer values, which are observably getting more diverse. Even one and the same person can have different needs in different situations. The phenomenon of ‘hybrid consumption’ is rapidly emerging. Firms try to react to these specific needs by offering customized products. Another challenge is increased global competition. This trend is intensified by new information and communication technologies like the Internet, which make it easier to sell products worldwide. But also for consumers the world has become more complex because they are bombarded by too much information. This trend is accompanied by products becoming outdated sooner (Lim & Tang 2006). In this environment, launching new products successfully is a real challenge.

Designing Marketing Strategies

A marketing plan, as the core of marketing management, is the central instrument for directing, synchronizing, and coordinating all marketing activities. First, it is important for marketers to develop an understanding of their customers. Based on this knowledge, goals and strategies must be determined. In this context, there are three levels that need to be planned systematically: (1) the marketing goal, which represents the situation strived for; (2) marketing strategies, i.e., the roads leading to that goal; and (3) marketing instruments necessary to ‘walk the road’ (Esch et al. 2013). The classic set of marketing activities is summarized by the ‘4Ps’ (product, price, placement, promotion).

The 4Ps are the pillars of marketing, while → branding is its base, on which all marketing activities are built. Therefore, it is crucial to base marketing strategies on a thoroughly planned branding strategy. To ensure that the implemented activities help the company to achieve its goals, it is important to control activities, strategies, and goals regularly. In this context, progress in the achievement of the company’s objectives has to be measured. Besides controlling the effectiveness of strategies and activities, marketers should revise whether the marketing goals are still worth striving for or whether they are outdated.

The Brand As the Base for Marketing Activities

A brand can be defined as a mental image in the minds of the target group that leads to identification and differentiation and affects people’s choices (Esch 2012; → Brand). Brand identity and brand positioning together serve as the essential basis for all brand decisions. In contrast to brand image, which refers to the perception of the brand, brand identity and positioning are in the company’s sphere of action.

Principally, companies face three basic options to lead their brands: (1) product brands; (2) family brands; and (3) corporate brands. Using a product brand strategy, every product of a company forms an own-brand; this means ‘one brand = one product = one brand promise’ (e.g., Procter & Gamble, with brands like Pringles, Ariel, and Pampers). A family brand comprises several products under one brand, e.g., Maggi or Nivea. The advantage of this strategy is that all offerings of a brand profit from its existing brand image. Corporate brands are used for all products of a company. The primary aim of this strategy is to establish a clear profile of the company and its competencies.

Raising Consumers’ Brand Awareness and Brand Image with Communication

Communication is an effective instrument to build unique brand images in consumers’ minds. Integrated communication is understood as the integration of form and content of all communication activities, which unifies and reinforces the impressions made. In integrated communication, verbal as well as nonverbal elements can be used. These either transfer distinctive image associations (BMW is sporty and dynamic) or form an anchor to enhance brand awareness, e.g., by using a particular color code or symbols (→ Integrated Marketing Communications; Marketing: Communication Tools).

As a basic principle, communication instruments can be divided into personal and mass communication. Personal communication distinguishes itself by greater credibility of the communicator, the possibility to respond to the listener’s needs, and the information conveyed by nonverbal communication. Moreover, personal communication offers higher flexibility.

A customer’s buying cycle can be broken down into four different stages. (1) The buying cycle starts when a consumer gets in touch with a product. This first contact happens through mass communication, e.g., through TV commercials. (2) In the second stage, the consumer starts gathering more information. In this stage, personal communication is very important. (3) When a customer is finally buying a product, personal communication is essential. The assistant should give advice about special features and different models of the product. (4) While the customer is using the product, a company should stay in touch with the customer. Brochures, events, or telephone calls by the company help the company to get feedback about its product and services.

Price Elasticity and Differentiation

To find out what price leads to maximal profits, managers should estimate the demand and costs associated with the alternative prices and choose that price which leads to the highest estimated profits. There are many factors that affect a company’s cost and turnover functions; e.g., pricing has an effect on further variables, like competitors and their reactions, the product’s and brand’s image as well as consumers’ reactions. To assess the change in demand due to changes in prices, marketers need to know about consumers’ price sensitivity and price elasticity, which describe changes in demand due to a 1 percent rise in price.

Price differentiation refers to selling principally the same products to different consumers or groups of consumers at different prices. The aim of this strategy is to skim as much as possible of the consumer surplus, which can be defined as the difference in consumers’ willingness to pay and the price actually paid. One can distinguish between three different forms of price differentiation. According to first-order differentiation, prices are set individually for each customer to perfectly skim his or her willingness to pay. According to second-order differentiation, consumers decide independently to which price category they belong. By contrast, third-order differentiation does not enable consumers to choose their category themselves. Segments and the respective prices are pre-arranged by the company.

Developing an Optimal Distribution Strategy

Distribution is more than getting products to potential customers. When planning their distribution strategy, marketers must decide on whether to sell their product directly or indirectly to the end consumers, and whether their product should be distributed universally or selectively. Companies that distribute their goods directly sell their products to the end consumer without interposing any external distributors.

The indirect distribution strategy can be subcategorized based on the number of intermediaries involved. Supermarkets are often one-tier distribution systems, whereas pharmacies and florists are two-tier systems, consisting of retail and wholesale. A special form of indirect distribution is franchising, where a company’s products are distributed by legally and economically independent firms whose relationship to the producing firm is regulated by contract (e.g., McDonald’s). One of the major disadvantages of intermediaries is the producer’s loss of control, i.e., how the products are presented in the stores.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Boone, L. E. & Kurtz, D. L. (2013). Contemporary marketing, 15th edn. Cincinnati, OH: South Western Educational Publishing.
2. Coughlan, A. T., Anderson, E., Stern, L. W., & El-Ansary, A. I. (2006). Marketing channels. 7th edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
3. Drucker, P. F. (1954). The practice of management. London: HarperCollins.
4. Eagle, L. Dahl, S. & Czarnecka, B. (2014). Marketing communications. London: Routledge.
5. Esch, F.-R. (2012). Strategie und Technik der Markenführung [Strategy and techniques of brand management], 7th edn. Wiesbaden: Gabler.
6. Esch, F.-R., Hermann, A., & Sattler, H. (2013). Marketing. Eine managementorientierte Einführung [Marketing: A management-oriented introduction]. 4th edn. Munich: Vahlen.
7. Keller, K. L. (2012). Strategic brand management: Building, measuring, and managing brand equity, 4th edn. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
8. Kotler, P. & Armstrong, G. (2012). Marketing: An introduction, 11th edn. New York: Prentice Hall.
9. Lim, W. S. & Tang, C. S. (2006). Optimal product rollover strategies. European Journal of Operational Research, 174(2), 905–922.
10. Mooji, M. K. (2014). Global marketing and advertising: Understanding cultural paradoxes, 4th edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Marketing: Communication Tools

Richard Alan Nelson

Louisiana State University

Marketing communication involves the ongoing process of relationship building with target audiences on all matters that affect marketing and business performance. Targeted are those groups of people an organization needs to communicate with in order to meet goals and objectives.

A number of marketing communications options are available that help companies build and maintain audience, increase market share and market awareness, acquire new business, and build more fruitful relationships with existing clients. Advertising is a planned communication activity that utilizes controlled messages carried by the media to persuade audiences. Any form of nonpersonal one-way communication about products, ideas, goods, or services paid for by an identified sponsor can be grouped under the advertising umbrella. Research indicates that consumers tend to perceive advertised goods as more legitimate. Another key advantage is that advertising typically reaches large, geographically dispersed audiences, often with high frequency (→ Advertising; Segmentation of the Advertising Audience).

Public relations is most associated with maintaining good relationships with the company’s various publics by promoting a good ‘corporate image.’ Since public relations appears in many forms (as news reports, sponsored events, etc.), it tends to be highly credible with audiences and reaches many prospects missed via other forms of promotion. Despite being cost-effective, public relations is often the most underused element in the promotional mix (→ Public Relations). Publicity messages are conveyed to the public through the mass media and are a component of public relations linked to press agentry.

Any communication to carefully targeted individual consumers designed to generate an immediate commercial response is direct marketing (i.e., an order, request for information, or sales visit). All direct-response advertising is structured around three basic elements: (1) the message communicates a definite offer; (2) the recipient is given the information necessary to make a decision; and (3) the ad makes it easy to say ‘yes’ immediately by including one or more response devices (e.g., a coupon). Sponsorships are defined as payment (in fees, goods, or services) in return for the rights to a public association with another organization and/or event (naming rights, onsite banners, cross-advertising, etc.).

Most businesses have a sales force whose members make personal presentations to persuade a prospective customer to commit to buying a good, a service, or even an idea. The seller generally interprets brand features in terms of buyer benefits, and the salesperson can be critical when the number of potential customers is limited and the product is technical and/or expensive. Promotional products comprise an advertising, sales-promotion, publicity, and motivational communication medium that displays the sponsoring organization’s name, logo, or message on useful articles of merchandise.

Sales promotions are defined as those activities other than personal selling, advertising, and publicity that stimulate consumer purchasing. Sales promotions are typically short-term field marketing and merchandising incentives to encourage purchase or sale of a product or service. Examples of point-of-sale and business sales promotion vehicles include contests, coupons, rebates, refund offers, and sweepstakes.

The potentially huge number of viewers who can take action (‘word-of-mouth marketing’) is one attraction of Internet campaigning. A well-placed link on a popular website, or passed from friend to friend, may generate millions of page hits very quickly. The impact of → Facebook, YouTube, and other → social media has caught the attention of major marketers. By tapping into these ‘virtual communities,’ i.e., individuals who share common identification, companies are finding they can mobilize interest through ‘viral-marketing’ techniques. By identifying opinion leaders in a market segment and providing them with special incentives, sponsors are also creating ‘buzz’ within target groups. Also, rich email (graphically designed email that is forwardable and trackable) is among the new Internet-based technologies for e-commerce.

The accelerating changes we see in communication technologies are evidence of a fundamental shift in society as a whole. Many commentators argue that we are at a historical turning point similar to that which marked the introduction of movable type in Europe and the rise of industrialism. No one is yet sure what ‘globalism’ really means in terms of the way we live or how we conduct business. Shifts that give consumers greater control over messages they pay attention to are definitely changing the notion of the marketplace. Combined with the erosion of older models of how media deliver audiences, these developments are temporarily causing consternation among many marketers who are still groping to find what works. Given past performance, they are likely to be successful.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Blythe, J. (2012). Essentials of marketing communications, 5th edn. Harlow: Pearson Education.
2. Dahlén, M., Lange, F., & Smith, T. (2008). Marketing communications. Chichester: John Wiley.
3. De Pelsmacker, P., Geuens, M., & Van den Bergh, J. (2013). Marketing communications. A European perspective. Harlow: Pearson Education.
4. Donaldson, B., & O’Toole, T. (2007). Strategic market relationships: From strategy to implementation, 2nd edn. Chichester: John Wiley.
5. Eagle, L. Dahl, S., & Czarnecka, B. (2014). Marketing communications. London: Routledge.
6. Kirby, J., & Marsden, P. (2006). Connected marketing: The viral, buzz and word of mouth revolution. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Markets of the Media

Benjamin J. Bates

University of Tennessee

The essence of the concept ‘markets of the media’ is the identification and understanding of the context where producers supply, and audiences consume, media content – with the inevitable economic, social, and political ramifications that result from their behaviors. Defining a market is the primary step; as that identifies who is involved in supply and demand and facilitates understanding of market behaviors; allowing prediction of outcomes, even under changing conditions.

Markets in Economics

Markets exist as the contexts where those seeking to supply goods and services interact with those seeking to acquire them (demand). Three factors define a market: the determination of the good (or service), identifying those who seek to provide the good, and identifying those who are capable of acquiring the good. Generally, the more specific the identification of the good, the easier it is to determine and understand remaining market characteristics and structure, and market behaviors.

Several aspects of market structure impact market operations: presence of market power, barriers to entry, and externalities. Market power happens when supply or demand is dominated by a few market participants whose market share is enough that it can impact pricing. Normally this happens when there are few participants (monopoly, oligopoly), perhaps facilitated by barriers to entry (constraints on who participates resulting from technological, economic, or regulatory limits), and product differentiation (monopolistic competition – where product differences are enough that they can split markets into segments). Externalities refers to impacts that market behaviors have outside the market (social benefits from information use), or impacts that outside factors have within markets (such as taxes or subsidies).

Information goods and services, including media content, share some other distinctive features. There are public goods attributes: ‘nonrivalrous consumption,’ which means that consumption by some does not materially affect consumption by others, and ‘nonexcludability,’ which refers to the difficulty of preventing access to the good by those who have not purchased it. Information markets also suffer from ‘imperfect information’; information goods tend to have a high degree of originality, and gaining full knowledge of the good typically requires its consumption; thus, potential consumers (and suppliers) typically base their decisions on incomplete or imperfect information about the product and market. Imperfect information is a major contributor to the variability and uncertainty in value perceptions among consumers (as is variation in consumer tastes and preferences), which also impacts consumption decisions. These lead to some distinctive marketing behaviors – differentiated content and close substitutes, the use of bundling (combining multiple pieces of content within a single packaged product) to aggregate value and reduce uncertainty, and an emphasis on branding and consistency across content offerings to establish norms for expected value.

Media Markets and Market Failures

Historically, media markets were defined by medium, with content form and distribution range tied to technical attributes of the particular medium. Newspapers, → books, movies, music, radio, television – all focused on providing content that took advantage of distinctive characteristics of their distribution medium and network. Both producers and consumers coupled content and medium in their conceptualization of media products and markets. Media markets were clear and distinct, and largely independent of one another.

However, few media markets fit the norms for ‘typical’ or perfectly competitive markets; entry barriers, public goods attributes, and imperfect information result in market power, resulting in markets that didn’t achieve what was considered to be socially or economically optimal outcomes. They meet the economic definition of ‘market failure,’ i.e., not perfectly competitive; this was used to justify regulatory intrusions into the market to ‘fix’ the ‘failure.’ To be effective, these efforts need to be based on an accurate understanding of market forces and behaviors. To illustrate, → copyright and intellectual property policy is a legal response to one set of market failures (the public good characteristics; → Intellectual Property Law). The solution, though, is the creation of monopoly rights and the granting of monopoly power to the owner of those rights, which happen to create a different kind of market failure, one of possibly greater consequence (Lessig 2004).

Additionally, most media and audiences operate in multiple interlinked markets rather than single independent markets. Media firms, for example, may bundle content with advertising in their products; in the content market, audiences need to provide their time and attention in order to consume the content. Audience attention and content are complements, and media operate in content markets trading content for attention, and then operate in advertising markets to sell that attention to advertisers.

Still, the greatest driver of market transformation is the rise of the digital network economy. Digital technologies have dramatically lowered production costs for virtually all content forms, and enabled content to be provided across media formats. One result has been an explosion in available content. Digital networks have radically reduced content storage and distribution costs, expanding the scope and reach of markets, in the process removing many of the old barriers to entry and encouraging market convergence. With the introductions of new devices for accessing and consuming media content (mobile), opportunities for producing, accessing, and consuming media content have vastly expanded, transforming both markets and the market behaviors that determine supply and demand curves within media markets (→ Digital Media, History of ). These transformations are helping to decouple content and media. ‘Media’ consumption is increasingly driven by active interest in content, with the means of distribution and display of secondary interest. This is a radical shift in the basis of audience behavior that drives demand and media use and will contribute to further market transformation.

Emerging Market Issues

The confluence of technological innovations, policy shifts, → globalization of the media, and evolving audience demand is radically transforming media markets. The inherent cost advantages of the digital network economy (Benkler 2006) – an advantage that increases with continued innovation – are driving most traditional media into the digital marketplace while triggering rapid market expansion toward globalization. There are fundamental changes occurring in how supply and demand are determined, and how media markets are defined (“fuzzy markets”; Lacey 2004). A major concern for media outlets is over which definition of market should it base their business models; should they stick with the old or seek to take advantage of the opportunities market transformation present?

Media regulators and policymakers face the same issue when addressing ‘failure’ of media markets. For example, current copyright law emphasizes restricting and controlling access to (and consumption of) content, with fees based on the more limited consumption patterns of traditional media marketplaces and set on a national basis. This is limiting the ability to expand markets globally, as well as limiting development of new markets and distribution strategies.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Albarran, A. B. (2002). Media economics: Understanding markets, industries, and concepts, 2nd edn. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press.
2. Albarran, A. B., Chan-Olmstead, S., & Wirth, M. O. (eds.) (2005). Handbook of media management and economics. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
3. Baker, C. E. (2002). Media, markets, and democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
4. Bates, B. J. & Albright, K. (2006). Network and distribution economics. In A. Albarran et al. (eds.), Handbook of Media Management and Economics. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 417–443.
5. Benkler, Y. (2006). The wealth of networks: How social production transforms markets and freedom. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
6. Hoskins, S., McFadyen, S. M., & Finn, A. (2004). Media economics: Applying economics to new and traditional media. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
7. Kops, M. (2006). Globalizing media markets: Benefits and costs, winners and losers. Working Paper No. 211e. Cologne: Institute for Broadcasting Economics, University of Cologne.
8. Lacey, S. (2004). Fuzzy market structure and differentiation. In R. G. Picard (ed.), Strategic responses to media market changes. Jonkoping: Jonkoping International Business School, pp. 83–95.
9. Lessig, L. (2004). Free culture: The nature and future of creativity. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
10. Napoli, P. M. (2003). Audience economics: Media institutions and the audience marketplace. New York: Columbia University Press.
11. Picard, R. G. & Wildman, S. (eds.), (2014). International handbook on the economics of media. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
12. Zerdick, A., Picot, A., Schrape, K., Burgelman, J-C., Silverstone, R., Feldmann, V., Wernick, C. & Wolff, C. (eds.) (2005). E-merging media: Communication and the media economy of the future. New York: Springer.

Masculinity and the Media

John Beynon

University of Glamorgan

Bethan Benwell

University of Stirling

The focus of this entry is upon televisual masculinities in the western world while making it evident that the approach adopted could also be applied to other media genres (→ Television as Popular Culture). From the mid-1950s to the late 1970s, the depiction of gender on television was highly stereotypical and critiqued by second-wave feminists (→ Sexism in the Media). Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, narrow gender stereotypes were challenged. Male leads increasingly combined toughness with a degree of vulnerability (Inspector Morse). Men, too, were becoming increasingly fashion-conscious (Miami Vice), without any real diminution of masculine power. During the 1990s, gender stereotypes were further eroded, or sometimes knowingly explored and referenced (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Friends, Frasier, and Sex and the City), and male intimacy and homosocial bonding became common forms of representation (Feasey 2008, 24).

In the contemporary, postmodern era, TV shows (fiction and nonfiction), have further deconstructed gender binaries by their normative portrayal of alternative and marginal masculinities, among them gay masculinity (Six Feet Under, The Wire, and True Blood), transgendered identities (Hayley Cropper in the UK soap Coronation Street), and female masculinity (Felicia ‘Snoop’ Pearson in The Wire). Whilst representations of gender on television have changed considerably since the early 1960s (→ Gender: Representation in the Media), it might be argued that traditional gender stereotypes continue to be regenerated. Reality, sporting, and magazine-format TV have seen a resurgence of hypermasculine, often dangerous pursuits (e.g., Deadliest Catch, Top Gear, Jackass) imbued with ‘laddish’ values, and popular reality shows continue to represent gender as essentially polarized and heterosexual. Whilst gender-literate television writers and directors are prepared to experiment with nontraditional and subversive representations of masculinity. others might conclude that television continues to reflect, rather than instigate, meaningful and enduring social change.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Bignell, J. & Lacey, S. (eds.) (2005). Popular television drama: Critical perspectives. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
2. Feasey, R. (2008). Masculinity and popular television. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
3. Hermes, J. (2005). Re-reading popular culture: Rethinking gender, television, and popular media audiences. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.

Meaning

Klaus Bruhn Jensen

University of Copenhagen

The concept of meaning is most commonly associated with humanistic perspectives on the texts of communication and their interpretation by culturally situated audiences. In comparison, → information denotes a social scientific conception of the differences that communication makes in later events and contexts.

Three notions of meaning have entered into communication research. First, meaning implies a saturated sense of self: an identity and an orientation toward others. Second, meaning is the outcome of innumerable communicative exchanges, accumulating as tradition (→ Culture: Definitions and Concepts). Third, meaning is an emphatically contested terrain – an object of reflexivity. The terminology of ‘meaning production’ suggests that people literally produce meanings and identities for themselves, and, in communication, they jointly accomplish meaningful social realities.

As an analytical object, meaning can be operationalized in four ideal-typical models (Jensen 2012, 11) where the constituents may, or may not, make up a pre-defined inventory and the structure a fixed matrix. This leads to four types: ‘deterministic’, ‘generative’, ‘stochastic’, and ‘indeterministic.’ Communication is rarely an entirely deterministic or indeterministic process. Thus, the two main models of meaning in media and communication research are the stochastic and generative types. The stochastic type is witnessed in the prototypical social scientific survey, experimental, or content-analytical study. Given a pre-defined range of content or response units, the question is which of these, and in which configurations, are manifest, as measured by an appropriate statistical technique. The generative type is associated with humanistic media studies, typically qualitative analyses of how meanings are generated in and through media texts and audience reception (→ Qualitative Methodology).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Jensen, K. B. (ed.) (2012). A handbook of media and communication research: Qualitative and quantitative methodologies, 2nd edn. London: Routledge.
2. Ogden, C. K. & Richards, I. A. (1989). The meaning of meaning: A study of the influence of language upon thought and of the science of symbolism. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

Measurement Theory

Stephanie Sargent Weaver

Northrop Grumman/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Measurement theory is a sub-field of methodology that deals with the relationship between theoretical constructs and their measurement in the research process.

Generally scientists make a deliberate decision to observe, are equally deliberate about what they will observe, take precautions against erroneous observations, and record their observations carefully as measurements. Ultimately, measurement is the process whereby a thing, concept, or object measured is compared against a point of limitation (→ Quantitative Methodology; Qualitative Methodology).

In measurement, there are three central concepts: numerals, assignment, and rules (e.g. Wimmer & Dominick 2014). Numerals are symbols such as S, 5, 10, or 100, and have no explicit quantitative meaning. Assignment is the designation of numerals or numbers to certain objects or events. For example, we assign numbers to classify people by how they get their news. Rules specify the way that numerals or numbers are to be assigned. Rules are the foundation of any measurement system, so if the rules are faulty the measurement system will be faulty, too. For some research studies, the rules can be obvious (i.e., measuring reading speed with a stopwatch) or not so obvious (i.e., measuring ‘enjoyment of televised sports’).

In addition, measurement systems also strive to be isomorphic to reality. Basically, isomorphism means identity or similarity of form or structure. To strive for isomorphism, researchers must define the sets of objects being measured and the numerical sets from which they assign numerals to those objects, and check that the rules of assignment or correspondence are tied to ‘reality.’ To assess isomorphism to reality, researchers ask the question, ‘Is this set of objects isomorphic to that set of objects?’ In the social sciences, researchers must ask the question, “Do the measurement procedures being used have some rational and empirical correspondence with ‘reality’?” (Kerlinger & Lee 1999). The ultimate question that must be asked is ‘Is the measurement procedure isomorphic to reality?’

