Final Flashcards
(32 cards)
Functions of news media
- Surveillance: we use news for information about others and the world (news needs to be accurate and unbiased)
- Interpretation: translating complex matters into digestible content
- Socialization: how people learn to be political actors and other social norms
Hutchinson “fourth estate”
Media kept politicians in check and thus started the social responsibility model
Freedom of press is in danger because
- importance of press increases as communication increases and voice of the people decreases
- those who do not have access are not saving society
- the importance of press is increasing
Freedom of speech vs social responsibility of the media
objective paradigm
OP: defining principle of 20th cent. Journalism. (Allowed for good info and protected business interests)
- fact based
- reported both sides
- deferred to experts
- followed norms
News as a public good
- Non rivalrous: consumption beyond the first use adds only negligible costs
- Non-excludable: cannot be withheld from one without withholding from all
Old vs new media
- Transition from network television news to cable and Satellite tv
- Decrease of newspapers and increase of the internet
Old media: all news stations covered stories the same way (news was a service that wasn’t monetizable
New media: allow for the expression of individual partisan interests (news became a business)
Colbert report exp
Viewing comedy programs is correlated with higher levels of political knowledge
Watching the Colbert report increased
- the perceived amount of knowledge about superpacs
- actual knowledge about superpacs
- indirectly influenced perceptions of money in politics
Fake news
- Easy to create and mimic real news
- Created with the intent to affect people’s minds (different from entertainment)-
- Can be spread quickly through social media
I.e. programmatic ad buying (targeting specific demographics: sensational headlines/ do whatever it takes to get views)
How to cope with fake news
- Empower individuals to evaluate fake news they encounter ( fact checking and education)
- Structural change aimed at preventing exposure to fake news (SM platforms actively take fake news down, and collaborate with scholars to learn more about fake news)
Why do people believe fake news?
- Motivated reasoning: the unconscious tendency to seek info that is shaped by a preconceived bias that they have
- Information processing
Cultivation theory (gerbner)
Long term immersion in the world of media creates lasting effects
- Our reality is shaped by what we see on TV rather than school or family
- TV prepares us to live out the roles and behaviors we see on TV
- Mean world hypothesis: people who watch a lot of TV think the world is darker and more dangerous than it actually is
- overestimate chances of violence
- assume rising crime rates
- cyclical process (people go out less and watch more tv which makes them less likely to go out) - Cultivation is dependent on the extent to which the TV’s imagery dominates a person’s sense of info and also depends on direct experience
- Under representation of minority’s and women
- Mainstreaming: heavy viewing absorbs differences in perspectives which ordinarily stem from other factors (light-heavy viewing need not point in the same direction or involve all subgroups)
- Heavy viewers are more likely to be moderate. Democrats are less likely to be liberal and republicans less likely to be conservative
Mediating variable
Relationship between IV and DV exists but operates through 3rd variable
I.e. no main effect of media on eating disorders but…
- media displaces physical activity which leads to weight gain
- media exposes people to food content which increases fatty food consumption
- media disrupts sleep patterns which leads to weight gain
I.e. media image causes people to compare themselves to images which causes body dissatisfaction
Moderating variable
A variable that dictates the strength of the relationship between the IV and DV
-I.e. celebrity worship strengthened the relationship between media images and body dissatisfaction
I.e. level of political sophistication moderates the effects of citizen heroes on increasing democratic norms
Mass vs social media
Old media (1 to many model)
1. Few powerful voices-> subservient audience
2. One way
3. Limited choice
4 not customizable
4. Narrow focus on celebs and the powerful
5. Fear of one voice controlling what we hear
Social media
- 2 way flies from many people to many people
- User tailored
- Broad spectrum of voices
- Fear of too many voices/fake news
Stages of SM
- Many sharing: you broadcasting to many people (one way)
- Sharing: narrow messaging to individuals (dms)
- Connecting with interests
The imagined audience (Litt)
A mental representation of people whom we are communicating to (Our perceptions of audience Varys based on incomplete knowledge)
-roles of children and adults become homogenized by the info that people consume (children get older faster and adults stay younger)
Based on
- Structure: social norms based on social roles and contexts, the active audience and features of the site
- agency: motivation and skill for socially acceptable behavior:
- high self monitors are sensitive to external cues and imagine the broadest group as main audience
- low self monitors are have difficulty interpreting social cues and imagine the audience as a fictional group of like minded people
- social media motivation
- internet skill
Social media and comparison
We create reference groups that we compare ourselves against (SM allows us to spy and compare ourselves to others)
- More time on SM is correlated with greater unhappiness
- Everyday use is correlated with more loneliness
- Heavy use is linked to depression
para social relationships (Entertainment uses and gratifications) (Horton and wohl)
Para social relationships: one sided “interpersonal relationships” in which one party knows an oblivious 2nd party (I.e. audience members’ growing attachment to stars)
- personas: particular figures of a social scene presented by the media
1. Make intimacy with strangers
2. Offers a continuing relationship
3. Fans believe they know the person more than others do
4. Attempt to duplicate gestures of face to face gatherings
-instructs in patterns of conduct that one needs to understand and cope with others
Understanding enjoyment
- leisure patterns offer insights into society
- people are increasingly engaging in passive entertainment rather than active
- a large amount of people watch a small amount of people do things (fame)
News and news sharing terms (SM and mass influence)
- Selective exposure: purposive attention to media designed to avoid cog. Dissonance
- Confirmation bias: the tendency to search for and interpret info in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions (see what you expect to see
- Desirability bias: preference for and attention to evidence that supports our beliefs that we want to be true
- Familiarity bias: familiar info is favored over novel information.
- Viral tweets and popularity depend on how you identify yourself and what the ingroup/our group is
- SM created echo chambers and pushes us to the extremes
- Once a tragic event occurred there is a rush to frame and blame people
Voting study (SM AND mass inf.)
IV: social messages (encourages you to vote with friend pics and count of how many ppl voted) vs informational mobilization
DV: voting+ informational outcomes
Results; people in the social message group voted 2% higher than the info group
Emotional contagion (SM and mass influence)
People who got social messages for voting or saw someone in their network voting were more likely to vote
Experiments: manipulated timelines
- exp 1 and 2: if we see less positive posts On Our feed we will be less positive. If we see more positive posts on our feed we will be more positive
Digital vs physical relationships
Digital
- meet people based on interests
- at home/on device
- portable and durable
Physical
- meet people based on experiences
- at home, work, or 3rd places
- fixed and fleeting
SM and social capital
Social capital: the collective value of social networks and the inclinations that arise from these networks to do things for each other
- Bridging social capital: exists in weak ties and facilitated the spread of