In 1946, Stevens suggested four levels, or types, of measurement. Nominal measurement is the weakest form of measurement and identifies variables whose values have no mathematical interpretation. In addition, they must be mutually exclusive and exhaustive. Examples are gender, ethnicity, occupation, religious affiliation, and social security number. In the ordinal scale of measurement, we think in terms of the symbols > (greater than) or < (less than). The ordinal scale implies that the entity being measured is quantified in terms of being of a higher or lower or a greater or lesser order than a comparative entity. In measuring on the ordinal scale, the relationship is always asymmetrical. Examples are a student’s academic level and socio-economic status.

The interval scale of measurement is characterized by two features: it has (1) equal units of measurement; and (2) an arbitrarily established zero point. It includes the characteristics of the nominal and ordinal scales, plus the numbers indicating the values of a variable represent fixed measurement units, and there is no absolute or fixed zero point. The most familiar examples of interval-level measurement are in both the Fahrenheit (F) and Celsius (C) scales as well as rating scales employed to assess opinions on any objects.

The highest level of measurement is the ratio scale. It possesses the characteristics of the nominal, ordinal, and interval scales, plus it has an absolute or natural zero point that has empirical meaning. If a measurement is zero on a ratio scale, then the object in question has none of the property being measured. All arithmetic operations are possible, such as multiplication and division, and the numbers on the scale indicate the actual amounts of the property being measured. Examples include a person’s age or time spent on the Internet.

One can determine one’s level of measurement by applying it to the following test: If one can say that one object is different from another, one has a nominal scale; one object is bigger or better or more of anything than another, one has an ordinal scale; one object is so many units (degrees, inches) more than another, one has an interval scale; one object is so many times as big or bright or tall or heavy as another, one has a ratio scale.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Babbie, E. (2013). The practice of social research, 13th edn. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
2. Katzer, J., Cook, K. H., & Crouch, W. W. (1998). Evaluating information: A guide for users of social science research, 4th edn. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.
3. Kerlinger, F. N. & Lee, H. B. (1999). Foundations of behavioral research, 4th edn. Boston: Wadsworth.
4. Leedy, P. D. & Ormrod, J. E. (2014). Practical research: Planning and design, 10th edn. Harlow: Pearson Education.
5. Stevens, S. S. (1946). On the theory of scales of measurement. Science, 103, 677–680.
6. Wimmer, R. D. & Dominick, J. R. (2014). Mass media research: An introduction, 10th edn. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Media

Klaus Bruhn Jensen

University of Copenhagen

Media refers to the tools that humans have used throughout history to communicate about a shared reality. The most common reference is to the modern technologies that facilitate communication across space, time, and collectives.

Three main concepts of media inform communication research. The first is Harold D. Lasswell’s paradigm – “who says what, in which channel, to whom, with what effect” – which approaches media as neutral conduits of information. The second conception is the mathematical theory of communication by Claude Shannon that emphasizes technical aspects of communication systems. The third concept represents humanistic perspectives on media as cultural carriers of → meaning. In this last respect, Roman Jakobson has made an important distinction between channels or contacts (concrete entities such as → books, newspapers, or the internet) and → codes (forms of expression such as speech, writing, music, or images).

Much media and communication research is characterized by efforts at integrating these concepts theoretically as well as analytically. Studies commonly identify three aspects of any medium: Media are physical materials in a particular social shape that enable communication. Such materials are the vehicles of modalities – language, music, moving images, etc. Finally, media are institutions through which individuals and collectives can reflect upon themselves and the rest of society.

Digital media have stimulated renewed interest in the relationship between technologically mediated communication and face-to-face communication, and in the reshaping – remediation (Bolter & Grusin 1999) – of older media (→Digital Media, History of). One may distinguish between media of three degrees (Jensen 2010). Media of the first degree are humans – biologically based and culturally shaped resources of communication. Media of the second degree are mass media – from the printing press to television. Media of the third degree are digital media that recombine all previous media on single platforms.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Bolter, J. D. & Grusin, R. (1999). Remediation: Understanding new media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
2. Jensen, K. B. (2010). Media convergence: The three degrees of network, mass, and interpersonal communication. London: Routledge.
3. Meyrowitz, J. (1994). Medium theory. In D. Crowley & D. Mitchell (eds.), Communication theory today. Cambridge: Polity.

Media Conglomerates

Daniel Biltereyst

Ghent University

The issue of media conglomeration, or the phenomenon of a vast amount of cultural (media) production being controlled by a relatively small number of corporations, has generated heated debates among communication scholars, policymakers, and industry practitioners. In these debates, the concept of media conglomeration primarily refers to ownership structures within media and communications industries, as well as to the nature and organization of this type of cultural production. The phenomenon of media conglomeration, though, touches upon a much broader set of interrelated issues – ranging from questions on diversity, competition, and control in a tightly oligopolistic market, to concerns over the wider societal implications of a situation where huge conglomerates dominate the global communications system (→ Globalization of the Media).

Drawing upon → public sphere theories, scholars working within a critical research tradition have been asking questions about how far and at what price a communication system can be dominated by a handful of corporations, and how this might affect the diversity of information and argument needed for effective and well-informed citizenship (→ Critical Theory). Sharp political economic analyses on how the corporate structure and strategy of media conglomerates tend to homogenize cultural production and restrict critical media content have been opposed by advocates of the free market. Media conglomeration is also an important concept in the academic field of → international communication and in debates on media, internationalization, and globalization. Because much of today’s communications industry is under the control of multinational corporations with cross-media activities in most parts of the world and with their headquarters in the USA, western Europe, Australia, or Japan, the issue of media conglomeration is often associated with older arguments about Americanization, Eurocentrism, or cultural imperialism (→ Cultural Imperialism Theories).

Although an unparalleled series of international acquisitions and buy-outs of media and entertainment companies from the 1980s onward fueled the debate, it is clear that the issue of media conglomeration is not a new phenomenon. During the second half of the nineteenth century, new technologies such as the telegraph, facilitating the transfer of information over a long distance, created the first modern media corporations with an international scope. In the twentieth century, the growth of other new media sectors went hand in hand with vertically integrated and internationally active companies. The film industry, for instance, quickly saw the emergence of oligopolistic structures which tried to control most levels of the industry, increased their interests in the wider leisure industry (music, radio, etc.), and operated in an international environment. In the postwar period, the communications industry saw several waves of mergers and concentration. From the 1980s onwards, the rapidly expanding global entertainment market, the availability of new delivery systems, and the development of new markets and technologies, combined with a deregulation policy, all resulted in a further cycle of mergers. This trend did not stop in the 1990s and during the first decade of the new millennium, with spectacular mergers (→ Time Warner Inc.; Disney; News Corporation; Sony Corporation).

This conglomeration trend raised many questions. A first set of questions deals with how far a market can be controlled without harming competition in terms of production, dissemination, and consumption of media products or content (→ Markets of the Media). Critical voices in the debate argue that the trend reduces the diversity of cultural goods in circulation. From this perspective, conglomeration might have a restricting effect on media content while it tries to offer more variants of the same basic themes and images. Critics argue that conglomerates seek content that can move fluidly across different media and channels (synergy), while they ignore creative talent and content in favor of commercial viability. This analysis is countered by arguments claiming that a free market has led to a decreasing oligopoly and the emergence of new players, while consumers enjoy more choice. This position refers to the growing amount of television and other media providers and the emergence of the Internet as a source for information and entertainment, as well as the notion of counterculture audiences who do not accept what conglomerates offer. The answer to this position is that a key to understanding conglomeration is that major players in the field continuously try to absorb viable alternatives through mergers in order to extend their scope and consolidate their position.

A second set of questions refers to a higher level of implications, dealing with the role of the media as a central political and societal institution in democracy. Inspired by public-sphere theories in relation to the media, conglomeration critics express worries about the conglomerates’ power in controlling the flow of information and open debate in society. Opponents claim that the danger to democracy is a myth, given the extension of choice and emergence of new alternative sources of information.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Bagdikian, B. (2004). The new media monopoly. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
2. Baker, C. E. (2007). Media concentration and democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
3. Compaine, B. (2005). The media monopoly myth: How new competition is expanding our sources of information and entertainment. Washington, DC: New Millennium Research Council.
4. Thussu, D. K. (2000). International communication. London: Edward Arnold.
5. Wasko, J., Murdoch, G., & Sousa, H. (eds.) (2011). The handbook of political economy of communications. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.

Media Content and Social Networks

Dietram A. Scheufele

University of Wisconsin–Madison

In The People’s Choice, Paul F. Lazarsfeld and his colleagues offered two key constructs to explain the interplay of mass-mediated information, social networks, and political → attitudes that are still relevant today: opinion leadership and political cross-pressures (→ Opinion Leader).

In subsequent research it has been confirmed that the two-step flow of information in social networks is especially effective since interpersonal channels (rather than mass-mediated ones) can counter and circumvent initial resistance to information, based on partisan preferences (→ Selective Exposure). More recent research, however, suggests that the likelihood of exposure to attitude-inconsistent information in modern democracies is much higher in news media than in most interpersonal contexts (→ Cognitive Dissonance Theory).

Mutz (2002) distinguished two interrelated processes that undermine political engagement among citizens who are exposed to cross-pressures. First, individuals who are part of social networks that expose them to frequent discussions with non-like-minded others steer clear of politics in order not to threaten the harmony of their social relationships (“social accountability effect”). Second, being exposed to counter-attitudinal political views creates greater ambivalence about political actions (“political ambivalence”). Other scholars have suggested that exposure to attitude-inconsistent information in one’s social networks and the resulting cross-pressures are an important and normatively desirable part of opinion formation because it may lead to greater → political knowledge and because discussions with citizens who hold different viewpoints can result in network members having to compromise between different viewpoints, motivating them to re-evaluate those issues where conflict occurs (Scheufele et al. 2006).

Today, ever more citizens rely on online forms of communication to supplement or even replace face-to-face interactions in their social networks (→ Exposure to the Internet; Social Media). There are still contradicting results as to whether the proliferation of sources on the internet leads to more ‘echo chambers’, i.e., networks of like-minded people, or whether receiving messages from homophilic sources makes audiences more likely to attend to belief-inconsistent information (Messing & Westwood 2012). Ultimately, the emerging interplay between geographically defined face-to-face networks, online interactions, and traditional mass-mediated information will require a new paradigm for how we think about social-level influences on opinion formation and political participation.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Messing, S. & Westwood, S. J. (2012). Selective exposure in the age of social media: Endorsements trump partisan source affiliation when selecting news online. Communication Research, doi: 10.1177/0093650212466406.
2. Mutz, D. C. (2002). Cross-cutting social networks: Testing democratic theory in practice. American Political Science Review, 96(1), 111–126.
3. Scheufele, D. A., Hardy, B. W., Brossard, D., Waismel-Manor, I. S., & Nisbet, E. (2006). Democracy based on difference: Examining the links between structural heterogeneity, heterogeneity of discussion networks, and democratic citizenship. Journal of Communication, 56(4), 728–753.

Media Diplomacy

Eytan Gilboa

Bar–Ilan University

Media diplomacy has become a major instrument of foreign policy, and journalists are more frequently and more intensively engaged in diplomatic events and processes. Sometimes they even initiate diplomatic processes. The media functions both as an independent actor and as a tool in the hands of policymakers and journalists.

Three interrelated revolutionary changes in mass communication, politics, and international relations have transformed the traditional secret diplomacy. All-news global networks broadcast almost every significant development in world events to almost every place on the globe or disseminate information on the Internet, available almost everywhere in the world (Seib 2012) (→ Globalization of the Media; International Television). The revolution in politics has generated growing mass participation in political processes and has transformed many societies from autocracy to democracy. Favourable image and reputation around the world achieved through attraction and persuasion (soft power) became more important than territory, access, and raw materials obtained through military and economic measures (hard power). Together, this created new types of interactions between the media and diplomacy. Several experts have argued that global television news now drives foreign policy (the “CNN effect”; Gilboa 2005).

Cohen (1986) suggested that media diplomacy served three policymaking tasks: conducting public diplomacy, sending signals to other governments, and obtaining information about world events. Gilboa (2000) distinguished between three uses of the media in diplomacy: “public diplomacy,” where state and nonstate actors use the media and other channels of communication to influence → public opinion in foreign societies; “media diplomacy,” where officials use the media to investigate and promote mutual interests, including conflict resolution; and “media-broker diplomacy,” where journalists temporarily assume the role of diplomats and serve as mediators in international negotiations.

During grave international crises or when all diplomatic channels are severed, media diplomacy provides the sole unblocked channel for communication and negotiation between rival actors. When one side is unsure how the other side might react to conditions for negotiations or to proposals for conflict resolution, officials use the media to send messages to leaders of rival states. Media events – meetings between protagonist leaders seeking an opening for conflict resolution and even longer-term reconciliation – best represent media diplomacy. They help to break diplomatic deadlocks, create a climate conducive to negotiations, and promote a favorable climate for sealing an accord.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Cohen, Y. (1986). Media diplomacy. London: Frank Cass.
2. Gilboa, E. (2000). Mass communication and diplomacy: A theoretical framework. Communication Theory, 10, 275–309.
3. Gilboa, E. (2005). The CNN effect: The search for a communication theory of international relations. Political Communication, 22, 27–44.
4. Seib, P. (2012). Real-time diplomacy: Politics and power in the social media era. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Media Ecology

Julianne H. Newton

University of Oregon

Media ecology is a multidisciplinary field that studies the evolution, effects, and forms of environments with a focus on both media as environments and environments as media. Scholars work within expansive definitions of media, ecology, and technology, drawing on systems theory to analyze the co-evolution of the human organism and technologies.

Media ecology as a field distinguishes itself from communication per se, positing an open, dynamic, interdependent, and living system of forces. When studying human communication systems, media ecologists work from an inclusive perspective, exploring the creation, exchange, mediation, and dissemination of information, as well as the reciprocally influential relationship among means/content of communication and communicators/users (→ Language and Social Interaction). Neil Postman is credited with coining the term “media ecology” in 1968. However, the history of this expansive approach to studying meaning-making (→ Meaning) and dissemination is often traced back to ancient times, with particular attention to analyzing contemporary media forms in context with the oral traditions of early humans. A foundational hypothesis is that each form of communication simultaneously evolves from and affects the nature of thought itself and therefore affects message content and perception.

A number of major themes and issues can be identified: (1) Tension between organisms as technologies and organisms as creators of technologies; (2) co-evolution of organisms and technologies, though scholars such as Mumford emphasize development of brain over development of external tools; (3) influence of a medium on content, users, and cultures; transformation through and because of technological use; (4) multidisciplinarity, in which art/science, literature/journalism, fiction/fact, popular/elite, internal/external, figure/ground, and visible/invisible reciprocally inform and transform; (5) concern about deterministic aspects of potentially out-of-control technology, particularly in relation to humanistic values and global sustainability; (6) tension between understandings of word and image, oral and written, visual and acoustic, organism and machine; (7) holistic, contextualized views of particular occurrences; (8) emphasis on synchronous and complementary, rather than distinctive and oppositional, processes and influences; (9) inclusive topics of study ranging from autism to artificial intelligence; (10) playful exploration balanced with theoretical commitment to relationships among organisms and ideas; (11) openness to creative approaches and intellectual risk-taking in the interest of discovery.

References and Suggested Readings

1. McLuhan, M. (1964). Understanding media: The extensions of man. New York: McGraw-Hill.
2. Postman, N. (1992). Technopoly: The surrender of culture to technology. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
3. Strate, L. (2006). Echoes and reflections: On media ecology as a field of study. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Media Economics

Alan B. Albarran

University of North Texas

Media economics is the study of economic theories and concepts applied to the media industries. Media economics is diverse and includes such topics as policy and ownership, market concentration, performance of firms, and political economy of the media.

The Development of Media Economics

The origins of media economics began with the study of economics. The classical school of economics centered on the interplay of economic forces, operation of markets, and the cost of production. The classical school would later be challenged by ‘marginalist’ economics and Marxism. The marginalists introduced demand and supply, and consumer utility. Marxism identified labor as the source of production. Marxism rejected the capitalist system and the exploitation of the working class.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, neo-classical economics was introduced, differed by its use of analytical tools and mathematics to examine market behavior and price. Later the development of macroeconomics shifted the focus to aggregate economics, encompassing the entire range of market activity. Economic theories are constantly changing and evolving. By the 1970s new approaches included monetarist theories, which re-emphasized growth in the money supply; and rational expectations, which argues that the market’s ability to anticipate government policy actions limits their effectiveness.

As the study of economics evolved, scholars began to investigate different markets and industries. Media economics emerged during the 1950s. The media industries featured all of the elements necessary for studying the economic process. Content providers represented suppliers, with consumers and advertisers forming the demand side of the market (→ Markets of the Media). Regulatory agencies (e.g., → Federal Communications Commission (FCC)) in the US, the Federal Trade Commission, and other entities) affected macroeconomic market conditions, while the relationship among suppliers in various industries created microeconomic market conditions.

Concentration of ownership emerged as a critical topic as it impacts both regulatory and social policy (→ Concentration in Media Systems; Media Conglomerates). Other studies examined media competition, consumer expenditures, barriers to entry for new firms, advertiser/ownership demand, and consumer utility.

Theoretical Dimensions and Methods

Media economics utilizes many theoretical approaches: microeconomic theories, macroeconomic theories, and → political economy of the media. Microeconomic studies center on specific industry and market conditions. Macroeconomic studies take a broader focus, examining such topics as labor, capital markets, and gross domestic product. Political economy emerged as a critical response to positivist approaches.

The industrial organization (IO) model offers a systematic means of analyzing a market. The model consists of market structure, conduct, and performance. The model is also called the SCP model. The model posits that if the structure of a market is known, it helps explain the likely conduct and performance among firms. Each area can be further analyzed by considering specific variables within each part of the SCP model. Critics contend that the IO model does not capture the nuances associated with new technologies. However, the model remains a key theory in microeconomics.

The theory of the firm examines the most common types of market structure: monopoly, oligopoly, monopolistic competition, and perfect competition. Defining market structure is complicated due to consolidation across the media industries. Media concentration is examined in one of two ways. Researchers gather data on firm/industry revenues to measure concentration by applying tools such as concentration ratios. Another method tracks concentration of ownership among the media industries. Research has shown there are a limited number of firms which control media markets. Globalization has contributed to media concentration (→ Globalization of the Media). Competition studies draw upon niche theory, which originated in the field of biology. These studies consider competition within an industry or across industries. Indices are used to measure the breadth, overlap, and superiority of one competitor over another. Finally, macroeconomic analysis in media economics includes policy and regulatory analysis, labor and employment trends, and advertising revenues and expenditures at the national level.

Media economics embraces different methods. Many include trend studies, financial analysis, econometrics, and case studies. Trend studies are used to compare data over time for topics such as concentration and performance. Financial analysis utilizes different types of financial statements and ratios to measure performance of firms and industries. Econometric analysis uses statistical models to address its research questions. Case studies embrace different methodologies as well as data. Case studies in media economics research tend to be very targeted examinations.

Critics of media economics research contend research is too descriptive in nature, and that methodological approaches are limited. There are also concerns researchers would study only major companies, and not pay sufficient attention to new media enterprises.

Future Directions for the Study of Media Economics

There are a number of steps researchers need to address to further develop media economics. In terms of research, media economics must address how to define a media market given the convergence and consolidation across the media industries. Most media companies are now multimedia enterprises, generating content across a variety of platforms.

In addition to refining key concepts, media economics research must also expand into new arenas. Among the areas where new understanding and investigation are required are → social media, and mobile markets. Media economics scholars should consider new inquiries that draw upon multiple methods of investigation. The interplay of regulation, technology, and social policy presents new opportunities for scholars to generate new theories. Scholars need to examine variables that describe evolving market structures. Improvements in methodological tools are needed to complement expansion in research and theory. New measures are needed to assess within-industry concentration and competition.

Media economics helps to understand the activities and functions of media companies as economic institutions. Media economics research continues to evolve as it analyzes and evaluates the complex and changing world in which the media industries operate.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Albarran, A. B. (2010a). The media economy. London: Routledge.
2. Albarran, A. B. (2010b). The transformation of the media and communication industries. Pamplona: EUNSA.
3. Albarran, A. B., Chan-Olmsted, S. M., & Wirth, M. O. (2006). Handbook of media management and economics. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
4. Croteau, D. & Hoynes, W. (2006). The business of media: Corporate media and the public interest, 2nd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge.
5. Dimmick, J. W. (2003). Media competition and coexistence: The theory of the niche. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
6. Gershon, R. A. (2013). Telecommunications and business strategy, 2nd edn. London: Routledge.
7. Napoli, P. M. (2003). Audience economics. New York: Columbia University Press.
8. Noam, E. M. (2009). Media ownership and concentration in America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
9. Picard, R. G. (2011). The economics and financing of media firms, 2nd edn. New York: Fordham University Press.

Media Effects

Hans Mathias Kepplinger

Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz

Mass media can produce a broad spectrum of effects – on knowledge, attitudes, emotions, social behavior, reputation of people covered by the media, etc. Effects may be the consequences of media use, but also a result of interactions with people who have used the media. Explanations are usually based on two types of theories. Learning-theory approaches address the correct reproduction of information. Therefore divergences between beliefs and information provided by media are considered learning deficits that may also be interpreted as a lack of media effects. Cognitive-theory approaches address the processing of information triggered by media reports. Beliefs and opinions are not regarded as copies of media presentation but indicate the type of information processing.

Effects on Reality Perception

Media coverage of current affairs has an influence on the public’s assessment of the significance of social problems and the urgency for solving those problems (→ Agenda-Setting Effects). Comparison of all issues on the media’s agenda with the population’s agenda over a short period of time, as well as comparison of the development of media coverage on single issues with the development of the population’s beliefs over a longer period of time, may indicate media effects.

The media – and above all TV – are also an important factor in cultural and political socialization (→ Cultivation Effects). Through both information and entertainment TV conveys ideas of the state of society in which people live. The more frequently and intensely people watch TV, the stronger the influence of its presentation of reality.

Individuals generally have good judgment concerning the relative frequency of causes of death, but they typically overestimate the occurrence of rare fatalities and underestimate the occurrence of frequent causes of death. The concept of availability heuristic explains how this is related to media coverage (→ Risk Communication).

Effects on Social Perception

People tend to overestimate negative media effects (perceptual hypothesis) on other people and take action (behavioral hypothesis) to prevent these negative effects (→ Third-Person Effects). In addition, a general correlation between presumed media effects and behavior is assumed. The perceptional hypothesis has been often tested and confirmed. The behavioral hypothesis has seldom been tested and if so, subjects have been uninvolved bystanders instead of decision makers who are protagonists of media messages (Sun et al. 2009).

As ‘social beings’ people depend on the society of others. Therefore, they constantly monitor their environment in order to avoid social isolation. They draw on their interactions with other people and personal observation as well as media presentations. Each of these resources can incidentally stimulate correct or incorrect ideas about the distribution of opinions. People who consider themselves in the minority tend to withhold their opinions in public. In the process, the presumed majority opinion is artificially inflated, which in turn increases the pressure on the actual or alleged minority (→ Spiral of Silence).

Cognitive and Emotional Effects

Citizen assessments about politicians and voting intentions are based in part on beliefs about politicians’ competence. Repeated coverage of issues sensitizes recipients to some issues and makes solutions to the issues seem especially urgent. Thus, the presumed ability of politicians to deal with the issues becomes more significant, contributing to a positive or negative image of them. Accordingly priming effects are based on agenda-setting effects.

Framing theory is based on the assumption that media recipients do not take up individual pieces of information independently of one another and derive meaning from them, but interpret them consistently according to a predetermined frame (or schema) (→ Framing Effects; Schemas). Frame-induced information processing can be controlled by media reports that present events from a certain perspective (Entman 1991).

In the 1940s it was already known that there was a positive correlation between education and the use of information presented by the media. As consequence, in the course of time existing differences in the distribution of information can increase (→ Knowledge Gap Effects).

Descriptions of events trigger predictable emotional reactions. If the damage is attributed to uncontrollable natural forces, the event evokes sadness; if it is attributed to a person acting in a controlled way, it evokes anger. The extent of reactions is enforced or diminished by the interaction of emotions and cognitions. Appraisal theory combines elements of attribution theory and emotional arousal theory (Nerb & Spada 2001; → Appraisal Theory).

Axioms of Media-Effects Research

Most studies in the effects of mass media are based on three, mostly unspoken, axioms. The first is ‘events happen, media cover.’ According to this axiom, current events on which the media report happen independently of the media. This is doubtful because a number of events on which the media report are the result of previous coverage. Some events would happen without media coverage, but their character is modified by media coverage (mediated events). Some events happen only in order to generate media coverage (staged or pseudo-events) (→ Media Events and Pseudo-Events).

The second assumption is ‘no effect without change.’ The axiom holds true only under two conditions. First, if the media did not support the existing beliefs, opinions, and behaviors of its audience, these characteristics and attributes would still exist. Second, beliefs, opinions, and behaviors have developed independently from previous media use. There is evidence that the mass media have at least partly established the information and opinions which are already held and used to interpret news on current events.

The third axiom is: ‘no effect without contact.’ This axiom is only acceptable if at least one of two conditions is fulfilled: first, existing attitudes largely prevent the reception of dissonant information (→ Cognitive Dissonance Theory; Selective Exposure;); second, dissonant information will be reinterpreted according to existing attitudes (→ Selective Perception and Selective Retention). As far as conveyors or opinion leaders pass on information and opinion from the mass media unchanged, their effects have to be attributed to the media. Therefore, opinion leaders and other interlocutors do not necessarily restrain the influence of media reports, but rather extend them to those who lack direct contact with media coverage (→ Media Effects: Direct and Indirect Effects).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Bennett, W. L. & Iyengar, S. (2008). A new era of minimal effects? The changing foundations of political communication. Journal of Communication, 58, 707–731.
2. Bryant, J. & Zillmann, D. (2002). Media effects: Advances in theory and research, 2nd edn. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
3. Entman, R. M. (1991). Framing U.S. coverage of international news: Contrasts in narratives of the KAL and Iran air incidents. Journal of Communication, 41(2), 6–27.
4. Nerb, J. & Spada, H. (2001). Evaluation of environmental problems: A coherence model of cognition and emotion. Cognition & Emotion, 15(4) 521–551.
5. Perloff, R. M. (2003). The dynamics of persuasion: Communication and attitudes in the twenty-first century, 2nd edn. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
6. Sun, Y., Pan, Z., & Shen, L. (2009). Understanding the third-person perception: Evidence from a meta-analysis. Journal of Communication, 58, 280–300.

Media Effects: Direct and Indirect Effects

Hans Mathias Kepplinger

Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz

The term ‘indirect effects’ denotes the consequences of direct effects on individuals who are not exposed to media content. The concept extends the effect of the mass media beyond the users and to nonusers (Holbert & Stephenson 2003). As far as users transmit information and opinion from the mass media unchanged, they act as filters. As far as they transmit them partly or totally changed, they act as amplifiers of → media effects.

Quantitative and qualitative studies document a broad variety of indirect effects. Intensive coverage of terrorism may stimulate additional violence (direct effect) and cause additional victims (indirect effect; → Mediated Terrorism; Violence as Media Content, Effects of). The dominant tone of media coverage may discourage recipients from speaking out in public (direct effect), which may push others into falling silent (indirect effect; → Spiral of Silence). Media coverage of the availability of pornography or violence might stimulate concern about antisocial effects on others (direct effect I), increase support for censorship (direct effect II); and bring into office politicians planning to change the law (indirect effect). Trial publicity may influence witnesses (direct effect) and thus might help or harm defendants (indirect effect).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Holbert, R. L. & Stephenson, M. T. (2003). The importance of indirect effects in media effects research: Testing for mediation in structural equation modeling. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 47(4), 556–572.
2. Kepplinger, H. M. & Zerback, T. (2012). Direct and indirect effects of media coverage. Exploring the effects of presumed media influence on judges, prosecutors, and defendants. Studies in Communication Media, 1(3–4), 473–492.
3. Weimann, G. & Winn, C. (1994). The theater of terror: Mass media and international terrorism. London: Longman.

Media Effects, History of

Frank Esser

University of Zurich

The established history of media-effects research is characterized by a series of phases marked by fundamental paradigm shifts. Each of these phases is associated with particular concepts, researchers, studies, and historical circumstances that influenced the perception of media effects (see McQuail’s Mass Communication Theory (2010), or Severin and Tankard’s Communication Theories (2001); → Media Effects).

The first phase, from World War I to the end of the 1930s, was characterized by the assumption that the effects of the media on the population would be exceedingly strong. The media were credited with an almost limitless omnipotence in their ability to shape opinion and belief, to change life habits, and to mold audience behavior more or less according to the will of their controllers. The mass media supposedly fired messages like dangerous bullets, or shot messages into the audience like strong drugs pushed through hypodermic needles. Instinct psychology and the theory of mass society were interpreted to show that people were defenseless against the capricious stimuli of the media.

The second phase of the standard history lasted approximately from the end of the 1930s to the end of the 1960s and was distinguished by the assumption that the media were largely not influential. In the election study, The People’s Choice (1944), Lazarsfeld and colleagues defined all three key concepts that Joseph T. Klapper (1960) later united and used as the basis of his limited effects theory: (1) People use selective exposure and selective perception to protect themselves from media influences (→ Selective Exposure; Selective Perception and Selective Retention); (2) opinion leaders initiate a → two-step flow of communication by absorbing and transforming ideas and arguments from the mass media; and (3) social group formation enhances the role that → interpersonal communication plays in protecting an individual member from a change of opinion.

The third phase, from the end of the 1960s through the end of the 1970s, was characterized by the rediscovery of strong media effects. According to standard media-effects history, new studies (e.g., on → agenda-setting effects or the → spiral of silence) showed that it was possible for the media to overcome some selectivity processes in a television-saturated environment. Also, more sophisticated methods, more specific hypotheses, and more highly differentiated theoretical approaches were used. In addition, effects research since that time has been less focused on crude changes in attitude or behavior, and more interested in subtle changes in our perception of the world.

The fourth phase of the standard media-effects history is characterized by negotiated or transactional effects. Now the central premise maintains that the media exert their greatest influence when they become involved in the process of constructing sense and → meaning. Typical theories connected with this new approach are social constructivism, cultivation (→ Cultivation Effects), framing (→ Framing Effects), and → information processing. Recipients are assumed to construct for themselves their own view of social reality, in interaction with the symbolic constructions offered by the media.

The oversimplified account of the received view of media-effects history has been criticized as unrealistic paradoxes that feigned contradictions that had never existed. Indeed, re-analyses of research literature from the first phase indicate that “few, if any, reputable social scientists in the pre-World War II era … worked with what was later described as the hypodermic needle model” (Lang & Lang 1981, 655). Even the empirical findings from the second phase, upon closer inspection, show no justification for an overall verdict of media impotence. Two main factors explain the successful run enjoyed by the ‘minimal-effects myth’: First, there was an exaggerated concentration of a limited range of effect types; and second, the conclusions from key publications of that time were adopted with little critical review. The apparent change of mind leading to the rediscovery of strong effects was then partially motivated by the rapid spread of television.

Today, a growing number of scholars agree that the established standard history of the field is misleading because it tends to ignore those findings that do not fit neatly into the stage-by-stage scenario. Many authors (Chaffee & Hochheimer 1985; McLeod et al. 1991) have thus concluded that the development of mass media-effects research did not move in pendulum swings from “all-powerful” to “limited” to “rediscovered powerful” to “negotiated” effects. Bryant and Thompson argue in Fundamentals of Media Effects (2002) that the body of media-effects research from the beginning showed overwhelming evidence for significant effects.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Chaffee, S. H. & Hochheimer, J. L. (1985). The beginnings of political communication research in the United States: Origins of the “limited effects” model. In E. M. Rogers & F. Balle (eds.), The media revolution in America and in Western Europe. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, pp. 267–296.
2. Lang, G. E. & Lang, K. (1981). Mass communication and public opinion: Strategies for research. In M. Rosenberg & R. H. Turner (eds.), Social psychology: Sociological perspectives. New York: Basic Books, pp. 653–682.
3. McLeod, J. M., Kosicki, G. M., & Pan, Z. (1991). On understanding and misunderstanding media effects. In J. Curran, M. Gurevitch, & J. Woollacott (eds.), Mass media and society. London: Edward Arnold, pp. 235–266.
4. Neuman, R. W. & Guggenheim, L. (2011). The evolution of media effects theory: A six-stage model of cumulative research. Communication Theory, 21(2), 169–196.

Media Effects, Strength of

Elizabeth M. Perse

University of Delaware

Research has presented significant and consistent evidence that the mass media have noticeable and meaningful effects. These media effects are modest; small to moderate in size. Conclusions about the strength of media effects, however, must be tempered by considerations of research methodology (→ Media Effects; Media Effects, History of).

While some media effects, such as → agenda-setting effects, are fairly strong, in general, meta-analyses (→ Meta-Analysis) reveal that media effects can best be described as small to moderate. Exposure to television violence (→ Violence as Media Content, Effects of), for example, accounts for over half of a standard deviation in negative effects. The connection between playing video games and aggression is r = 0·15. The effects of stereotyped media content and sex-role stereotyping range from r = 0·11 to r = 0·31. Pro-social messages targeted toward children have a moderate effect: r = 0·23.

Effects of media violence are larger in laboratories than in the real world. There is also evidence that effects of pro-social media content are larger than those of antisocial media content and that unusual messages have greater impact. For instance, research on US basketball player Magic Johnson’s 1991 announcement that he was HIV-positive, for example, had much greater effects on knowledge and attitudes about HIV and AIDS than more routine messages (→ Exemplification and Exemplars, Effects of).

The effects of mass communication might be modest, but they are meaningful because of the size of the audience and the importance of the outcomes. The small effects found for media health campaigns (r = 0 · 09; → Health Communication) cannot be dismissed, because even small effects mean that large numbers of people have been influenced. Scholars estimate that eliminating television violence could reduce aggression in society by small but significant amounts. Small effects translate into large groups of people being affected.

There are some areas of disagreement regarding media effects. The most substantial media effects are found in laboratory experiments (→ Experiment, Laboratory). Exposure to media content in a laboratory setting, however, is atypical and cannot account for selective exposure or social influences (→ Media Effects: Direct and Indirect Effects). The dependent measures used in laboratories are often artificial and do not translate to real-life actions. Experiments typically focus on short-term effects, so researchers cannot assess the endurance of effects. Research participants might believe that the content presented or actions encouraged in the laboratory are sanctioned or even encouraged by the researcher. Content selected for experiments is often chosen to magnify differences between experimental and control conditions, extreme selections that are often atypical of media content seen in the real world.

Nevertheless, there are several reasons to believe that research underestimates media effects because of methodological imprecision. Outside of the laboratory, measures of media exposure are imprecise and subject to a good deal of measurement error (→ Exposure to Print Media; Exposure to Radio; Exposure to Television; Exposure to the Internet). Media effects might be stronger if researchers could access accurate measures of attentive media use.

For ethical reasons, researchers often limit dependent variables to those that cannot harm research participants. So, studies rarely give participants opportunities to enact behaviours, but instead assess attitudes, perceptions, and reactions to hypothetical situations. These ‘diluted’ measures might not be the most valid and accurate ways to assess the impact of the mass media.

The main reason that media effects appear limited is that it is impossible to isolate media’s impact in most developed societies. It is nearly impossible to find someone who has not been exposed to mass media. And even those people who do not watch much television or read newspapers or surf the Internet interact regularly with others who do. Media’s influence can go beyond direct exposure to the media; it is filtered through other social contact.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Hovland, C. I. (1959). Reconciling conflicting results derived from experimental and survey studies of attitude change. American Psychologist, 14, 8–17.
2. Perse, E. M. (2001). Media effects and society. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
3. Preiss, R. W., Gayle, B. M., Burrell, N., Allen, M., & Bryant, J. (2007). Mass media effects research: Advances through meta-analysis. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Media Equation Theory

Kwan Min Lee

University of Southern California

The term ‘media equation’ means that → media equal real life. It implies that people process technology-mediated experiences in the same way as they would do non-mediated experiences, because an “individual’s interactions with computers, television, and new media are fundamentally social and natural, just like interaction in real life” (Reeves & Nass 1996, 5). More recently, Reeves and his colleagues have usually worked on the first issue, whereas Nass and his lab members have focused on the latter issue under the research paradigm of ‘Computers Are Social Actors (CASA).’

Media equation studies on audience responses to physical features of traditional media can be categorized into two parts: media and emotion; and media and form. With regard to media and emotion, Reeves and his colleagues provide convincing results that the emotional valence (good vs bad) of media stimuli has the same effect on the brain as real-life stimuli in terms of electroencephalogram (EEG) activities.

Studies on media and form have focused on audience responses to five physical characteristics of media forms: size; fidelity; synchrony; motion; and scene changes. With regard to audience responses to image size, the studies found that big objects on the screen yield more arousal, better memory (descriptive, not image recognition), and more positive social responses (e.g., social attraction, credibility) than smaller ones even when the content is identical (→ Visual Communication; Cinematography). These results confirm general human attention to and preference for big objects in real life. In contrast to audience responses to image sizes, the visual fidelity of a scene does not bring significant differences in arousal, attitudes, and memory. These results indicate that both virtual and real-life objects are visually processed in the same way in which objects and environments are mainly processed through the peripheral vision field, rather than the foveal vision field.

In the CASA research paradigm, Nass and his colleagues have studied user responses to social characteristics of computers and software agents (→ Interactivity, Concept of). This research paradigm is based on the idea that when confronted with a machine that has anthropomorphic cues related to fundamental human characteristics, individuals automatically respond socially, are swayed by the fake human characteristics, and do not process the fact that the machine is not a human. For instance, users evaluate computers positively when the computers behave politely, flatter them, and criticize themselves (as opposed to blaming others), in the same way that people like other people who are polite, flattering, and/or self-criticizing. The second-generation CASA studies expanded the domain of research to e-commerce, voice user interfaces, and human–robot interaction. For instance, researchers found that even with conscious knowledge of the nature of synthetic voice, humans keep responding to the synthetic voice as if it were a real human voice and apply various social rules and long-term artificial cognitive development (Lee et al. 2006).

The main reason for the media equation phenomenon is that human brains evolved in a world in which all perceived objects were real physical objects and only humans possessed human-like shapes and human-like characteristics such as language, rapid interaction, emotion, personality, and so on. Therefore, to human minds, anything that seemed to be real was real and any object that seemed to possess human characteristics such as language was a real human.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Lee, K. M., Peng, W., Yan, C., & Jin, S. (2006). Can robots manifest personality? An empirical test of personality recognition, social responses, and social presence in human–robot interaction. Journal of Communication, 56, 754–772.
2. Moon, Y. (2000). Intimate exchanges: Using computers to elicit self-disclosure from consumers. Journal of Consumer Research, 26, 324–340.
3. Nass, C. & Brave, S. (2005). Wired for speech: How voice activates and advances the human–computer relationship. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
4. Nass, C. & Moon, Y. (2000). Machines and mindlessness: Social responses to computers. Journal of Social Issues, 56, 81–103.
5. Reeves, B. & Nass, C. (1996). The media equation: How people treat computers, television, and new media like real people and places. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Media Events and Pseudo-Events

Helmut Scherer

Hanover University of Music, Drama, and Media

The terms ‘pseudo-event’ and ‘media event’ refer to the phenomenon that in modern societies many events are created or shaped because of the existence of the media and in order to stimulate media coverage. Pseudo-events would not occur without the existence of the media but are planned mainly for the purpose of getting media coverage. Media events occur independently from the existence of the media, but they are shaped in a ceremonious character to cater the needs of the media. They are subject to media-related staging, to a mise-en-scène by the media for the viewers, to the telling of a story.

Most pseudo-events are basically strategic communication and public relations exercises (→ Advertising; Marketing; Public Relations; Strategic Communication). A media-friendly design is therefore one of the most important aspects of pseudo-event planning. The pseudo-event basically has to be designed according to the media’s selection criteria. As the event itself often lacks newsworthiness, it has to be artificially enhanced to make it more interesting (→ News Values). Pseudo-events serve a purpose. Lobbies try to attract attention to their interests or bring about a certain atmosphere by staging such events. Big sports events, political party conventions, and big trade fairs are examples of media events.

A media event in itself has a high social relevance and a festive character. The media intensify this festive character and live coverage makes it available to a wide audience around the world. The events are predictable for the media and are staged to gain the highest possible media interest.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Boorstin, D. J. (1961). The image, or, what happened to the American dream. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
2. Dayan, D. & Katz, E. (1996). Media events: The live broadcasting of history. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
3. Nimmo, D. & Combs, J. E. (1983). Mediated political realities. New York: Longman.

Media and Group Representations

Dana Mastro

University of Arizona

The influence of media exposure on the cognitions we hold about our own and other groups in society is well established (see Mastro 2009; → Social Stereotyping and Communication). Research additionally documents that these cognitions impact a wide variety of behavioral outcomes. Given that Americans spend a staggering 13.6 hours per day interacting with media (Short 2013), understanding the manner in which different groups are represented in the media is of great social consequence. For reasons of space this entry concentrates on findings from the US.

Blacks

When it comes to prime-time television, content analyses (→ Content Analysis, Quantitative) indicate that blacks are presented at a rate that meets or slightly exceeds their proportion of the US population (of approximately 13 percent); comprising between 14 and 17 percent of characters (Mastro 2009). In this programming, blacks are found nearly exclusively in sitcoms and crime dramas (→ Fiction). The typical black character is a middle-class, male law enforcer or professional, in his thirties, discussing topics related to work (Children Now 2004; Mastro & Behm-Morawitz 2005; Mastro & Greenberg 2000). Alongside average levels of job and social authority, black characters are among the least aggressive on prime time. They also are more hot-tempered, more provocatively dressed, and less professionally attired than their white peers.

In the → news, blacks are depicted as perpetrators more frequently than whites and at rates exceeding real-world crime data (Dixon & Linz 2000a). Blacks also are seen as victims on the news less often than whites, but at rates nearly equivalent with real-world levels of victimization (Dixon & Linz 2000b). In terms of depictions as law enforcers, 91 percent of police officers shown on television news are white, whereas only 3 percent are black (Dixon et al. 2003). These figures are discrepant from US Department of Labor statistics, which identify 80 percent of officers in the US to be white and 17 percent to be black.

Other Ethnic Groups in the US

The portrayal of Latinos on contemporary prime-time television is inauspicious, at best. Latinos are grossly underrepresented when compared with real-world demographics, representing only 4–6.5 percent of the prime-time population but approximately 16 percent of the US population (Mastro & Behm-Morawitz 2005). Like blacks, Latino characters are confined primarily to sitcoms and crime dramas (Children Now 2004). They appear most often as family members; conversing frequently about crime-related topics (Mastro & Behm-Morawitz 2005). Generally speaking, Latinos are depicted as younger, lower in job authority, more provocatively dressed, lazier, less articulate, and less intelligent than their peers on television. Alongside blacks, Latinos are deemed the most hot-tempered characters in prime time. Moreover, when compared with other female characters on TV, Latinas are rated the lowest in work ethic and highest in verbal aggression.

Asian Americans make up about 3 percent of the characters on TV (and 4.6 percent of the US population), and are depicted primarily in minor and non-recurring roles, often centering on the work environment (see Mastro 2009). Native Americans represent less than 1 percent of the characters seen on primetime (if they appear at all) and approximately 1 percent of the US population. Their infrequent roles often are based in an historical context. A mere 0.2 percent of newspaper articles and 0.2 percent of films portray Native Americans (Fryberg 2003). When they are represented in the media, they are characterized in limited roles as spiritual, as warriors, and as a social problem.

Arabs/Middle Easterners represent 0.05 percent of prime-time television characters (Children Now 2004). Nearly half of these characters (46 percent) are portrayed as criminals. Research on film suggests that images of Arabs/Middle Easterners rarely deviate from a limited range of brutal portrayals, typically pertaining to terrorism or of a generally uncivilized nature (see Shaheen 2003). Indians/Pakistanis make up 0.04 percent of the TV population (Children Now 2004). The nature of these roles has yet to be documented.

Age, Gender, and Disability

Characters between the ages of 0 and 9 comprise 1.9 percent of the prime-time population (Harwood & Anderson 2002). Those aged 10–19 constitute 9.7 percent of TV roles. Characters aged 20–34 make up nearly 40 percent of television figures. Those aged 35–44 represent approximately 27 percent of roles. Adults from 45–64 make up 18.7 percent of prime-time characters, with only 2.8 percent of characters over age 65. When these figures are compared with US census data, several discrepancies emerge. Adolescents and children (particularly younger children), as well as seniors, are severely underrepresented. On the other hand, characters ranging in age from 20 through the early 40s are depicted at levels far exceeding that of the US population. In terms of the features associated with these different age groups, more positive images are linked with younger characters – seemingly, a function of diminishing perceptions of attractiveness as the characters age.

Misrepresentation also applies to gender. Although women outnumber males in the US population, they comprise only 28 percent of the characters in family films, 39 percent of the characters on prime-time TV, and 31 percent of those in children’s programs (Smith et al. 2012). Women are more likely to be depicted as parents in both family films and children’s programs, but not prime-time TV (a change from previous decades). When it comes to the manner in which men and women are depicted in the media, women are more likely to be sexualized than their male counterparts and less likely to be employed. When employed, women in the media are rarely shown in prestigious positions or scientific fields.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender characters comprise 3.3 percent of recurring characters on prime-time TV, and are equally divided between men and women (Glaad 2013). Among these characters, 71 percent are white, 15 percent are black, 8 percent are Latino, 2 percent are Asian/Pacific Islander, and 5 percent are ‘multiracial.’

Although 12 percent of the US population reports living with a disability, characters with disabilities are exceedingly rare in the media. Only about 1 percent of all recurring prime-time characters are portrayed with some type of disability (Glaad 2013). Among these, the majority are represented by non-disabled actors (at least on broadcast television).

When considering the significance of media representations in designating group status, strength and social standing in society, the disparities in the characterizations of the groups addressed here are indeed consequential, and warrant greater research attention.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Children Now (2004). Fall colors, 2003–2004: Prime time diversity report. Oakland, CA: Children Now.
2. Dixon, T., Azocar, C., & Casas, M. (2003). The portrayal of race and crime on television network news. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 47, 498–523.
3. Dixon, T. & Linz, D. (2000a). Overrepresentation and underrepresentation of African Americans and Latinos as lawbreakers on television news. Journal of Communication, 50, 131–154.
4. Dixon, T. & Linz, D. (2000b). Race and the misrepresentation of victimization on local television news. Communication Research, 27, 547–573.
5. Fryberg, S. (2003). Really? You don’t look like an American Indian: Social representations and social group identities. Dissertation Abstracts International.
6. Glaad (2013). 2013: Where are we on TV? Glaad.org. At http://www.glaad.org/files/whereweareontv12.pdf, accessed August 12, 2014.
7. Harwood, H. & Anderson, K. (2002). The presence and portrayal of social groups on prime time television. Communication Reports, 15, 81–97.
8. Mastro, D. (2009). Effects of racial and ethnic stereotyping. In J. Bryant & M. B. Oliver (eds.), Media effects: Advances in theory and research, 3rd edn. Hillsdale: NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 325–341. Assoc.
9. Mastro, D. & Behm-Morawitz, E. (2005). Latino representation on prime time television. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 82, 110–130.
10. Mastro, D. & Greenberg, B. (2000). The portrayal of racial minorities on prime time television. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 44, 690–703.
11. Shaheen, J. (2003). Reel bad Arabs: How Hollywood vilifies a people. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 588, 171–193.
12. Short, (2013, October). How much media? 2013: Report on American Consumers. Institute for Communications Technology Management, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California. At http://classic.marshall.usc.edu/assets/160/25918.pdf, accessed August 12, 2014.
13. Smith, S., Choueiti, M., Prescott, A., & Pieper, K. (2012). Gender roles & occupations: A look at character attributes and job-related aspirations in film and television. Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media. At http://www.seejane.org/downloads/Full Study_GenderRoles.pdf, accessed August 12, 2014.

Media History

Stuart Allan

Cardiff University, UK

Media history as a concept in its own right possesses a relatively recent lineage. In the early decades of the twentieth century, when references to ‘the media’ – newspapers, magazines, cinema, radio, and the like – were entering popular parlance, university academics tended to be rather skeptical about whether these institutions were important enough to warrant scholarly attention. Traditional historians, in particular, were inclined to be dismissive. Matters would gradually improve over the course of the century, but even today, media history continues to occupy a contested terrain between the principal disciplines informing its development, namely media studies (broadly inclusive of communication, cultural, and journalism studies) and history (→ Communication as a Field and Discipline).

Early conceptions of media history frequently accorded the commercial press a central role in promoting social change, one especially worthy of close scrutiny (→ Journalism, History of). These days much of this research tends to be criticized for being celebratory, however, even romanticizing the press as the pre-eminent catalyst for advancing the cause of freedom in the face of fierce government opposition. In order to overcome the limitations of this ‘Whig interpretation,’ as it has been described, media historians have begun to diversify their sources and methods. For some this has entailed looking beyond the views of the powerful and privileged so as to recover and interpret the experiences of those typically marginalized – on the basis of class, gender, ethnicity or sexuality – where the making of media history is concerned.

Serious reservations have been expressed by some historians about the very legitimacy of media history as a proper academic subject when it encompasses ostensibly trivial, ephemeral media items (advertisements, comics, graffiti, soap operas, paperback → fiction, music videos, computer games, and the like) within its purview. Others have challenged this perspective, insisting that such value judgments be avoided so as to engage with the whole spectrum of emergent media in all of their complexity (→ Advertising; Video Games).

Defining Media History

Depending on how one chooses to define ‘the media,’ a case can be made that media history properly begins in the earliest days of human social life and communication. For researchers interested in the emergence of media in oral or pre-literate communities thousands of years ago, for example, the insights of archaeologists and anthropologists have proven invaluable. The advent of reading and writing is of particular significance, enabling the dissemination of → news or → information at a distance, and thereby helping to sustain a shared sense of social order. Studies have examined the emergence and use of various media facilitating communication, ranging from pictographs written on clay tablets, to papyrus, paper, and eventually the movable type of the printing press (→ Printing, History of; Briggs and Burke 2010).

For many media historians, it is the connection between emergent media of communication and the creation of democratic society that is particularly fascinating. In this context, Anderson’s (1983) analysis of the rise of print as commodity in western Europe illuminates the emergence of nationality – “the personal and cultural feeling of belonging to a nation” – toward the end of the eighteenth century. He singles out for attention in this regard the fictional novel and the newspaper, arguing that the corresponding print languages helped to engender national consciousness in important ways.

Complementing this line of inquiry into how print enriched the ability of people to relate to themselves and to others in new ways have been efforts to understand how these media shaped the formation of → public opinion. Here researchers have found the notion of a → public sphere, as theorized by Jürgen Habermas (1989), to be useful, especially when investigating how spaces for public discussion and debate were initiated and sustained. Habermas identifies a range of institutions facilitating this process, with special attention devoted to coffee houses and the newspaper press (→ Newspaper, History of; Mulhmann 2008).

Related studies have elucidated the ways in which various media forms and practices helped to give shape to new kinds of public sociability. Such studies include examinations of advertising, art, music, street literature, exhibitions in museums and galleries, as well as reading and language societies, lending libraries, and the postal system, among other concerns (→ Art as Communication). Historiographies continue to rehearse contrary views on the extent to which the normative ideals of a public sphere have been realized in actual terms, a debate that continues to percolate. Nevertheless, there is general agreement that a consideration of the relative freedoms espoused by these ideals throw into sharp relief many of the factors that have acted to constrain public discussion over time.

Researching Media History

For media historians, the rationale for their craft is often expressed as a commitment to interdisciplinarity so as to situate the evolution of media forms, practices, institutions, and audiences within broader processes of societal change. Compounding this challenge, however, is the recognition that media processes can be ephemeral, and thereby elusive in conceptual and methodological terms. Often their very normality, that is, the extent to which they are simply taken for granted as a part of everyday life, means efforts to de-normalize them require considerable effort.

Media historians, it follows, must strive to be sufficiently self-reflexive about their chosen strategies when gathering source material and interpreting evidence, especially where questions related to ‘effects’ (→ Media Effects) or causation are being addressed. Pertinent in this regard is the status of electronic media, for example, which may pose particular problems for the historian seeking to establish relations of significance. Not only are the actual texts under scrutiny – e.g., an early radio play or television broadcast – unlikely to be amenable to more traditional, print-based methods, but issues with regard to such logistical considerations as access, physical artifacts (microphones, receiver sets, and the like), and format-compatibility (changes in formats can make playback difficult) may surface.

The advent of digital technologies is already engendering similar types of issues for media historians (→ Digital Media, History of). Scholarship increasingly entails finding alternative ways to manage, interpret, and preserve the extensive array of materials available across different storage systems. The sheer volume and range of these materials, coupled with continuing innovation in hardware and software (the obsolescence of technology rendering some types of data difficult to retrieve), can make for challenging decisions about how to maintain libraries, archives, databases, and other repositories of information (→ Archiving of Internet Content). New questions are being posed in this regard by electronic records, including items such as → electronic mail, voicemail messages, word-processing documents, Internet websites, message boards, blogs, Facebook accounts, Tweets and the like (→ Social Media), all of which are highly perishable.

Precisely how media history research will evolve invites thoughtful consideration. Current efforts to build on the foundations set down by the press histories of the nineteenth century are making progress in enriching these traditions, while also pursuing new directions that recast familiar assumptions – sometimes in unexpected ways. The types of criticisms of ‘standard’ media history identified by Carey, namely that its arguments were based on “nothing more than speculation, conjecture, anecdotal evidence, and ideological ax grinding” (and where conclusions were not “theoretically or empirically grounded; none was supported by systematic research”), no longer aptly characterize the field (1996, 15–16). Indeed, it is reasonable to suggest that there is every indication media history will continue to develop in ever more methodologically rigorous – and intellectually exciting – directions.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities. London: Verso.
2. Briggs, A. & Burke, P. (2010). A social history of the media, 3rd edn, Cambridge: Polity.
3. Carey, J. W. (1996). The Chicago School and the history of mass communication research. Repr. in James Carey: A critical reader (eds. E. S. Munson & C. A. Warren). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 14–33.
4. Habermas, J. (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere. Cambridge: MIT Press.
5. Mulhmann, G. (2008). A political history of journalism. Cambridge: Polity.

Media Literacy

Sonia Livingstone

London School of Economics and Political Science

Shenja van der Graaf

iMinds-SMIT, Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Media literacy has been defined as “the ability to access, analyze, evaluate and create messages across a variety of contexts” (Christ & Potter 1998, 7). This definition, produced by the USA’s 1992 National Leadership Conference on Media Literacy, is widely accepted, although many competing conceptions exist.

Traditionally, media literacy research has focused on audiovisual media, though attention is increasingly turning to emerging digital, online and mobile technologies and contents. The priority now is to develop a subtle and detailed account of how people understand, create, trust, and critically evaluate information and communication contents delivered on new platforms, and disseminated and regulated in ways often unfamiliar or complex ways. Research is also prioritizing the reception and, particularly, the production of diverse kinds of content. The media literacy tradition generally stresses the understanding, comprehension, critique, and creation of media materials, whereas the → information literacy tradition places more emphasis on the access, identification, location, evaluation, and use of information materials. However, as taken forward in research and policy terms by → UNESCO, there are growing efforts to examine the convergence of these forms of media in an increasingly convergent communication landscape.

Research in this field is strongly policy-focused, with policymakers calling for evidence to aid them in meeting some key challenges. These include developing and promoting media educational curricula for school children, reaching a diverse population to develop the media and technological skills and knowledge necessary for a participatory, and competitive society, and ways of measuring and evaluating media literacy initiatives. Researchers more influenced by the arts and humanities see media literacy as a route to enhancing the public’s understanding and appreciation of, and ability to contribute creatively to, the best that the cultural and audiovisual arts have to offer. By contrast, the social science approach sees media literacy as a form of defense against the normative messages of the big media corporations, whose commercialized, stereotyped, and parochial worldview dominates mass culture in capitalist societies (Livingstone et al. 2012).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Christ, W. G. & Potter, W. J. (1998). Media literacy, media education, and the academy. Journal of Communication, 48(1), 5–15.
2. Livingstone, S., Papaioannou, T., Mar Grandío Pérez, M., and Wijnen, C. (2012). Critical insights in European media literacy research and policy, Media Studies, 3(6): 1–13.
3. UNESCO. (n.d.). Media and information literacy. At http://www.unesco.org/new/index.php?id=19145, accessed September 3, 2014.

Media Messages and Family Communication

Christine Bachen

Santa Clara University

Research on media and family communication has focused on the association of demographic factors – especially income and education – on the number and types of media available in a household, amount of time devoted to media use, context for use (e.g., alone, during mealtime), and patterns of use over the life cycle of the family (Alexander 2008). Media provide opportunities for companionship, discussion, and sharing of values, but increasingly families use media in more individualized ways because of lower cost and more personalized media devices (Livingstone & Das 2010).

Alexander (2008) summarizes several theoretical approaches that frame contemporary study of family and media. Social cognitive theory explains children can learn behaviors and attitudes through observation of media models. According to family systems theory, media use becomes an extension of the norms, values, and beliefs that define the family system. The sociocultural perspective situates the family as a social institution where interactions of families and media often reproduce the social order in terms of gender relationships or generational relationships, or at times resist them.

Media management is recognized as an important task of contemporary parenting, with a wide-ranging set of practices within and across cultures, and ever adapting to emerging media (Livingstone & Das 2010; → Parental Mediation Strategies). Parents are more likely to engage in ‘restrictive mediation’ when children are young and when they believe the media content is less important than other activities. Co-use of media is more common with young children as well and can enhance the effects of media on children as it signals an acceptance of the content. Active or instructive mediation can limit unwanted effects and enhance positive effects from media especially up until adolescence, helping children to develop critical media literacy skills.

Emerging research is focusing more extensively on family subsystems (e.g., families that have experienced divorce) or cell phone and Internet use (Livingstone & Das 2010; Coyne et al., 2012).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Alexander, A. (2008). Media and the family. In S. L. Calvert & B. J. Wilson (eds.), The Handbook of Children, Media, and Development. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 121–140.
2. Coyne, S. M., Bushman, B. J., & Nathanson, A. L. (eds.) (2012). Media and Family. Special issue of Family Relations, 61(3).
3. Livingstone, S. & Das, R. (2010). Media, Communication and Information Technologies in the European Family. A report on Existential Field 8 for the FP7. At http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/29788/, accessed August 15, 2014.
4. Strasburger, V. C., Wilson, B. J., Jordan, A. B. (2014). The family and media. In Children, Adolescents, and the Media. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 487–506.

Media and Perceptions of Reality

Lindsay H. Hoffman

University of Delaware

Carroll J. Glynn

Ohio State University

Perceptions of reality, or social reality, can be conceptualized as an individual’s conception of the world (Hawkins & Pingree 1982). What intrigues many social scientists is the exploration of the specifics of these → perceptions and the ways in which they are developed. Social perception has been considered from both individual- and social-level perspectives.

The individual-level conception of social reality – or, as McLeod and Chaffee (1972) refer to it, social reality – suggests that others exist in one’s mind as imaginations, and it is only in these imaginations that others have an effect on the individual. The perspective of social reality defines the social system as the unit of analysis. These scholars focus on understanding commonly held perceptions shared in society. They often base their exploration on individuals’ perceptions of what others think, or whether an individual believes that an opinion or attitude is shared by others. Because the media, in particular, provide individuals with indirect representations of reality, communication scholars have been particularly interested in how individuals develop cognitions of social reality based upon their use of and attention to the media.

General Perception Effects

Several phenomena describing perceptions (and misperceptions) of social reality have been outlined in the literature. The term → pluralistic ignorance is often used as an umbrella to describe all misperceptions of others’ opinions. Research in this area is primarily concerned with the factors that lead to individuals being more or less accurate about reality, focusing on the discrepancy between individual perceptions and actual reality.

Consensus occurs when homogeneous opinions exist across a group of individuals. Some research has suggested that an overestimate of consensus occurs when individuals perceive greater consensus on their own opinion than exists in reality. In this way, overestimation of consensus is ‘absolute’ because it is objectively false. The concept of false consensus describes the tendency to see one’s own behaviors and opinions as normal and those of others as deviant or inappropriate, which results in exaggerating the prominence of one’s own opinions.

Social projection is generally defined as the psychological phenomenon that drives several other inaccurate perceptions, including the silent majority or false idiosyncrasy effect, which occurs when some individuals support a position on an issue vocally and prominently, while those opposed to the issue – even if they are in the majority – remain silent. The disowning projection refers to the tendency toward attributing selfish motives, evil intent, or ignorance to others and denying these characteristics of oneself. The looking-glass perception occurs when people see others as holding the same view as they themselves hold.

Media-Specific Perception Effects

Another group of theories focuses on individuals’ perceptions about media content or its influence on others. The → third-person effect predicts that individuals exposed to a persuasive message will perceive greater effects on others than on themselves (Davison 1981). Impersonal influence describes the influence derived from anonymous others’ attitudes, experiences, and beliefs. From this perspective, media do not need to be universally consonant or even personally persuasive in order to impact individuals’ perceptions of media influence (Mutz 1998).

The hostile media phenomenon suggests that partisans see news media coverage of controversial events as portraying a biased slant, even in news coverage that most nonpartisans label as unbiased (Vallone et al. 1985). An underlying assumption of this phenomenon is that media coverage is essentially unbiased (→ Bias in the News). The persuasive press inference hypothesis draws from the hostile media phenomenon and third-person effect and places the effects into one process, i.e., people overestimate the impact of news coverage on public opinion and because of this misperception, estimates of public opinion are inaccurate (Gunther 1998).

Causal Mechanisms for Social-Reality Perceptions and Misperceptions

Some research on perceptions of social reality has emphasized mass media as the primary causal mechanism explaining perceptions of social reality. Because few people have direct personal experience with politics, mediated information has the ability to influence individuals’ perceptions of social reality at the collective level. That is, media enhance the salience of social-level judgments, in addition to influencing perceptions of public opinion.

First, → spiral of silence theory suggests that because the climate of opinion is always vacillating, individuals are “scanning” their social environment for cues of what constitutes majority and minority opinion (Noelle-Neumann 1993). The media are one such source, but often present biased viewpoints. As a result of this individuals perceive a majority perspective, and this perception either promotes or prevents them from speaking out (see Schulz and Roessler 2012).

Second, cultivation implies that, over time, people are influenced by the content on television so that their perceptions of reality come to reflect those presented on television (→ Cultivation Effects). This theory also purports that media content displays distorted estimates of social reality, e.g., the rates of crime and violence which in turn lead to the overestimation of personal risks (Shrum & Bischak 2001).

Effects of social reality perceptions can also be attributed to other causal mechanisms in three broader categories: individual, individual–other, and social explanations.

Individual explanations include cognitions and motivations. One possible mechanism in this category of cognitive explanations is the accessibility bias, or the tendency to derive estimates of others’ views based upon that information that is most accessible in one’s memory. The third-person effect also is explained by cognitive ‘errors.’ The actor–observer attributional error occurs when individuals underestimate the extent to which others account for situational factors, and overestimate their own attention to these factors. Motivational explanations can also be applied to those theories that claim media as the primary causal mechanism. For instance, Noelle-Neumann cites fear of isolation, or a motivation not to be in the minority, as a driving force behind the spiral of silence.

Social harmony and public expression mechanisms belong in the category of individual–other explanations. Because conflict is not palatable to many people, there may exist motivations to see others’ positions on issues as more like their own in order to avoid argument or dissonance (social harmony). Misperceptions of social reality at the individual–other level also can arise from either intentional or unintentional misrepresentation of one’s opinions in public. The differential interpretation hypothesis describes a conscious decision to publicly misrepresent one’s opinion, while the differential encoding hypothesis suggests that some individuals suffer from an “illusion of transparency,” mistakenly believing that their own and others’ opinions are accurately expressed publicly (Prentice and Miller 1993).

The social explanations are based upon what McLeod and Chaffee (1972) referred to as social reality, wherein a context or situation serves as the causal mechanism underlying perceptions of social reality. For instance, if an issue is particularly divisive, individuals are prone to the false consensus effect because they see one side as more similar to themselves and the other side as deviant or uncommon.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Davison, W. P. (1981). The third-person effect in communication. Public Opinion Quarterly, 47, 1–15.
2. Eveland, W. P., Jr. (2002). The impact of news and entertainment media on perceptions of social reality. In J. P. Dillard & M. Pfau (eds.), The persuasion handbook: Developments in theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 691–727.
3. Glynn, C. J., Ostman, R. E., & McDonald, D. G. (1995). Opinions, perception, and social reality. In T. L. Glasser & C. T. Salmon (eds.), Public opinion and the communication of consent. New York: Guilford, pp. 249–277.
4. Gunther, A. C. (1998). The persuasive press inference: Effects of mass media on perceived public opinion. Communication Research, 25(5), 486–504.
5. Hawkins, R. P. & Pingree, S. (1982). Television’s influence on social reality. In L. B. D. Pearl & J. Lazar (eds.), Television and behavior: Ten years of scientific progress and implications for the eighties. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, pp. 224–247.
6. McLeod, J. M. & Chaffee, S. R. (1972). The construction of social reality. In J. T. Tedeschi (ed.), The social influence processes. Chicago, IL: Aldine-Atherton, pp. 50–99.
7. Mutz, D. C. (1998). Impersonal influence: How perceptions of mass collectives affect political attitudes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
8. Noelle-Neumann, E. (1993). The spiral of silence: Public opinion, our social skin. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
9. Prentice, D. A. & Miller, D. T. (1993). Pluralistic ignorance and alcohol use on campus: Some consequences of misperceiving the social norm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64(2), 243–256.
10. Schulz, A. & Roessler, P. (2012). The spiral of silence and the Internet: Selection of online content and the perception of the public opinion climate in computer-mediated communication environments. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 24(3), 346–367.
11. Shrum, L. J. & Bischak, V. D. (2001). Mainstreaming, resonance, and impersonal impact: Testing moderators of the cultivation effect for estimates of crime risk. Human Communication Research, 27(2), 187–215.
12. Vallone, R. P., Ross, L., & Lepper, M. R. (1985). The hostile media phenomenon: Biased perceptions and perceptions of media bias in coverage of the Beirut massacre. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49(3), 577–585.

Media Performance

Denis McQuail

University of Amsterdam

The term ‘media performance’ has a broad reference to the assessment of mass media according to a range of evaluative criteria. In practice, most attention has been given to the product of mass media, its content as sent and received (→ Media Production and Content). The criteria applied are mainly derived either from professional goals and standards or from considerations of the public interest as specified in certain evaluative concepts (→ Standards of News). The methods are mainly those of the social sciences, aiming to be systematic, reliable, and leading to some degree of generalization.

From the late 1960s onwards, media performance research was more influenced by external social and political criticism than internal professional criteria, following the rise of radical and anti-war movements in North America and Europe. The rise of television news to a central position in the media system by the 1970s was also a factor, not only because of its reach and believed impact but also because of high public expectations of neutrality, truthfulness, and informative power. Much effort was made on both sides of the Atlantic to assess the balance of attention in news between various competing actors, with strong suspicion of hidden ideological motives and equally strong denials (→ Bias in the News). An important advance in media performance research was the program directed at measuring media quality under the auspices of the Japanese Broadcasting Corporation (NHK) (see Ishikawa 1996). It worked with a framework of three different levels at which problems of media quality can be identified: the whole media system; the channel (or equivalent); the content (e.g., program). It also identified four different perspectives from which media could be viewed and evaluated: of the state, of the society, of the audience, and of media professionals.

One of the main roots of critical research lies in ideas about the social responsibility of media to society (→ Journalists’ Role Perception). McQuail’s “Media performance” (1992) assembled a number of basic criteria of media performance from theory and practice held to be ‘in the public interest’ and reviewed relevant methods and examples of performance research. Other perennial topics for media evaluation inspired by → critical theory of one sort or another have included: the representation of women and of gender roles in the media or the portrayal of ethnic and other minorities. The case of terrorism raised rather complex issues, with competing journalistic norms of freedom and responsibility (→ Mediated Terrorism).

Media performance research has at times been inspired by acute public concern about its potentially harmful effects (→ Media Effects). For instance, it played a part in inquiries into the causes of crime and violence (→ Violence in the Media, Effects of) and the effects of exposure to pornography (→ Sexual Violence in the Media). An abiding focus of performance research is to be found in the field of → political communication. Besides concerns about ‘balance’ (see above), performance research has been stimulated by the complaint that the mass media are failing the democratic political system by not providing information of substance, by presenting politics in a negative light, and by diverting citizens from active participation (→ News Values; Tabloidization).

The most commonly encountered evaluative concepts to be found in the field include the following: objectivity, with its component elements as described above; diversity, which is a key value in most pluralistic democracies and underlies expectations that media will pay attention, or give access and expression, to a range of persons, groups, ideas, and events that are broadly reflective of the social, cultural, and political environment in which they operate; cultural quality, with reference to accepted aesthetic or ethical standards or the prevailing tastes and interests of the public (→ Ethics in Journalism); freedom, which here means mainly the independence of media as reflected in a willingness to speak out, to be critical or original, without deference to the power of government, business interests, or (in some cases) the media’s owners.

With the Internet the criteria of ‘good performance’ have not changed greatly and the same research apparatus can still serve, but there are significant new challenges. These arise most obviously from the enormous volume of supply transmitted by the Internet and → social media. Such content is also often multimedia in character and may not conform to established genres and the conventions of presentation of traditional media. It is difficult to sample, to generalize about, and to codify, making the methods developed for mass communication inappropriate. New indicators of performance are called for. Crude forms of assessment of Internet flow are already appearing, but the task of performance assessment has barely begun.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Dayan, D. (2013). Conquering visibility, conferring visibility: Visibility seekers and media performance. International Journal of Communication, 7, 137–153.
2. Ishikawa, S. (1996). Quality assessment of television. Luton: University of Luton Press.
3. Lemert, J. B. (1989). Criticizing the media. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
4. McQuail, D. (1992). Media performance. Beverley Hills, CA: Sage.
5. Robinson, P., Goddard, P., Parry, K., & Murray, C. (2009). Testing models of media performance in wartime: U.K. TV news and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Journal of Communication, 59(3), 534–563.
6. Puppis, M., Kunzler, M., & Jarren, Ottfried, eds., (2013). Media structures and media performance. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences Press.

Media Planning

Edith Smit

University of Amsterdam

The following questions are essential in deciding how to allocate a campaign budget: (1) How many people of the target group do we want to reach? (2) How many times do we want to reach them? (3) Within what time frame do we want to make contact? (4) Which contexts are most suitable to get our message across? These questions refer to four key topics in media planning: reach, frequency, timing, and context (→ Advertisement Campaign Management; Advertising Strategies).

Reach is a measure of how many different audience members are exposed to a media vehicle (→ Audience Research). For broadcast media, the term ratings is used. Campaign reach indicates the number of contacts with all the published (advertising) messages in the campaign. To illustrate this concept: if one person is exposed to three commercials in a row, the campaign has generated three contacts. There is the same number of contacts if three people are exposed to one commercial each. We call the total number of contacts with a campaign gross reach or gross rating points (GRP). Ten GRPs means that the insertion reaches 10 percent. The net reach in a media plan is the number of people that are exposed to the campaign at least once. Reach figures for various media are difficult to compare. Industry data for print media, for example, indicate the number of people reading the various titles, not the number of people who have seen an advertisement in that title. Television data, on the other hand, refer to the number of people watching specific content, such as television commercials. Comparing data for print and for television, therefore, is like comparing apples and oranges. Furthermore, ‘reach’ figures do not tell how advertisements are processed, and the effect they have on brand attitude and behavior (→ Advertisement Effectiveness).

Decisions with respect to frequency of exposure are important because media costs are high and campaigners want to avoid wasting money due to a too-low frequency (no effects reached) or too-high frequency (unnecessary costs). Most theories assume that repeating the message is useful because it adds to the effects of the campaign (wear-in). However, after a certain number of repetitions the effects decline, or can even become negative (wear-out).

The most important decision in answering the question about the timing of the message is the choice between ‘bursting’ (large media exposure over a short period) on the one hand and ‘dripping’ (spreading small media exposure over time) on the other hand. Timing decisions are based on a number of considerations, including the quality of the commercial, irritation effects, the forget effect, share of voice (how active are competitors), and ad stock.

Advertising context is a multifarious concept, consisting of many elements that may influence advertising effectiveness. (1) Media differ with respect to the number and type of modalities such as text, audio, pictures, and video; (2) we can make a distinction between push media (also called display or delivery media) and pull media (also called search or retrieval media); (3) media also vary to the extent to which the audience can influence the timing and pace of the information flow; (4) media differ in ‘interactivity’ giving ‘users’ more or less possibilities for contributing to content; (5) the amount of reach and the speed of reach accumulation differ between media types; (6) commercial context concerns the amount and nature of other commercial messages in the environment of an ad, referred to as clutter and competitive clutter; and (7) editorial context refers to the question whether the same source delivering the same message to the same audience on separate occasions might produce different effects depending on the different programs or editorial contexts in which the message appears. In particular, context-induced psychological responses, such as involvement elicited by a documentary, happiness caused by a sitcom, or sadness generated by a drama series, are considered to have an important impact on advertising processing.

Many campaigns make use of more than one medium. In these cross-media or cross-tools campaigns, campaigners seek to maximize the effectiveness of their budgets by exploiting the unique strengths of each medium and tool and by maximizing cross-media consistency and synergy. Finding an answer to the question of how to do this has always been central in media planning, but has become more complicated because of considerable changes in the media landscape that can be characterized by increased fragmentation, increased user control, mobile media, multitasking, consumer-generated information, possibilities for targeting, customization, and personalization, integration of advertising and transaction, and blurred distinctions between editorial content and advertising.

Suggested Readings

1. Kelly, L. D. & Juggenheimer, D.W. (2004). Advertising media planning: A brand management approach. New York: M.E. Sharpe.
2. Krugman, H. E. (1972). Why three exposures may be enough. Journal of Advertising Research, 12(6), 11–14.
3. McDonald, C. (1996). Advertising reach and frequency: Maximising advertising results through effective frequency, 2nd ed. Chicago: ANA/NTC.
4. Moorman, M., Neijens, P. C., & Smit, E. G. (2005). The effects of program responses on the processing of commercials placed at various positions in the program and the block. Journal of Advertising Research, 45(1), 49–59.
5. Naik, P. A. & Raman, K. (2003). Understanding the impact of synergy in multimedia communications. Journal of Marketing Research, 40(4), 375–388.
6. Webster, J.G., Pahlen, P.F., & Lichty, L. W. (2014). Ratings, analysis: Audience measurement and analytics, 4th edn. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Media Production and Content

Stephen D. Reese

University of Texas at Austin

Research in the sub-field of media production and content seeks to describe and explain the symbolic world of the media with reference to a variety of contributing societal, institutional, organizational, and normative factors. It draws boundaries around a large and diverse body of research efforts, predominantly social science, but also including more interpretive cultural analysis.

Scope of the Research Area

If much of the communication field has concerned itself with the effects of media, and the process by which they are produced (→ Communication as a Field and Discipline; Exposure to Communication Content; Media Effects), this more recently emerging area has treated the media map of the world itself as problematic, something to be understood and predicted through an awareness of underlying forces. These forces provide the context of ‘media production,’ which is examined for its systematic ties to ‘content’ – particularly → news and information. Given the multitude of factors influencing the media, this conceptual framework has led the field of communication to devote the same sustained research to the creation, control, and shape of the mediated environment as it has to the effects on audiences of that environment. The objects of study in this area, however, have undergone profound changes, particularly with communication technology, making it more problematic to identify ‘the media,’ ‘the profession,’ and the site of ‘production.’

This research area is often broadly referred to as ‘media sociology’ (reviewed in Berkowitz 1997). Certainly, many of the participant observation ethnographies of newsrooms and other media are so labeled, particularly given their use of traditional sociological fieldwork methods (e.g., Tuchman 1978; Gans 1979; → Ethnography of Communication). The technology of distributed online production makes identifying the ‘sites’ where news is produced more difficult now, but the ethnography approach continues to be used. The area also encompasses studies of individual media workers, and how their personal traits affect their decisions (e.g., Weaver & Wilnat 2012; → Journalism). Many media critics lodge the blame for press bias (→ Bias in the News) squarely with individual journalists, or find fault with the entertainment industry because of ‘out-of-touch’ Hollywood producers, but important explanations for these communication products lie in structural bias, beyond individual prejudice. Although media organizations – including those supported by the state – employ many creative professionals, the work of those individuals is routinized and structured to yield a predictable product. Even the ‘news’ must be controlled, anticipated, and packaged to allow the organization to manage its task effectively: in Tuchman’s (1978) phrase, “routinizing the unexpected” (→ News Routines).

Beginning in the 1950s Warren Breed (1955) and David Manning White (1950) were among the first scholars to examine the influences on content directly, with their examinations of social control in the newsroom and the story selections of an editor, described as the news ‘gatekeeper’. Reese and Ballinger (2001) observed that the gatekeepers in these studies were deemed representatives of the larger culture, and news policies were assumed to help identify as news those events of interest to the community – rendering the production and control issues unthreatening to the public interest and, as a result, of less interest to researchers. Eventually, however, these questions returned to the fore.

The hierarchy of influences model describes the multiple levels of influences – individual, routines, organizational, extra-media (social institutional), and ideological (socio system) – that impinge on media simultaneously and suggests how influence at one level may interact with that at another (Shoemaker & Reese 2014). Within the realm of newsmaking, for example, the individual-level bias of particular journalists may affect their reporting, but journalists of a particular leaning often self-select an organization because of its pre-existing policies, history, and organizational culture (routines). The news organization and its employees, in turn, must function within other institutional relationships and ideological boundaries set by the larger society. Thus, the individual functions within a web of constraints.

The compelling point of departure for this sub-field is the idea that media content provides a map of the world that differs from the way that world really is, making the research task one of explaining those discrepancies. Media representations can be tied to objects in the real world, but viewed another way media content is fundamentally a ‘construction,’ and, as such, can never find its analog in some external benchmark, a ‘mirror’ of reality. This perspective directs research to understanding the construction process (→ Construction of Reality through the News). Journalists, for example, ‘see’ things because their ‘news net’ is set up to allow them to be seen.

Research Findings

Given the wide variation among media round the world, generalizations about production and content must be made with caution. Now that more comparative research has begun to emerge, it is easier to distinguish between those practices common across countries and those peculiar to one or the other. Certainly, changes in technology have had widespread cross-national effects, blurring craft distinctions in the convergence of media forms.

Although broad generalizations can be made, there are also important differences across the various media. These more organizational issues involve the technological imperatives, audience considerations, economic and other dictates, as well as the regulatory environment that they all face. Each medium, whether radio, television, newspapers, or magazines, has its own unique problems to solve in providing a product to a reader, viewer, or listener. The highest level of the hierarchy of influences model, the ideological or social system, considers how the media function within a society by virtue of there being a certain kind of system – which necessarily binds them to the prevailing social order usually associated with nation-states.

Research Methods

These considerations often require a more interpretive analysis, which considers how the media reinforce the definitions of the powerful and linked to media production practices that support them. A macro level of analysis directs attention to cross-national comparisons of media production, where important patterns can be found. Shoemaker and Cohen (2006) find that news has a number of common patterns across nations, even if these are filtered through specific national cultures (→ International News Reporting).

Global changes in media ownership, new ways of carrying out gatekeeping across national boundaries, and emerging shared norms of professionalism all give greater emphasis to this perspective (→ Globalization Theories). So, under the continuing processes of globalization, this area of research faces the challenge of identifying the universal aspects of media and social representation, the enduring particularities of individual national contexts, and the increasing interactions between these levels.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Berkowitz, D. (1997). Social meanings of news. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
2. Breed, W. (1955). Social control in the newsroom: A functional analysis. Social Forces, 33, 326–355.
3. Gans, H. (1979). Deciding what’s news. New York: Pantheon.
4. Reese, S. & Ballinger, J. (2001). The roots of a sociology of news: Remembering Mr Gates and social control in the newsroom. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, 78(4), 641–658.
5. Shoemaker, P. & Cohen, A. (2006). News around the world. London: Routledge.
6. Shoemaker, P. & Reese, S. (2014). Mediating the message in the 21st Century: A media sociology perspective. London: Routledge.
7. Tuchman, G. (1978). Making news. New York: Free Press.
8. Weaver, D. & Wilnat, L. (2012). The global journalist in the 21st century. London: Routledge.
9. White, D. (1950). The “gatekeeper”: A case study in the selection of news. Journalism Quarterly, 27, 383–396.

Media System Dependency Theory

Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach

University of Southern California

Media System Dependency (MSD) theory emerged to reframe the effects question to ask: “Under what societal and individual conditions do/don’t media have substantial effects?” (Ball-Rokeach 1985; 1998). The theory’s basic premise is that media effects flow from the information resources of the media system that are implicated in the everyday life requirements of people (micro), groups or organizations (meso), and other social systems (macro) to act meaningfully in ambiguous or threatening social environments. Thus, the media system is best viewed as an information system whose powers vis-à-vis effects rest on the scarcity or exclusivity of their information resources.

The dependency relation reflects the extent to which resources controlled by one entity (the media) have to be accessed by another party (other social systems, organizations, individuals) to attain fundamental goals. Thus follows the notion that effects are by-products of dependency relations. MSD relations arise when individuals, organizations, or other systems consider media information resources – the gathering/creating, processing, and dissemination of information both in → news and in entertainment genres – to be essential or preferable to alternative modes of achieving their goals.

In MSD the media–audience (macro-to-micro) relation is conceived to be asymmetric and invariable in structure; that is, media resources are implicated in individuals’ goals of understanding (themselves and their social environs), orientation (acting and interacting), and play (solitary and social) more than the resources of most individuals are implicated in media goal attainment. Another major component of the theory is the view of individuals as embedded not only in interpersonal networks that tend to conserve shared beliefs, but also in a larger context, often marked by ambiguity, threat, conflict, and change, that tends to open the door to media effects. Put briefly, the more problematic people’s social environs, the more likely it is that the media information system will be a, if not the, major resource in people’s efforts to understand and act meaningfully in those environs (→ Attending to the Mass Media).

There is substantial variation in how people respond or adapt to the same social environs. Under conditions of ambiguity, for example, some will actively seek to resolve the ambiguity, while others may seek to escape or withdraw. In this case, the more active are also the more likely to experience media effects, because the media system is usually positioned as the best or most accessible information system through which ambiguity may be addressed. How active an individual is at any one point in time will depend on major sources of individual variation. Most important are variations in goals that implicate media resources, variations in structural location or the degree to which people have access to alternative information systems (e.g., experts), and variation in interpersonal network discursive agendas.

As MSD theory developed the macro-/micro-focus was expanded with increased attention to intervening meso-level forces, specifically the interpersonal network (→ Interpersonal Communication; Social Networks). Instead of an effects-buffer, interpersonal discourse on media topics was conceived as a variable that could lessen or intensify media effects. Thus, interpersonal networks also have MSD relations for much the same reasons as had been argued for individuals (see Ball-Rokeach, 1998).

Most empirical studies examine the intensity of individual MSD relations, but there are also case studies of macro-level issues, such as the evolution of MSD relations under conditions of social change (see Meshkin 1999). However, major changes in media production resources suggested the need for fundamental elaboration of the theory to take into account the less bounded and more chaotic media landscape of the twenty-first century. Obvious examples include the emergence and blending of the Internet with traditional media, the explosion of ethnic media and the multimedia and increasingly centralized ownership structure (→ Media Conglomerates). MSD theory today conceives of a communication ecology where traditional media, new media, ethnic media, the media of community institutions, and interpersonal discourse operate in the context of each other. The expanded version of MSD theory has been incorporated into Communication Infrastructure Theory (CIT).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Ball-Rokeach, S. J. (1974). The information perspective. Paper presented at the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association, August, Montreal.
2. Ball-Rokeach, S. J. (1985). The origins of individual media system dependency: A sociological framework. Communication Research, 12, 485–510.
3. Ball-Rokeach, S. J. (1998). A theory of media power and a theory of media use: Different stories, questions, and ways of thinking. Mass Communication and Society, 1, 5–40.
4. Ball-Rokeach, S. J. & Jung, J-Y. (2009). The evolution of media system dependency theory. In R. Nabi & M. B. Oliver (eds.), The Sage handbook of media processes and effects. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 531–544.
5. Kim, Y.-C. & Ball-Rokeach, S. J. (2006). Civic engagement from a communication infrastructure perspective. Communication Theory, 16, 173–197.
6. Meshkin, D. (1999). Media dependency theory: Origins and directions. In D. Demers & K. Viswanath (eds.), Mass media, social control, and social change. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, pp. 77–98.

Media Use and Child Development

Patti M. Valkenburg

University of Erfurt

The media children use, and in particular their media preferences, are predicted – in large part – by their developmental capabilities. Children typically have a preference for media content that does not diverge too much from their existing cognitive capacities, and they show less preference for extremely simple or extremely complex media content (Valkenburg 2004). This so-called ‘moderate-discrepancy hypothesis’ offers a viable explanation for why the media preferences of children in various age groups differ so greatly. After all, the perceived simplicity and complexity of media content changes dramatically as children mature. Media content that is only moderately discrepant and therefore attractive to 2-year-olds may be overly simple and thus unattractive to 6-year-olds (→ Developmental Communication).

Around 18 months of age, most children use media on a daily basis. At this age, they start to develop a genuine interest in the storyline of media products. However, because of their limited information-processing skills, they need more time than older children to make sense of media content. Therefore, they often respond best to programs with a slow pace and lots of repetition. They also prefer familiar contexts, objects and animals. They like to watch programs that show babies and young children, and they adore nonthreatening real or animated animals, such as friendly dinosaurs, and babyish creatures like the Teletubbies. These young children are not yet able to distinguish fantasy from reality in media content. Therefore, fantasy characters or special effects can have a much greater impact on younger than on older children.

By the time they are 4–6 years old, children begin to develop a preference for more fast-paced and adventurous programs. By that age, they become more responsive to verbally oriented shows, with more sophisticated forms of humor like The Simpsons. At this time, their fantasies more often entail realistic and plausible themes. And they develop a sincere, sometimes even exaggerated, interest in real-world phenomena. Because most fantasy characters have been demystified, children now tend to become attached to real-life heroes, such as sports heroes, movie stars, and action heroes.

Children’s developmental level is one of the strongest predictors of their media use. Because media effects are a result of media use, a true understanding of the effects of media on children can occur only by an understanding of their developmental changes and their developmentally-induced media use and preferences.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Valkenburg, P. M. (2004). Children’s responses to the screen: A media psychological approach. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
2. Valkenburg, P. M. & Peter, J. (2013). The differential susceptibility to media effects model. Journal of Communication, 63, 221–243.

Media Use, International Comparison of

Patrick Rössler

University of Erfurt

As data on media use are systematically collected only in a few (mostly western) countries of the world, the international comparison of media use patterns remains fragmentary. Evidence provided by global research agencies is often difficult to interpret because a standardized definition of media use is lacking (→ Audience Research; Exposure to Communication Content).

Individual usage patterns depend on several factors that influence the conditions under which media can be used at all, and apply differently to nations worldwide. Among these is, first, the system of government. Constitutions of nations in the western hemisphere enshrine freedom of speech (→ Freedom of Communication; Freedom of Information; Freedom of the Press, Concept of). Other political systems hold a different perception of media regulation, including → censorship or access barriers, while their cultural or religious background may enhance the tendency to self-censorship among communicators (→ Political Communication Systems).

Also, communication style in a society affects media use. Cultures (→ Culture: Definitions and Concepts) are characterized by different rules and social conventions regarding how media are used, which media are used, and for what purpose. Media use depends also on access to the media, which have different prerequisites for proper distribution (infrastructure for distribution). Newspapers and magazines require physical transport and so roads, boats, airplanes; audiovisual media require technical equipment such as broadcasting stations or satellite transmission (→ Satellite Television).

Beyond technical considerations, access is constrained by individual predispositions, particularly by individual prosperity. Print media as well as pay-TV stations and Internet providers charge their customers for media use. The money people are able (and willing) to spend for media varies with individual living conditions (→ Digital Divide). Media use always occurs in a particular situation with its own spatial arrangement. Wireless devices such as mobile phones exploit the digital revolution and provide ubiquitous but expensive access to sources. At the same time, online database technologies allow for individual consumption of content according to one’s own schedule.

Despite an increasing media convergence, media use patterns can still be described following a segmentation of media types. Detailed information on nation-specific media use patterns can be found in Johnston’s (2003–) Encyclopedia of international media and communications and in “The world factbook” in the category on communications (CIA 2014). Data on the role of television in more than 40 countries (based on local surveys) is collected, for instance, by the annual International Key Facts study (IP Network 2013). Unfortunately, no such resource is available for the use of radio which, with its ubiquitous availability and its limited technological requirements, has established its role as an unobtrusive companion in the daily life of a global media audience (WRTH 2013; → Exposure to Television; Exposure to Radio).

The use of daily newspapers is related to audience literacy and thus varies heavily among nations. The most comprehensive source for data on newspaper markets worldwide is represented by the World Press Trends Database (WAN-IFRA 2014). Dynamics in Internet usage patterns are still notable and permanently monitored by Internet World Stats (→ Exposure to the Internet). With the emergence of smartphones, Internet and mobile communication merged to a fast-expanding media market. Current data is available from the International Telecommunication Union statistics, including distribution of mobile devices and usage figures.

Unlike market research agencies, academic institutions have contributed only marginally to the level of knowledge in the field, as cross-national research is costly and national grants are often only allowed if funding from different countries is available. Comparative empirical studies are mostly limited to the audience analysis of one media application in some selected countries.

References and Suggested Readings

1. CIA (ed.) (2014). The world factbook. At https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html, accessed August 16, 2014.
2. Hasebrink, U. (2012). Comparing Media Use and Reception. In F. Esser & T. Hanitzsch (eds.), Handbook of comparative communication research. London: Routledge, pp. 382–399.
3. International Telecommunications Union Statistics (2013). At http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/stat/default.aspx?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter.co.jp, accessed August 16, 2014.
4. Internet World Stats (2014). At http://www.internetworldstats.com/, accessed August 16, 2014.
5. IP Network (2013). International Key Facts. At http://www.ip-network.com/studies-publications/television-international-key-facts/, accessed August 16, 2014).
6. Jensen, K. B. (ed.) (1998). News of the world: World cultures look at television news. London: Routledge.
7. Johnston, D. H. (ed.) (2003–). Encyclopedia of international media and communications. Amsterdam: Academic Press.
8. Shoemaker, P. J. & Cohen, A. A. (2006). News around the world: Content, practitioners, and the public. London: Routledge.
9. WAN-IFRA (2014). World Press Trends Database. At http://www.wan-ifra.org/microsites/world-press-trends, accessed August 16, 2014.
10. WRTH Publications (ed.) (2013). World radio TV handbook, 67th edn, London: WRTH.

Media Use across the Life-Span

Margot van der Goot

University of Amsterdam

Johannes W. J. Beentjes

University of Amsterdam

Age groups differ in the amount and functions of their media use. Communication scholars have pointed out two possible explanations for such differences. First, there are lifecourse or maturational explanations: media use is supposed to change across the life-span in response to an individual’s development. Second, there are generational explanations: people who are born in a certain period are supposed to adopt particular patterns of media use. These effects need to be disentangled. For example, it may be that older people watch more television than when they were younger because their situation and needs have changed. Alternatively, older people may watch more television than younger people because television is more important to their generation than it is to younger generations.

Lifecourse Explanations

Empirical research shows relations between media use and age. However, researchers writing on lifecourse explanations have argued that this ‘chronological age’ has its limitations as a concept, because it is not the factor that explains the changes in media use across the life-span. As an example: older people watch more television than when they were younger not because their age has changed but because their situation and needs have changed.

The basic notion in lifecourse explanations is that media use is related to cognitive, physical, social and emotional development across the life-span. The general idea is that when people pass through the stages of life they experience changes and therefore their media use changes as well. Central to these descriptions is that developmental events and processes create needs as well as resources (such as physical or material resources). Subsequently these needs and resources bring about certain types of media use (van der Goot et al. 2006; → Uses and Gratifications). For example, studies have investigated how emotional development across the lifespan affects people’s responses to entertainment (e.g., Bartsch, 2012).

Generational Explanations

Generations distinguish themselves because their socialization takes place in unique societal, political and economic circumstances. Scholars argue that experiences during socialization or during adolescence, the so-called ‘formative years,’ leave long-lasting impressions on values and attitudes, and continue to influence behavior at later stages of life (Peiser 1999). Regarding media, generations may adopt specific patterns of media use when they are young and remain faithful to those throughout the life span (Mares and Woodard 2006). For example, a recent cohort of people has been labelled ‘digital natives’ or the ‘Net Generation’ (Hargittai 2010) because they witnessed the introduction and popularization of the new information technologies (→ Electronic Mail; Mobility, Technology for) in their younger years; this may lead to a continuing strong affection for these media during later stages of their lives.

Empirical Research

It is a theoretical and methodological challenge to disentangle these lifecourse and generational influences on media use. Most empirical research is cross-sectional, which means that it consists of data collected at one point in time. Cross-sectional research shows differences between age groups, but the problem is that older age groups represent both people in old age and older cohorts. This problem can be illustrated with the cross-sectional finding introduced at the opening of this article: older age groups watch television more than younger age groups. This may either be because their situation and needs have changed as they grew older, or because their generation is more attached to television than younger generations are. In methodological terms: it is impossible to determine whether the differences are caused by lifecourse (age) effects or cohort effects.

Because cross-sectional research cannot disentangle lifecourse and cohort effects, other methods, such as cohort analysis, have been designed. To conduct a cohort analysis, data have to be available for several cohorts at a variety of life stages. It is necessary to have cross-sectional surveys with comparable variables on media use, that have been carried out at different times of measurement. These data are hard to find, and therefore only a few cohort analyses on media use have been conducted. Moreover, scholars will have to wait many more years to be able to witness how media use develops across the life-span for the Net Generation in comparison to the older generations.

The cohort analysis by Mares and Woodard (2006) provides some insight into the development of the amount of television viewing across the life-span. The researchers used six measurement times between 1978 and 1998 from the General Social Survey in which respondents were asked how many hours they watched television on an average day. They found that throughout the life-span there are differences in viewing that are not explained by cohort effects. Even after controlling for cohort, period, sex, and education levels, there appeared to be an effect of age on the amount of viewing. As people grew older, they watched more television.

With the introduction of the Internet many cross-sectional surveys have shown that older people have less access to the Internet and use it for a narrower array of activities than do younger people. The concept of the → digital divide (→ Exposure to the Internet) has been used to indicate the gap between groups that are ahead in using new technologies and groups that lag behind. Within western societies, age is one of the factors associated with this gap. Most scholars lean toward generational explanations: the current generation of younger people will continue to use this technology when they grow older and therefore the age divide will probably disappear with time.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Bartsch, A. (2012). As time goes by: What changes and what remains the same in entertainment experience over the life span? Journal of Communication, 62(4), 588–608.
2. Coyne, S.M., Padilla-Walker, L.M., & Howard, E. (2013). Emerging in a digital world: A decade review of media use, effects, and gratifications in emerging adulthood. Emerging Adulthood, 1(2), 125–138.
3. Hargittai, E. (2010). Digital na(t)ives? Variation in internet skills and uses among members of the “Net generation.” Sociological Inquiry, 80(1), 92–113.
4. Hofer, M., Alemand, M., & Martin, M. (2014). Age differences in nonhedonic entertainment experiences. Journal of Communication, 64(1), 61–81.
5. Mares, M. L. & Woodard, E. (2006). In search of the older audience: Adult age differences in television viewing. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 50(4), 595–614.
6. Mares, M.L. & Sun, Y. (2010). The multiple meanings of age for television content preferences. Human Communication Research, 36(3), 372–396.
7. Peiser, W. (1999). The television generation’s relation to the mass media in Germany: Accounting for the impact of private television. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 43(3), 364–385.
8. Valkenburg, P.M. & Peter, J. (2011). Online communication among adolescents: An integrated model of its attraction, opportunities, and risks. Journal of Adolescent Health, 48(2), 121–127.
9. Van der Goot, M., Beentjes, J. W. J., & van Selm, M. (2006). Older adults’ television viewing from a life-span perspective: Past research and future challenges. In C. S. Beck (ed.), Communication yearbook 30. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 431–469.
10. Van der Goot, M., Beentjes, J. W. J., & Van Selm, M. (2012). Meanings of television in older adults’ lives: An analysis of change and continuity in television viewing. Ageing and Society, 32(1), 147–168.

Media Use by Social Variable

Helmut Scherer

Hanover University of Music, Drama, and Media

It can be observed in all industrialized societies that media use is connected to demographic factors. A good example of such phenomena is the so-called → digital divide, which means that different demographic groups have different access to the Internet, e.g., older people use the Internet less frequently than younger people.

Socio-demographic variables are indicators for specific social situations. Based on these considerations, we can distinguish some characteristics of social situations relevant to media use: needs, media images, values, expectations related to social roles, resources, competence and skills.

The → uses and gratifications approach is based on the assumption that people use the media to satisfy needs which makes the media compete with other sources of gratification. Rosengren (1974) differentiates between the terms ‘need’ and ‘problem.’ The term need refers to needs in general as part of human nature, whereas the term problem refers to the different forms of specific individual and situational needs (Rosengren 1974, 270f.). For example, one may assume that older people have less need to relax or seek distraction because they are retired and no longer suffer from work-related stress.

In → social cognitive theory, media use is explained by media images especially by the anticipation of the consequences of media use (LaRose & Eastin 2004). These expectations are based on users’ own experiences but can also be learned by monitoring media behavior of others. It is plausible that the results of these monitoring processes differ between different social groups. Specific age groups, for example, share specific expectations of the media’s qualities. These expectations, that the media will be able to meet certain needs, result from the individual’s media biography. It is influenced by key events in the media as well as by dominant media contents during biographically relevant periods of life.

The expected effect of media use has to be looked upon favorably by the user. Therefore, every decision to use the media is a value judgment. Moreover, specific media contents or methods of presentation can clash with the moral values of potential users. It is reasonable to assume that some users may expect some gratification from pornography in the media but reject it on moral grounds. Different social groups may have different sets of values. Social milieus often share homogeneous moral concepts that differ from those of other milieus. Different demographic variables are connected with different social roles. We use the term ‘gender’ to describe the fact that sex is not merely a biological but more importantly a social fact, as it allocates different roles to men and women. Social roles lead to expectations regarding behavior. Society defines the socially accepted behavior for an older or younger person, a man or a woman.

Resources are external possibilities to act. They are not personal characteristics of the individual, but the individual can make use of them. Their influence on media use is twofold. On the one hand, the potential media user must have access to necessary resources to be able to afford media use. With regard to the resource of time, for instance, this can be problematic for many potential users. On the other hand, available resources dictate what other possibilities there are to meet specific needs besides media use. The connection between resources and socio-demographic variables is obvious.

Competence and skills are, as opposed to resources, internal possibilities to act. There is a rather simple connection between competence and skills and media use: A user must be able to read to use a newspaper, or must be an experienced and skilled reader to be able to read more demanding literature. The ability to read, however, is closely linked to age and level of education, i.e., to demographic factors.

References and Suggested Readings

1. LaRose, R. & Eastin, M. S. (2004). A social cognitive theory of Internet uses and gratifications: Toward a new model of media attendance. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 48(3), 358–377.
2. Rosengren, K. E. (1974). Uses and gratifications: A paradigm outlined. In J. G. Blumler & E. Katz (eds.), The uses of mass communications: Current perspectives on gratifications research. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, pp. 269–286.

Mediated Populism

Gianpietro Mazzoleni

University of Milan

Populism, a notoriously ambiguous concept, is a political ideology emphasizing the central role of the ‘ordinary people’ in the political process. ‘Mediated populism’ means the outcome of the close connection between media-originated dynamics and the rise of populist sentiments, and eventually of populist movements.

In general, tabloid media – which respond primarily to commercial imperatives – are more keen to lend direct and indirect support to populist sentiments and claims, by engaging in sympathetic coverage of populist leaders, whereas the elite media (with significant exceptions) – which tend to be mouthpieces of the ruling classes and paladins of the status quo – usually display overt antagonism and treat negatively populist (→ Commercialization: Impact on Media Content; Tabloidization). For their part, populist leaders and parties engage in intense relations with the media, resorting to different strategies to court the media and/or to secure their media attention (→ Mediatization of Politics). These strategies comprise playing the underdog, rallying crowds with abrasive speech and staging controversial events.

Research has envisaged a four-stage life cycle (Stewart et al. 2003). In the ground-laying phase, the media may be engaged in providing a dramatic portrayal of the country’s illnesses, denouncing corruption in government, highlighting immigration-linked crime stories, and the like. This media coverage in the long run is likely to diffuse social malaise and to trigger popular anger and political disaffection. This domestic political climate represents the ideal milieu for the rise of political figures voicing social discontent and for the dissemination of the populist message. In the insurgent phase, populist movements attempt to enlarge and consolidate their popular and electoral support by exploiting more intensely the communication resources that media make available (unintentionally or not). In the established phase the movement obtains full legitimization in the country’s political system, with seats in parliament and even in cabinet. This often means loss of newsworthiness for the leaders and their stances, as they take on more ordinary political roles in the political arena. Some movements have experienced also a decline phase. The attitude and behavior of the media vary widely in this phase. Their spotlights might be suddenly switched on by the political fall of formerly populist ‘media darlings.’

References and Suggested Readings

1. Albertazzi, D. & McDonnell, D. (eds.) (2008). Twenty-first century populism: The spectre of Western European democracy. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
2. Jagers, J. & Walgrave, S. (2007). Populism as political communication style: An empirical study of political parties’ discourse in Belgium. European Journal of Political Research, 46, 319–345.
3. Stewart, J., Mazzoleni, G., & Horsfield, B. (2003). Conclusion: Power to the media managers. In G. Mazzoleni, J. Stewart, & B. Horsfield (eds.), The media and neo-populism: A contemporary comparative analysis. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Mediated Social Interaction

Eun-Ju Lee

Seoul National University

Mediated social interaction refers to the interaction between two or more individuals enabled by various communication technologies. It may take different forms, depending on how many people are involved in message construction and reception, whether participating individuals are required to be present at the time of message transfer, what kinds of modalities are being used and so forth (→ Interpersonal Communication).

Researchers have identified three key characteristics of computer-mediated communication (CMC). First, because, the most common form of CMC is text-based, it typically lacks social context cues, such as facial expressions, paraverbal cues and physical appearance; (→ Nonverbal Communication and Culture). As such, people may become less aware of their interaction partners, and reduced social presence renders CMC less effective and appropriate than face-to-face (FtF) interaction for socio-emotional communication. Second, cue deficiency fosters perceived anonymity. With their identities hidden, people feel freer from social constraints and become more prone to exhibit uninhibited behaviors. At the same time, anonymity can democratize communication by liberating individuals from power differences manifested through various status cues. Lastly, CMC does not require participating individuals to be co-present in the immediate environment, with its many variants supporting asynchronous interactions. Freed from geographical and temporal constraints, the boundary of an individual’s social network has been substantially expanded.

With respect to relationship building, studies have reported that people engage in greater spontaneous self-disclosure in CMC than in FtF interaction, because (1) anonymity reduces perceived risks in disclosing potentially embarrassing aspects of self; and (2) physical separation and the lack of sensory cues lead people to focus more on their inner feelings and thoughts. Not only do people speak more about themselves, but they also speak better of themselves, as text-based CMC facilitates strategic self-presentation by eliminating a number of distractions. As such, thereby people can concentrate on message construction to project preferred self-image, leading to overly positive perceptions and exaggerated interpersonal (‘hyperpersonal’) expectations.

Text-only interaction was once thought to nullify social stereotypes, often linked to physically salient features, like gender and race. Despite the absence of physical indicators, however, some social category cues may remain in CMC in the form of language style, conversation topic, etc. Once the interaction partner’s category membership is inferred, the information restrictions of the medium can amplify, rather than attenuate, the category’s influence as people turn to social stereotypes to compensate for the deficiency of interpersonal information (→ Social Stereotyping and Communication).

In work groups, CMC has the potential to address problems common to FtF discussions by allowing anonymous and simultaneous input from participating individuals: evaluation apprehension and production blocking. When group decision-making is concerned, however, a → meta-analysis (Baltes et al. 2002) showed that FtF groups generally outperformed CMC groups in terms of decision quality, time to decision and member satisfaction, especially when there was a time limit and the group size was large.

Challenging the notion that anonymity weakens normative concerns in CMC, the social identity model of ‘deindividuation effects’ (SIDE) posits that when there is a common group identity, the lack of individuating information (deindividuation) can reinforce group-oriented behaviors by heightening the salience of group identity (Spears et al. 2001). Thus, people are more likely to conform to the local group norms and exhibit ethnocentrism when anonymous than when their personal identity is known.

Thus far, to understand the effects of CMC, researchers have compared CMC with FtF interaction, assuming that certain features of the communication channel (e.g., anonymity) influence individuals’ perceptions and behaviors representing technological determinism. However, as social information processing theory posits, people are capable of adapting to the restrictions of the medium, for example, by creating emoticons to express their feelings and employing more interactive uncertainty reduction strategies (→ Uncertainty Reduction Theory), thereby achieving the same or even higher levels of intimacy than in FtF contacts (Walther & Parks 2002). Recent studies also demonstrated that different individuals use the same medium differently to different effects, highlighting the need to incorporate individuals’ traits and predispositions in investigating the processes and outcomes of CMC.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Baltes, B. B., Dickson, M. W., Sherman, M. P., Bauer, C. C., & LaGanke, J. S. (2002). Computer-mediated communication and group decision making: A meta-analysis. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 87, 156–179.
2. Bargh, J. A. & McKenna, K. Y. A. (2004). The Internet and social life. Annual Review of Psychology, 55, 573–590.
3. Spears, R., Postmes, T., Lea, M., & Watt, S. E. (2001). A SIDE view of social influence. In J. P. Forgas & K. D. Williams (eds.), Social influence: Direct and indirect processes. New York: Psychology Press, pp. 331–350.
4. Walther, J. B. & Parks, M. R. (2002). Cues filtered out, cues filtered in: Computer-mediated communication and relationships. In M. L. Knapp & J. A. Daly (eds.), Handbook of interpersonal communication, 3rd edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 529–563.

Mediated Terrorism

Gianpietro Mazzoleni

University o f Milan

Terrorism has been closely associated with communication and → propaganda. The primary goal of terrorist organizations is, in fact, to ‘send a message,’ usually to target governments, the victims being the instruments to pursue the goal.

In the global village, the mass media and the new media play a pivotal role in the terrorist scheme. Due to the new communication technologies, today’s terrorists themselves control the entire communication process. The attempts of terrorist groups of securing vast publicity for their actions can be defied only in part by the counteractions of government authorities, which might impose → censorship on printed and broadcast news, but cannot regulate the Internet, which remains the most resourceful communication means of postmodern terrorism.

By means of the Internet, political terrorism succeeds in attaining several strategic purposes. The Internet serves the practical purpose of planning and coordination and to ensure networking and circulation of key information. Affiliated, semi-independent cells, scattered around the world are able to maintain contact with one another and to plan common actions. It ensures cheap publicity and diffusion of ideological and motivational messages. It makes fundraising easy and safe. Its worldwide reach provides receptive audiences among which to recruit new followers and activists. It can be used to wage psychological warfare, amplified by the mainstream media. In addition to the Internet, the traditional media may also become instrumental to terrorism in several ways.

One question that has often been debated worldwide is whether there occurs a sort of inevitable ‘complicity’ between the news media and terrorists, especially in political contexts, such as liberal democracies, where censorship is not tolerated by the media. This raises excruciating dilemmas on the part of the free media, battling between the professional imperative of covering what makes the news and the resolution to defend democratic institutions and social peace.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Nacos, B. L. (2002). Mass-mediated terrorism: The central role of the media in terrorism and counterterrorism. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
2. Norris, P., Montague, K., & Marion, J. (eds.) (2003). Framing terrorism: The news media, the government and the public. London: Routledge.
3. Weimann, G. (2006). Terror on the Internet: The new arena, the new challenges. Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace Press.

Mediatization of Politics

Gianpietro Mazzoleni

University of Milan

Mediatization of politics is a complex process that is closely linked to the presence of a media logic in society and in the political sphere. It is distinguished from the idea of ‘mediation,’ a natural, preordained mission of mass media to convey meaning from communicators to their target audiences Politics and the way it is performed and communicated have been widely affected by the rise of mass media. Such media-driven influence in the political environment is the core of the concept of mediatization. The media have become indispensable actors within the political domain. They have gained a central position in most political routines, such as election campaigns, government communication, public diplomacy and image building, and national and international celebrations.

Interdependence Model

The centrality of the media in the political arena is a peculiarity of modern democracies, which are strongly characterized by interconnecting forms of mass communication. The media’s rise to a pivotal place in the political process has caused significant changes and developments in politics as a whole, to the extent that politics is often considered by political communication scholars as media-dependent. The concept of dependence, however, is not supported by solid empirical evidence.

The interdependence of media and politics seems to constitute a better pattern to represent the actual nature of the relationships between them. The media are nevertheless frequently credited with exercising overwhelming influence on political events, persons, issues, and opinions, and, at the same time, politicians are aware of the media’s attention rules, production routines, and selection criteria, and adapt their communication behavior to media requirements.

Effects of Mediatization

Research has pointed out several effects of mediatization, among which are the capacity of the media to set the agenda of the political debate, the spectacularization and personalization of political communication, and the ‘winnowing’ effect.

The mass media, especially information outlets, are acknowledged to have significant power to structure and frame political reality by determining what is relevant for public discussion, by raising issues, and by providing criticism (→ Agenda-Setting Effects). By pointing their spotlights on certain political events and by investigative reporting, the news media are in a position to drive the public debate, influence the campaign agenda, and prompt political figures to focus and take stances on the issues raised (→ Election Campaign Communication). This power is exalted or mitigated by the nature of the political milieu in a given national context. For example, in political systems that grant large autonomy to the media, political communicators are less successful in neutralizing the agenda shaping of the media. However, in political milieus where media–politics relations are characterized by close interdependence, the political agenda is more likely to be the joint output of the interaction of both actors (Semetko et al. 1991; → Political Communication Systems).

The spectacularization of politics is an effect especially linked to the influential presence of television on the political scene. The ‘grammar’ of television language has increasingly changed the patterns of political communication. By becoming the target of an incessant dramatization on the part of commercial media, political activity has been driven to adjust its traditional forms of communication to the new canons of a media-centered environment. This fact has entailed a recasting of the symbolic and expressive devices of political representation. In addressing citizens and voters, political communicators no longer rely on the mediation of militants. No politician can communicate successfully without molding his or her message to suit the most preferred and most popular language schemes of the mass media, especially those of entertainment, showbiz, and advertising.

A necessary condition of spectacularization is the tendency of mass media, especially those that are commercially oriented, like the tabloids (→ Tabloidization) and their equivalent in broadcast media, to personalize political information by focusing on who and how, rather than on what and why. Political players on the contemporary post-ideology political stage seem to respond enthusiastically to this media-driven tendency. They adjust willingly to media personalization, responding to the demands of visibility, look, and image. Television is the ‘deus ex machina’ of this adaptation: “Political figures cannot help subjecting themselves to the rules of TV popularity, obliged as they are to be either stars or nullities . . . Television is indeed the medium that resorts more to personalisation and relies a lot on rivalry among politicians” (Mouchon 1989).

A final effect of the mediatization of politics is the selection (‘winnowing’) of political elites through the imposition of media-driven requisites and coverage formats upon political communication as a whole (Matthews 1978). There is also some indication of a progressive weakening of party organizations in many western democracies. For example, there has been a transfer of methods for recruiting political personnel (leaders, activists, candidates, mayors, etc.) from party machines to external agents – mostly communication experts, spin doctors, and media professionals – that implement tactics that collide with those of traditional professional politics.

The actual selection of political personnel and candidates is to a certain extent affected by the degree of media attention. Leaders chosen in this manner respond to the media’s predilection for telegenic, controversial, and possibly colorful personalities. “Those who eventually succeed in election contests are no more local notables, but ‘mediatic personages’, individuals who master better than others communication techniques; . . . a new breed of communication specialists takes the place of militants and of apparatchiks” (Manin 1995).

Mediatiation and the Internet

Reflecting on the rapid diffusion of online media, Schulz (2004) questions whether the traditional patterns of mediatization of politics will disappear to leave room for new ways of interdependence between the new media and political players. In fact, the new communication environment created by the Internet and other new media is likely to challenge the media logic that characterized the era of mass communication, and consequently its clutch on political communications. Schulz’s argument is that there is not yet an end of mediatization as we have known it to date: “Since the new media do not displace the old media, the mediatization effects of the latter endure in the new media environment.”

In addition, the new media bring along new patterns of mediatization. Clearly, the new media logic will affect politics and political discourse, but the adaptation process will be mutual, not simply on the part of the political players, thanks to interactivity, a feature that conventional media do not possess.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Bennett, W. L. & Entman, R. M. (eds.) (2001). Mediated politics: Communication in the future of democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2. Blumler, J. G. & Kavanagh, D. (1999). The third age of political communication: Influences and features. Political Communication, 16(3), 209–230.
3. Kepplinger, H. M. (2002). Mediatization of politics: Theory and data. Journal of Communication, 52(4), 972–986.
4. Manin, B. (1995). Principes du gouvernment representatif [Principles of representative government]. Paris: Calmann-Levi.
5. Matthews, D. R. (1978). Winnowing: The news media and the 1976 presidential nominations. In J. D. Barber (ed.), The race for the presidency. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
6. Mazzoleni, G. & Schulz, W. (1999). “Mediatization” of politics: A challenge for democracy? Political Communication, 16, 247–261.
7. Mouchon, J. (1989). Médiatisation de la communication politique et logiques structurantes [Mediatization of political communication and structuring logics]. Mots, 20, 43–56.
8. Schulz, W. (2004). Reconstructing mediatization as an analytical concept. European Journal of Communication, 19, 87–101.
9. Semetko, H. A., Blumler, J. G., Gurevitch, M., & Weaver, D. H. (1991). The formation of campaign agendas. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Medium Theory

Joshua Meyrowitz

University of New Hampshire

Medium Theory explores the influences of communication technologies in addition to, and distinct from, the specific content (messages) they convey. Medium Theory focuses on the characteristics of each medium (or of each type of media) that make it physically, socially, and psychologically different from other media and from face-to-face interaction (→ Interpersonal Communication). Medium theorists analyze media as distinct settings, or environments, that encourage certain types of interaction and discourage others, foster unique uses for each medium, and often lead to different responses to the same messages (→ Media).

The term ‘medium theory’ was coined in the 1980s (Meyrowitz 1985, 16) to give a unifying label to the work of numerous scholars in a variety of fields who explore how different characteristics of various media encourage unique forms of interaction. The singular ‘medium’ is used in the name of the theory to highlight the focus on the particular characteristics of each medium.

The characteristics of media analyzed include: types of transmittable sensory information (visual, aural, tactile, etc.); the nature and forms of information within each sense (pictures vs words, or Morse Code clicks vs. voice); the speed and degree of immediacy of communication through the medium; whether the medium affords unidirectional vs. bidirectional vs multidirectional communication; whether interaction through the medium is simultaneous or sequential; the physical requirements for using the medium; the degree of control the user has over reception and transmission; the scope and nature of dissemination; and the relative ease or difficulty of learning to use the medium to code, decode, and interpret media messages.

Medium Theory operates on two levels: ‘micro’ (how a medium selected by an individual or group influences particular interactions) and ‘macro’ (how the addition of a new medium to existing media may foster broad shifts in social interactions, thinking patterns, social roles and identities, etiquette, political styles, institutions, collective memory, and social structure in general).

Rapid changes in communication in the mid-twentieth century encouraged the development of influential medium theories, including the work of the most famous and controversial medium theorist, Marshall McLuhan, whose popular, but often misunderstood phrase, “The medium is the message” highlights the focus on the medium’s influence. But medium-focused perspectives date back to ancient times, including Socrates’ analyses of writing versus live dialogue (→ Media History).

References and Suggested Readings

1. McLuhan, M. (1994) [1964]. Understanding media: The extensions of man. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
2. Meyrowitz, J. (1985). No sense of place: The impact of electronic media on social behavior. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
3. Ong, W. (1982). Orality and literacy: The technologizing of the word. London: Methuen.

Memory

Ian Neath

Memorial University of Newfoundland

Many people think of memory as a place in which information is stored until it is needed, much like a library. Unfortunately, this metaphor is misleading because it implies a static process. Nothing really happens to library books while sitting on the shelf: once one has the book, the contents are identical to the last time the book was consulted. In contrast, human memory is a dynamic, reconstructive set of processes that enable previously encoded information to affect current and future performance.

Construction and Reconstruction

Memory works like perceptual and other cognitive processes: people use whatever cues and information are available to achieve a sensible interpretation (→ Information Processing). Consider the case of recalling what happened at the football game last week. The first time a retrieval attempt is made, there are three sources of information: (1) the event itself, (2) similar events, and (3) general knowledge. All three sources are involved in the construction of a memory. The spectator might remember a specific play, which most likely comes from memory of the event itself. But information about the coin toss that starts the game might come from the previous week’s game, or might be based on general knowledge. Note that the information from general knowledge or from a different event might be accurate, even though it has been retrieved from a different source.

The second time a retrieval attempt is made there is an additional source of information: memory of the previous recollection. Memory is reconstructive in that each time a particular event is recalled a new version is constructed based on the cues and information available at that particular time. The constructed version is then a potential source of information (and misinformation) for subsequent recollections.

The Encoding–Retrieval Interaction

One of the primary determinants of recollection is the relation between the conditions at encoding and the conditions at retrieval (→ Encoding–Decoding). If a person is happy when studying, more information will be recalled if the person is happy at test than if unhappy. Similar results are found with environmental context and with pharmacological state. People taking scuba-diving lessons need to learn decompression tables that tell them how to ascend to avoid decompression sickness; they will do much better if they learn the information underwater, the same environment in which they will need to recall the information, than if they study only on land. The reason is that items and events are not processed in isolation but rather as part of ongoing mental processes. People who are happy (or underwater or intoxicated) process words and events differently than if they are unhappy (or on land or sober). Thus, when trying to access information originally processed in a different state, people will generally be trying to process the information inappropriately.

This interaction naturally lends itself to helping people improve memory (‘mnemonics’). The goal is to anticipate the kind of processing that will be required at test and then organize studying around it. For example, how can memory for people’s names be improved? At test, the only constant is typically the person’s face. Therefore, the face should be used as the retrieval cue, and studying should be built around that. Second, information can be recalled only if it is encoded. Get into the habit of repeating the person’s name as soon as the introduction is made. Third, form a link between the cue (i.e., the face) and the name. Fourth, use the person’s name a couple more times before moving on to the next person.

Theoretical Accounts of Memory

There are two basic theoretical accounts of memory. One views memory as a set of different memory systems (the systems or structuralist account) whereas the other emphasizes the role of processing (the processing or proceduralist perspective).

Most proponents of the systems view posit five different memory systems. Working memory (also known as short-term memory) is used for the temporary storage and manipulation of information. Long-term memory is made up of two systems, episodic memory (also called autobiographical memory) and semantic memory (also called generic memory and general knowledge). The difference between the two lies in whether the rememberer recollects just the fact itself or whether there is also awareness of the context in which the information was learned. Episodic memory is sometimes described as having the property of mental time travel: you can project yourself backward into particular episodes.

The last two memory systems – procedural memory and the perceptual representation system – differ from the preceding three in that they are not part of the declarative group of memory systems. A rule of thumb is that if one can say that one ‘knows something’ (e.g., one knows that 2 +'2 = 4, one knows that the capital of Assyria was Nineveh), it is in a declarative memory system. If one ‘knows how to do something,’ then it is in a procedural memory system. A mother may know how to ride a bicycle, but this information cannot be usefully communicated to her son. She can say, “Balance, pedal, and steer,” but he will most likely fall off. Both of these nondeclarative systems are sometimes referred to as implicit memory.

Episodic memory requires conscious awareness of the original learning episode, semantic memory requires awareness of the information, but not of the original learning episode, and nondeclarative memory requires no awareness of the information at all.

The Processing View

According to the systems view, the mnemonic properties of an item depend on the memory system in which it resides. According to the processing view, the mnemonic properties of an item depend on the relation between the conditions at encoding and the conditions at test. According to the former view, one cannot make generalizations about memory as a whole because each memory system operates according to different rules. According to the latter, there are important principles of memory that apply to all memory regardless of the type of information, the type of processing, the hypothetical system supporting the memory, or the time scale.

A proponent of the processing view would agree with almost everything with one exception: what does the distinction between short- and long-term memory add to our understanding? When words are processed on the basis of how they sound, there will be a very small capacity and the information will not be available for long. When words are processed on the basis of what they mean, however, there will be an enormous capacity, and the information will be available for a long time.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Conway, M. A. (ed.) (1997). Recovered memories and false memories. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2. Foster, J. K. & Jelicic, M. (eds.) (1999). Memory: Systems, process, or function? Oxford: Oxford University Press.
3. Nadel, L. & Sinnott-Armstrong, W. P. (eds.) (2013). Memory and law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
4. Smith, S. M. & Vela, E. (2001). Environmental context-dependent memory: A review and meta- analysis. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 8, 203–220.
5. Stadler, M. A. & Frensch, P. A. (eds.) (1998). Handbook of implicit learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
6. Surprenant, A. M. & Neath, I. (2009). Principles of memory. New York: Psychology Press.
7. Tulving, E. & Craik, F. I. M. (2000). The Oxford handbook of memory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
8. Wagenaar, W. A. & Groeneweg, J. (1990). The memory of concentration camp survivors. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 4, 77–87.
9. Worthen, J. B. & Hunt, R. R. (2010). Mnemonology: Mnemonics for the 21st Century. New York: Psychology Press.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Clarke, P. & Kline, F. G. (1974). Media effects reconsidered: Some new strategies for communication research. Communication Research, 1(2), 224–240.
2. Edelstein, A. S. (1974). The uses of communication in decision-making. New York: Praeger.
3. Salmon, C. T. (1986). Message discrimination and the information environment. Communication Research, 13(3), 363–372.

Message Production

Dale Hample

University of Maryland

The object of research on message production is to answer the question, “Why do people say what they do?” The standard answer is that situations cause people to form goals, which lead to plans, which direct the messages. This is the GPA model (goals–plans–actions).

In the original formulation, the GPA model's initial processual focus was on goals. A notable advance was Dillard and Solomon's (2000) conceptualization of situations as ‘social densities.’ Just as the universe is mainly vacuum interrupted by densities of gravity and mass, so our social world contains recognizable clumps of social significance. People orient to repetitive kinds of interaction. These social densities are stored in long term memory as nodes, which may well be labeled with a particular goal (e.g., persuade, acquaint, etc.).

Message production is said to be under personal control, and therefore responsive to subjective goals (→ Goals, Social Aspects of; Goals, Cognitive Aspects of). Dillard's initial formulation of the GPA specified that two sorts of goals would be activated. The first is what he calls the primary goal, which frames the situation, or defines it as a particular type (e.g., as influencing, comforting, joking, etc.). Secondary goals modify that frame, bringing to bear various other motivational issues, such as anxiety, protection of personal resources, and, most importantly, politeness. The secondary goals may be so immediately important that they overwhelm the primary goal (e.g., a person worried about giving offense might actually decline to try to persuade), but the situation remains subjectively defined by the primary goal (e.g., influence).

Several investigators have explored the consequences of having multiple goals. Greene and his associates have shown in several studies that people are less articulate and more hesitant when producing messages that respond to two goals, as compared to single goal instructions. In Greene's (1995) work, the second goal is in some way inconsistent with the first (e.g., to give unwelcome information while ensuring that the other person is not offended). Samp and Solomon (2005) assess goal complexity (the number of activated goals) and goal strain (whether both pro-social and anti-social goals are activated). They find that both complexity and strain increase the number of clauses in messages. Thus, multiplicity of goals increases cognitive load, resulting in both immediate nonfluency and more eventual effort.

A ‘plan’ is a projected sequence of actions that is intended to achieve a goal. Messages are held to emerge from plans, which may be conscious but which are much more likely to consist of unconscious assemblies and intentions. The plan is the point in the message production process at which content comes into play. For a message, many of the plan steps consist of things one will (or may) say. Berger explains that one may have a simple sequence in mind, but may also have imagined a more complicated pattern that might even have various branch points at which choices must be made. Berger (1997) has demonstrated that a given plan simultaneously exists at several hierarchically organized levels of abstraction, ranging from general intention down to the physical requirements of pronunciation and performance.

Plans can change during the course of invention and interaction. The planning stage is therefore also the site of message editing (Hample 2005), assuming that any editing takes place. Cognitive stores contain two key kinds of associations: those between the situation and the message, and those between messages and their outcomes. The situation-message association system generates an initial draft of a message. Once a potential message is assembled and activated, it may in turn stimulate notice of various likely consequences (e.g., cursing causes social disapproval). These consequences reflect the presence of secondary goals, particularly politeness issues. Should the consequences have sufficient activation levels, they may stimulate message revision or abandonment. Rehearsing a message plan improves the fluidity and quality of the resulting message.

Scholars have explored the fluidity of message production, focusing on onset latencies, pauses, and semantic variety. They relate these matters mainly to plan or goal complexity. Either sort of complexity increases cognitive load, interfering with ease of expression. Samp and Solomon's (2005) research program explores message embellishment, length, and focus (e.g., on self or other), linking these outcomes to goal strain and goal complexity. Both strain and complexity lead to longer and more elaborate messages. The ‘obstacle hypothesis’ connects message content and phrasing all the way back to situation, so that requests acknowledge the situational feature most likely to impede a favorable reply (e.g., “If you're not too busy, could you find me a map?”).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Berger, C. R. (1997). Planning strategic interaction: Attaining goals through communicative action. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
2. Dillard, J. P. (ed.) (1990). Seeking compliance: The production of interpersonal influence messages. Scottsdale, AZ: Gorsuch Scarisbrick.
3. Dillard, J. P. & Solomon, D. H. (2000). Conceptualizing context in message-production research. Communication Theory, 10, 167–175.
4. Greene, J. O. (ed.). (1997). Message production: Advances in communication theory. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
5. Hample, D. (2005). Arguing: Exchanging reasons face to face. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
6. Lindsey, A. E., Greene, J. O., Parker, R. G., & Sassi, M. (1995). Effects of advance message formulation on message encoding: Evidence of cognitively based hesitation in the production of multiple-goal messages. Communication Quarterly, 43, 320–331.
7. Samp, J. A. & Solomon, D. H. (2005). Toward a theoretical account of goal characteristics in micro-level message features. Communication Monographs, 72, 22–45.

Meta-Analysis

Timothy R. Levine

Michigan State University

Craig R. Hullett

University of Wisconsin–Madison

Meta-analysis is a set of methods and statistical analyses for summarizing the findings of existing empirical literature. As the name implies, it is a study of studies. It provides a way to do a quantitative literature review that involves cumulating effects across studies (→ Quantitative Methodology). The purpose of a meta-analysis is to ascertain if the findings from a collection of studies investigating some specific issue lead to some consistent result and, if so, to estimate the magnitude of that finding. If not, it serves to reconcile findings that appear to offer mixed support for a hypothesis. Meta-analysis is also useful in identifying the reasons why findings are inconsistent from study to study and to identify theoretically important moderators. Meta-analysis will likely play an increasingly important role in making sense out of social science research.

The value of meta-analysis is particularly apparent when contrasted with the typical narrative review of sustained research on a topic. Due to the nature of social scientific research, the results of different studies investigating the same question will inevitably vary from study to study. Some of this variability is attributable to sampling error. Results can also vary across studies because of methodological artifacts (→ Validity). Finally, results can vary from study to study for theoretically meaningful reasons, a finding might be stronger in some populations or contexts than in others. Because in meta-analyses results are cumulated across studies, low statistical power is less of an issue. Meta-analysis focuses attention on effect sizes, and relies less on significance testing. The degree to which sampling error explains study-to-study variability is estimated, and corrections for many methodological artifacts are possible. Substantive moderators can also be tentatively identified.

Meta-analysis involves several steps. First, the relevant and usable studies investigating a topic are collected. Then, the findings of each study need to be converted to some common metric so that the results can be cumulated. Relevant study features are also coded. Next, an average effect across studies is calculated, and study-to-study variability is examined. Analyses are also done to see if and how coded study features affect results. It is important that all the studies included test the same issue or hypothesis. Studies must also report sufficient information so that an effect size can be calculated. Once the criteria for inclusion are determined, a search method is specified.

The findings from each study then need to be converted to a common metric, usually some unit of ‘effect size.’ The most common metrics used in meta-analysis are d and r, where d is the standardized mean difference, and r is the correlation coefficient (→ Correlation Analysis). Once a set of effects has been collected reflecting the findings in the literature, the findings are cumulated and tested for homogeneity of effects. Findings are cumulated simply by averaging, although the average is usually weighted by study sample. This produces an across-study average effect, and this average effect can be considered an estimation of the population effect. The across-study average can be tested to see if it is likely different than zero, using confidence intervals calculated around the average. In addition to examining the across-study average effect, meta-analysis considers the dispersion of effects; that is, how much the studies vary from one another. For example, some studies might use students while others might use working adults; some might use self-report measures while others might use open-ended coding. Any identifiable subject, context, or method feature could be coded.

A number of challenges face meta-analysis. One major challenge is that the results of meta-analysis are no better than the quality of the studies used. For example, if some common bias was evident in all studies of a given topic, then that bias would be reflected in the meta-analysis results and it would be undetectable. A second challenge is a publication bias favoring supportive (often, statistically significant) results. A third problem arises from having only small numbers of studies within a research domain. Finally, there is the question of what do to with heterogeneous effects. If heterogeneity cannot be resolved with moderator analysis, then it is questionable if average results can be meaningfully interpreted.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
2. Hullett, C. R. & Levine, T. R. (2003). The overestimation of effect sizes from F values in meta-analysis: The cause and a solution. Communication Monographs, 70, 52–67.
3. Hunter, J. E. & Schmidt, F. L. (1990). Methods of meta-analysis: Correcting error and bias in research findings. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
4. Levine, T. R., Asada, K. J., & Carpenter, C. (2009). Sample size and effect size are negatively correlated in meta-analysis: Evidence and implications of a publication bias against non-significant findings. Communication Monographs, 76, 286–302.
5. Rosenthal, R. (1991). Meta-analytic procedures for social research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Metadiscourse

Robert T. Craig

University of Colorado at Boulder

Metadiscourse is talk about talk, the pragmatic use of language to comment reflexively on → discourse itself. Metadiscourse shifts the focus of attention or ‘frame’ so as to influence the → meaning and practical conduct of ongoing communication.

The frame shift performed by metadiscourse is most often local and momentary, as when a speaker uses the word “first” to frame an immediate following point as the first in a series of points, or says “I understand completely” to mark another’s statement as understood and accepted. Extended episodes of meta-talk also occur, for example, when a couple sits down to talk over a problem in how they have been talking with each other. People trading stories about poorly run business meetings or writing newspaper columns about rules of etiquette for the use of mobile phones in public are also engaged in metadiscourse, as are scholars writing academic books and articles about media, discourse, and communication. With a growing cultural emphasis on the importance of communication in modern societies, explicit talk about talk seems to have become increasingly prevalent. A ‘communication culture’ has evolved that “generates large quantities of metadiscourse” (Cameron 2000, viii).

Researchers have identified a wide array of linguistic devices used in metadiscourse, such as ‘discourse markers’ (“because,” “you know,” “I mean”), linguistic action verbs (“she asked,” “don’t threaten me”), performative utterances (“I promise,” “I tell you”), and reported speech (direct or indirect quotation). Verschueren (1999, 187–188) described these and many more linguistic devices, including subtle cues such as word choice, vocal emphasis, and facial expressions, as indicators of metapragmatic awareness.

Although there are functional similarities in metadiscourse across languages, metadiscourse also reflects communicative forms, belief systems, and language ideologies specific to particular cultures (→ Ethnography of Communication). Language ideologies are “habitual ways of thinking and speaking about language and language use which are rarely challenged within a given community” (Verschueren 1999, 198; see also Jaworski et al. 2004). Language ideologies often stereotype and devalue the communication of culturally marginalized groups such as women, lower classes, and immigrants (→ Social Stereotyping and Communication).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Cameron, D. (2000). Good to talk? Living and working in a communication culture. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
2. Jaworski, A., Coupland, N., & Galasinski, D. (eds.) (2004). Metalanguage: Social and ideological perspectives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
3. Verschueren, J. (1999). Understanding pragmatics. London: Arnold.

Metaphor

Stuart Jay Kaplan

Lewis and Clark College

Metaphor is widely regarded as a basic linguistic form in nearly all types of → discourse (→ Linguistics). In contrast to early thinking about metaphor, which emphasized its role as a stylistic embellishment used for rhetorical effect, modern theories consider metaphor to be an essential feature of thinking itself. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980) identified a variety of metaphor types that interconnect to structure how people conceptualize their experiences with their physical and social environments. This cognitive perspective on metaphor has stimulated scholarship on metaphor phenomena in a great many disciplines, including communication, organizational theory, political science, art, philosophy, computer science, and law. The role of metaphor in → persuasion is of particular interest to communication scholars. Research findings suggest, for example, that → advertising containing metaphors receives greater attention from readers and evokes more positive affect toward the ad.

For a metaphor to accomplish its work, there are two additional conditions that must be met. First, the two terms must share some properties and those common properties need to be at least minimally relevant to the claim made by the metaphor (i.e., A is B). Otherwise, the attempt at creating an analogy will seem implausible to the reader. The second essential condition for a metaphor to work is that the attempt to combine properties of the source and target must seem at least mildly incongruous or initially nonsensical to the reader or viewer. The interplay of simultaneous similarity and incongruity in an effective metaphor stimulates a problem-solving response in the reader or viewer and a higher degree of engagement in the process of decoding the meaning of a message.

The preponderance of metaphor research has been conducted with linguistic expressions. In recent years, however, researchers have turned their attention to nonlinguistic forms of metaphor phenomena. Two primary emphases in the field of visual metaphor studies are metaphors in the visual arts and metaphors in advertising.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Forceville, C. (1998). Pictorial metaphor in advertising. London: Routledge.
2. Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Mexico: Media System

Frank Priess

Konrad Adenauer Foundation

Mexico is a federal republic with 31 states and a federal district constituted under specific provisions. It has a presidential system in which the significance of the legislative branch is increasing. It has a population of 120.8 million people – to which should be added around 20 to 30 million people living either legally or illegally in the United States – with a per capita income of US$9,640 per year. Almost 90 percent of Mexicans are Catholics. The presence of indigenous groups is another important factor. Mexico is the only Latin American member country of the OECD and is shaping up as a booming developing nation. However, its development has always been hampered by overwhelming social and economic inequality.

Mexico has a pluralistic media environment, particularly in its press. Within this scene, the audiovisual media system – primarily television – is shaped by oligopolistic structures. In Mexico, the rights of journalists and the media lack a modern context because their legal framework dates from 1917 (→ Journalism: Legal Situation). Also, many Articles are not enforced and this leads to arbitrariness. In 2003 a step forward was made by the passage of the Ley de Transparencia (Transparency Act) and the constitution of the Instituto Federal de Acceso a la Información (IFAI). The decriminalization of slander constituted another improvement for the media. Nevertheless, users of the media lack rights such as that of rebuttal.

Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries for representatives of the press, primarily journalists. The state has been incapable of protecting and ensuring freedom for the media and their representatives (→ Violence against Journalists). Further, the economic conditions under which many journalists live lead to a decrease in the quality of their work. Many of them need to have several jobs at a time so that they can attain a decent way of life. This is why they are the privileged targets of corruption. The lack of job alternatives, particularly outside the capital, leads to risks to journalistic professionalism and independence.

Printed media continue to be elitist and expensive. In some regions, the high percentage of illiteracy is also an exclusion criterion. The circulation of most of the 340 newspapers is low, with the exception of a few tabloids, and they are concentrated within the biggest cities. Public opinion polls show that more than 40 percent of Mexicans never read a newspaper. In the capital there are 21 newspapers with very pluralist features, the influential Reforma having about a quarter of a million readers per day. Free newspapers are offered on street corners and on buses and the subway. Outside of the biggest cities, many of the printed media only survive by means of advertisement by the government, which assures influence for both federal and state governments. This ‘carrot and stick’ situation also obstructs objective coverage (→ Political Advertising; Propaganda).

Generally speaking, Mexico’s television market is shared by the Televisa and TV Azteca networks who hold the majority of the close to 500 concessions. The remaining suppliers are state-directed and provide educational and cultural content (→ Educational Media; Educational Media Content). At the federal level, only two channels enjoy national broadcasting, while inside the states the state-owned channels are opinion generators only because people lack alternatives (→ Communication Law and Policy: North America). Television constitutes the main information and publicity medium on which much political-institutional and party propaganda are concentrated. Around 80 percent of Mexicans are reached daily by television programs, followed by 70 percent reached by radio. The contents of television programming are mainly focused on entertainment, dominated by the popular soap operas (‘telenovela’), talk shows, and sports programs. In radio, there are 1,164 commercial channels, 306 of which are state-owned and have educational content. The latter are financed by the budget held by the Ministry of Public Education or by universities.

Just as in the rest of Latin America, the noncommercial sector of audiovisual media is both underdeveloped and underfinanced. This sector is made up of channels that, in one way or another, are under the direct influence of the state. An alternative medium of information is represented by what is referred to as ‘community radio,’ the survival of which is made difficult due to legislative conditions (→ Community Media). These radio broadcasters lack state funding and do not have access to the commercial market. Such a situation has resulted in the illegal operation of many stations (→ Television Broadcasting, Regulation of).

Mexican youth in particular began to use the Internet as an alternative medium. Based on figures of 2012, around 37 percent of Mexicans have access to the web (Internet World Stats 2014). Social differences are also reflected here (→ Digital Divide). What is more, → cable television offers are pluralist – both the Congress and the Supreme Court have a channel of their own and international suppliers have a presence in several channels – but only a reduced number of Mexicans can afford them. Most of the population has to turn to the above-mentioned channels and thus plurality is restricted.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Calleja, A. & Solís, B. (2005). Con permiso – La radio comunitaria en México. Mexico: Fundacion Friedrich Ebert.
2. Cantú, M. E. (2005). Medios y poder de la radio y la televisión en la democracia méxicana. Mexico: Norma.
3. Gómez García, R. & Sosa Plata, G. (2009). Das Mediensystem Mexikos [The media system of Mexico]. In Hans-Bredow-Institut (ed.), Internationales Handbuch Medien [International media handbook]. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1056–1067
4. Gordon, J. C., Deines, T., & Havice, J. (2010). Global warming coverage in the media: Trends in a Mexico City newspaper. Science Communication, 32(2), 143–170.
5. Internet World Stats (2014). Usage and population statistics. At: http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats2.htm, accessed August 17, 2014.
6. Trejo Delabre, R. (2005). Medios: el nuevo poder real ante el Estado mexicano. In A. Aziz Nassif & J. Alonso Sánchez (eds.), Sociedad Civil y diversidad. Mexico: CIESAS y Miguel Angel Porrúa, pp. 141–166.

Minority Journalism

Rebecca Ann Lind

University of Illinois at Chicago

Minority status is predicated not on numerical representation but social or cultural difference, based on language, religion, or other practices (→ Ethnic Journalism). When language differences exist, the dominant social group considers the work of minority groups ‘foreign-language journalism.’

Minority journalism, especially if in a culture’s native tongue, fills a vital function. Foreign-language press provides news of the homeland; preserves language and cultural ties, builds community, and socializes newcomers (→ Advocacy Journalism; Journalists’ Role Perception). The minority journalism concept seems United States-specific; other countries tend to subsume this into ethnic, partisan, or political journalism. Minority media usually try to improve audiences’ lives, often embracing an activist mission; perhaps advocating the group’s civil rights and monitoring its cultural, social, political, religious, and economic development.

The first United States foreign-language newspaper – Philadelphia Zeitung – appeared in 1732 (→ Journalism, History of). The 1800s saw Norwegian, Chinese, Czech, Ukrainian, Polish, Italian, Yiddish, Hebrew, French, Spanish, German, and other newspapers. The bilingual Cherokee Phoenix and the genesis of the US black press appeared in the mid-1900s.

Activist functions frequently continued in radio and television. Initially, minority programs aired in discrete segments on weak stations, surrounded by content produced by other minority groups (→ Broadcast Journalism). The 1940s saw the first full-time Spanish-language radio station in the United States and the first radio stations fully committed to serving the African-American audience. In 1977 the first Native-American-owned commercial radio station launched.

Studying how minority groups use mass media can help reveal the relationships between minority and dominant social groups, and should examine whether minority groups’ use of new communications technologies continues to reflect the activist goals and mission observed in early minority journalism.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Danky, J. P. & Hady, M. E. (eds.) (1998). African-American newspapers and periodicals: A national bibliography. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
2. Kanellos, N. & Martell, H. (2000). Hispanic periodicals in the United States, origins to 1960: A brief history and comprehensive bibliography. Houston, TX: Arte Publico Press.
3. Soltes, M. (1969) [1925]. The Yiddish press: An Americanizing agency. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University.

Mobility, Technology for

Rich Ling

IT University of Copenhagen

Mobile communication is the most widely diffused form of electronic mediation on the planet. As of 2013 there were more than 6.6 billion connections to 3.2 billion unique mobile subscribers. It has changed our sense of safety and the way we coordinate everyday life. Smart phones and the mobile internet are becoming the most common way that people access the web. In addition, there has been the rise of tablets and also different types of ‘wearable’ computing devices.

Mobile, radio-based communication grew from the work of Marconi. This developed first as a ‘broadcast’ form of communication uses of radio to dispatch various services expanded to include police and fire departments, taxis, and even rural veterinary services (→ Radio: Social History). Cellular or mobile telephony was developed by Ring and Young in 1947 at Bell Labs. Rather than ‘broadcasting’ calls a conversation was ‘handed’ from one relatively small radio cell to another allowing for more calls and smaller handsets. Indeed, the handsets have moved from being large bulky devices to small multi-functional communication gadgets.

The diffusion of mobile telephony has changed several dimensions of quotidian life. It has given us micro-coordination and changed our sense of safety. It has played into teen emancipation, ushered in texting and had dramatic impacts in developing countries.

Perhaps the most profound impact of mobile communication is the ability to micro-coordinate with one another. Rather than calling to a fixed location on the chance that an individual is there, the mobile phone makes us individually addressable. We can iteratively plan and adjust meetings and ‘fine-tune’ tasks in real time. If we forget whether it is whole milk or skim milk that is needed from the store, we simply call and ask. We often think of micro-coordination in a positive way. However, use of the mobile telephone while driving is dangerous. In another realm, micro-coordination has been used to organize criminal activities and by terrorists and insurgents to manage their affairs. A special case of individual addressability is use of the mobile phone in emergencies. The mobile telephone gives people the chance to call for assistance when they find themselves in difficult settings. These can be minor daily problems (a breakdown in the car) or extremely dramatic events such as natural disasters.

An unexpected consequence of inexpensive mobile communication is its impact on the teen emancipation. The ability to contact peers via their own communication channel allows for immediacy in interactions and peer group integration. There is also a fashion dimension (→ Youth Culture). Teens were quick to adopt ‘texting’ via SMS and increasingly via social networking services (→ Social Media; Facebook). This truncated form of asynchronous written communication is the most common form of interaction in some groups. In 2012 we sent and received over 8 trillion SMSs on a global basis. This mediation form will continue to be a part of the picture as it is adopted into mobile social networking sites.

Mobile communication has grown quickly in the developing world. As of 2013, 75 percent of all subscriptions are in the global south. This access has facilitated entrepreneurship simplified everyday life and it provided for social contact. At a broader level, it has facilitated development (→ Developmental Communication).

In the broadest sense mobile communication is a technology of the intimate sphere. We use the mobile phone to interact with our closest social ties. Research has shown that half of all calls and half of all text messages go to a small circle of 3 to 5 persons. It is clear that there is a long tail of other interlocutors. However, the mobile phone gives us easy access to those persons with whom we are closest. In this way it tightens the intimate bond. Further, the mobile phone is becoming structured into our interactions. That is, we expect that our closest friends and family are continually available via the mobile phone. We structure our daily activities based on the assumption that we will be able to interact with one another via this channel. If for some reason they are not available (they forgot their phone or their battery is discharged) it means that we are not able to work out our plans.

Mobile communication is taking on new dimensions with the development of the mobile internet, tablets, ‘heads-up’ displays and other forms of wearable computing such as smart watches, armbands, etc. Traditionally mobile communication has been seen as texting and talking using a mobile phone. Increasingly mobile communication also includes accessing the internet via a smart phone, a tablet or some type of wearable device. These developments provide new functionality and also challenge the way that we think of mediated social interaction.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Donner, J. (2008). Research approaches to mobile use in the developing world: A review of the literature. Information Society, 24(3), 140–159.
2. Jensen, R. (2007). The digital provide: Information (technology), market performance and welfare in the South Indian fisheries sector. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 122(3), 879–924.
3. Licoppe, C. (2004). Connected presence: The emergence of a new repertoire for managing social relationships in a changing communications technoscape. Environment and Planning: Society and Space, 22, 135–156.
4. Ling, R. (2012). Taken for grantedness: The embedding of mobile communication into society. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
5. Ling, R. & Yttri, B. (2002). Hyper-coordination via mobile phones in Norway. In J. E. Katz & M. Aakhus (eds.), Perpetual contact: Mobile communication, private talk, public performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 139–169.
6. Zainudeen, A. et al. (2007). Teleuse at the bottom of the pyramid: Findings from a five-country study. Colombo: LIRNEasia. At www.lirneasia.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/tbop-gk3.pdf, accessed August 17, 2014.

Models of Communication

Denis McQuail

University of Amsterdam

A model of communication shows the main elements of any structure or process of human social action and the relations between these elements, plus any flow or exchange that takes place. The purpose of such models is thus to help in the description and explanation of communication. They are also useful as a source of hypotheses, a guide to research, and a format for ordering the results of research. A model can also be developed as an ‘ideal type’ to represent a certain concept, accentuating key or typical features.

The search for a unifying concept of communication resulted in the formulation of a simple graphic representation of communication as a process linking a sender and a receiver by a channel carrying messages from one to the other. This model needed to be adapted to the special case of mass communication. An early version of such a model was proposed by Westley and MacLean (1957). This posits the mass media as playing a mediating role between communicators and potential receivers. The aim is to balance the motives and interests of senders with those of receivers. This represents the mass media as essentially neutral and without purpose of their own.

A fundamental principle that entered into later theory is that of balance, based on the observation that communicative exchanges are governed by the relationships of like or dislike between participants and by the attitudes of like and dislike toward objects of communication. These ideas were formulated into a simple model, known as the ABX model, with A and B being two persons and X an object of attention. According to this theory, flows of information (amount and content) will be governed by a ‘strain to symmetry’ between A and B with reference to X. This idea is the basis for → cognitive dissonance theory.

An early development was the modelling of influence in persuasive campaign situations, as in elections or advertising. The idea advanced by Katz and Lazarsfeld (1955), that influence does not typically flow directly by way of the mass media but indirectly by way of personal contacts, was very readily captured by a two-step flow model of communication (→ Two-Step Flow of Communication), in which the intermediaries were identified as → ‘opinion leaders’ or ‘gatekeepers’.

The process of diffusion of knowledge or innovation has also lent itself to modelling and communication plays an essential part at four stages: (1) awareness, (2) → persuasion, (3) decision, (4) confirmation by experiences or the approval of others. Another aspect of diffusion relates to public information and → news. News diffusion is affected by many different factors. However, models have shown that there is an inverse relationship between the proportion eventually knowing of an event and the proportion hearing of that event from a personal rather than a mass media source (→ Diffusion of Information and Innovation).

Latterly, research has emphasized the role and motivation of the receiver in achieving ‘successful’ communication. The theory of audience → uses and gratifications rests on the view that audience choice of media content is active and purposeful, and that media use is structured according to various perceived needs and gratifications sought, deriving from the social background of the individual. This has led to several models (e.g., Rosengren 1974).

Models seem most suited to representing planned communication efforts, where there is some underlying logic and sequence, with discernible criteria of success or failure. However, there are few areas of communication research that have not produced at least one theory or concept that can be described in terms of a model (McQuail & Windahl 1993), including some of the most current approaches, such as gatekeeping, agenda setting, and ‘news framing’ (→ Agenda-Setting Effects; Framing Effects), as well as entire areas such as → international communication and → political communication. It is likely that fundamental changes stemming from technological convergence and the rise of the Internet will stimulate yet more models (→ Technology and Communication). Already Bordewijk and Van Kaam’s (1986) model of information traffic has led to an important typology of modes of communication. This differentiates four modes – allocution (mass communication), consultation (of a database), conversation (exchange), and registration (at a central node).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Bordewijk, J. & Van Kaam, B. (1986). Towards a classification of new tele-information services. Intermedia, 14(1), 16–21.
2. Katz, E. & Lazarsfeld, P. F. (1955). Personal influence. Glencoe, NY: Free Press.
3. McQuail, D. & Windahl, S. (eds.) (1993). Communication models for the study of mass communication. London: Longman.
4. Rosengren, K. E. (1974). Uses and gratifications: A paradigm outlined. In J. G. Blumler & E. Katz (eds.), The uses of mass communications. Beverly Hills CA: Sage, pp. 269–281.
5. Westley, B. H. & MacLean, M. (1957). A conceptual model for mass communication research. Journalism Quarterly, 34, 31–38.

Modernity

Joseph Straubhaar

University of Texas at Austin

Since the 1990s, academic debates have revived modernity as a key concept. Tomlinson (1991) argued that much of what was labeled ‘cultural imperialism’ (→ Cultural Imperialism Theories) was in fact a broader spread of a globalized pattern of modernity. This discourse argued, in particular, that beneath much of what was seen as Americanization or westernization lay a more general, deeper globalization of capitalism, “the broader discourse of cultural imperialism as the spread of the culture of modernity itself” (Tomlinson 1991, 89–90, original italics; → Globalization Theories).

A related question is whether modernity is a singular tendency or one with many possible versions and outcomes. A number of aspects of globalization tend to standardize certain kinds of economic modernity, such as financial institutions, trade rules and regimes, and commercial media models (→ Media Economics). However, Tomlinson (1999) also argued later that a “decentering of capitalism from the west” was taking place. A number of writers, e.g., Iwabuchi (2002), argued for distinct Asian or Japanese versions of both capitalism and media/cultural modernity. China has also steadily emerged as a major site and alternative form of capitalist production in the current neo-liberal system with many features of current global capitalist modernity, but with a distinctly different emphasis. The fact that China has refused western prescriptions for the sort of democracy that is supposed to accompany modern capitalist development presents a long list of contradictions to traditional notions of modernity.

One problem with this new modernity-focused analysis in globalization, which relies on a rather systemic notion of modernity as the key concept, is losing sight of real issues of differential power between different parts of the world in economics, in politics, and in cultural industries such as television. Some forms of cultural production, e.g., commercial television genres such as soap opera, could be analyzed either as forms of capitalist production or as manifestations of modern approaches to media. The two angles offer somewhat different insights. One problem with classic, neo-Marxist approaches, in contrast, is that they tend to reduce too many things to linear conceptions of political economic power (→ Political Economy of the Media).

References and Suggested Readings

1. Iwabuchi, K. (2002). Recentering globalization: Popular culture and Japanese transnationalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
2. Tomlinson, J. (1991). Cultural imperialism. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
3. Tomlinson, J. (1999). Globalization and culture. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Mood Management

Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick

Ohio State University

Mood-management theory (Zillmann 1988) has been proposed by Zillmann and Bryant and was initially called the ‘theory of affect-dependent stimulus arrangement.’ The core suggestion is that media users’ moods have a strong influence on media content choices because the individual aims to manage or, more specifically, optimize his or her feeling state. This motivation then drives what media content is selected, as different messages produce different effects on mood. This proposed pattern pertains to all media channels and genre types such as news, music, movies, or online content like → social media.

Mood-management processes involve three dimensions on which the individual’s feeling state can be described and that are also linked to mood-enhancing media choices. The first dimension relates to regulation of stress and boredom. Media messages are excellent means of lowering arousal. For instance, most people will find watching a peaceful wildlife documentary relaxing. On the other hand, many types of media content are designed to heighten arousal; for example, fast-paced rock music typically has this effect and might even be chosen for a workout for that reason (→ Emotional Arousal Theory; Excitation and Arousal). The second dimension, mood valence, looks at whether the media user is in a positive or negative mood. Negative feeling states call for improvement through selective media use, for example by watching a movie with a ‘guaranteed’ happy ending. When in positive moods, media users will try to maintain that state by choosing content that does not disrupt it and reinforces it instead. Finally, pertaining to the semantic affinity dimension, when in a negative feeling state, the individual will avoid all media portrayals that remind him or her of the source of the ongoing distress.

Mood-management theory also outlines the characteristics of media messages that are relevant for choices. The excitatory potential of a message relates to its capacity to either increase or decrease arousal levels. The absorption potential may have some overlap with the first aspect, yet does not fully converge with it. For example, a newscast with many display elements in the style of → CNN Headlines is more absorbing than a more traditional newscast with just a news anchor and very few additional elements. The hedonic valence of media content (e.g. news about a large-scale disaster vs pleasant news) will obviously affect whether it will be selected or avoided, depending on prevailing feeling state. Lastly, the semantic affinity is an aspect of the message that is very much related to the individual’s perspective and assessment of his/her situation. When the current mood is positive, semantic affinity might actually be welcome.

Although mood-management theory is applicable to choices of any media content type, it has gained the most prominence in the context of entertainment exposure. In fact, it can be seen as the overarching theory for the entertainment context (Knobloch-Westerwick, 2006) that can explain why we turn to a great variety of different entertainment media, designed to play on our emotions, and furthermore offers specific predictions about actual choices.

Two classical studies can indicate the approach of mood management studies. Bryant and Zillmann (1984) induced different levels of stress in their participants by having them perform tedious mechanical tasks or challenging test assignments under time pressure. Then, in a purportedly unrelated situation, participants were free to ‘surf’ some television channels on which pre-categorized programs, being either high or low in their excitatory potential, were shown. The provided TV set was set up to record the choices unobtrusively. The stressed participants spent more time on soothing programs, whereas the bored individuals allotted more time to the exciting programs. Meadowcroft and Zillmann (1987) examined whether the menstrual cycle influenced women’s reported preferences for TV genres. In a survey, female college students indicated their intention to watch various TV programs, presented in a list, on the same evening. At the end of the questionnaire, they were asked to report information regarding their menstrual cycle. Premenstrual and menstrual women showed higher interest for comedy than other females in the midst of their cycle. The authors concluded that women aim to overcome noxious mood states, resulting from hormonal phases, by watching comedy.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Bryant, J. & Zillmann, D. (1984). Using television to alleviate boredom and stress: Selective exposure as a function of induced excitational states. Journal of Broadcasting, 28(1), 1–20.
2. Knobloch-Westerwick, S. (2006). Mood management: Theory, evidence, and advancements. In J. Bryant & P. Vorderer (eds.), The psychology of entertainment. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 239–254.
3. Meadowcroft, J. M. & Zillmann, D. (1987). Women's comedy preferences during the menstrual cycle. Communication Research, 14(2), 204–218.
4. Reinecke, L., Tamborini, R., Grizzard, M., Lewis, R., Eden, A., & Bowman, N. D. (2012). Characterizing mood management as need satisfaction: The effects of intrinsic needs on selective exposure and mood repair. Journal of Communication, 62, 437–453.
5. Tamborini, R., Grizzard, M., Bowman, N. D., Reinecke, L., Lewis, R. J., & Eden, A. (2011). Media enjoyment as need satisfaction: The contribution of hedonic and nonhedonic needs. Journal of Communication, 61, 1025–1042.
6. Zillmann, D. (1988). Mood management through communication choices. American Behavioral Scientist, 31(3), 327–340.

Music Industry

C. Michael Elavsky

Pennsylvania State University

The music industry is a term most commonly deployed in reference to the activities of the four largest transnational record corporations – often designated as the ‘majors’ namely Sony, EMI (Electric and Music Industries), the Warner Music Group (WMG), and the Universal Music Group (UMG) – which collectively account for a dominant proportion of all legal commercial music sales globally (→ Sony Corporation; Time Warner Inc.). All of these corporations are umbrella organizations linking smaller music labels, subsidiaries, and supplementary organizations together through complex corporate ties to larger transnational → media conglomerates (→ Globalization of the Media). Emerging from a long series of mergers occurring over the past century, these music corporations wield significant influence over the contemporary global music market.

Consequently, many scholars point to the ways these corporations ‘control’ global music production, sustaining their position through the technological, political, and economic power they bring to bear on the ways music operates transnationally as culture and commodity. Other scholars, however, suggest that the complexities behind this term are not properly engaged within such arguments. Still others critically point to the ways in which the term ‘music industry’ has come to stand in for all global music practices, ignoring the significant ways music is produced, consumed, and circulated beyond the immediate logics and power of the majors . While debates on specific aspects of the power, identity, and future of these entities continue, their impact on the historical growth and development of music as a global commodity is not in question.

The switch to digital technologies as the industry standard in the 1980s generated dramatic shifts in the production and dissemination of music, stimulating unprecedented and global growth, with the industry recording an all-time-high profit of $40 billion in 1995. However, by 1998, industry dynamics were changing. Sales began to stagnate as the confluence of organized hard piracy networks, CD-R technology, the Internet, and peer-to-peer file sharing presented a dramatic, extensive, and sustained threat to industry profitability.

In light of virtually unabated music piracy and file sharing, the imminent demise of the CD and most specialized retail music stores, and shifts in practices and capabilities related to music production, consumption, and distribution, the majors were forced to aggressively pursue alternative income streams (e.g., commercial and television song placement) as a means to offset their losses.

The majors have struggled to adapt to the new media landscape, as real competitors have entered the market (e.g., iTunes and subscription-based offerings like Spotify). Although they have retained their ability to impact developments related to global music culture and commodities in general, scholars have begun to reconsider the complexities related to their contemporary situation and how the global dynamics regarding music are being reconfigured. For some, this means reconceptualizing the complexity of these organizations’ networks, procedures, and strategies on multiple levels, so as to ascertain a more intricate understanding of how they actually ‘dominate’ global music production, and also how the current global crisis for these corporations is related to the nexus of cultural identity, globalization processes, and neo-liberal policies and practices.

Others have begun to focus on how music is produced, used, and circulated transnationally within and beyond the reach and logics of the big four, suggesting that conceptions of the global music industry need to be broadened. Still others are considering how alternative spaces, innovative technologies, new products, and emerging policies are redefining the commercial use and value of music. As these research trajectories suggest, much work remains to be done with regard to understanding the emerging dynamics surrounding music as both symbolic culture and transnational commodity in relation to how the music industry – as a cultural industry – is globally organized.

References and Suggested Readings

1. Garofalo, R. & Chapple, S. (1977). Rock ’n’ roll is here to pay: The history and politics of the music industry. Chicago, IL: Nelson-Hall.
2. Gronow, P. & Saunio, L. (1998). An international history of the recording industry (trans. C. Moseley). London: Cassell.
3. Hesmondhalgh, D. (2007). The cultural industries, 2nd edn. London: Sage.
4. Negus, K. (1999). Music genres and corporate cultures. London: Routledge.
5. Wallis, R. & Malm, K. (1984). Big sounds from small peoples: The music industry in small countries. New York: Pendragon.
6. Wikstrom, P. (2010). The music industry: Music in the cloud. London: Polity.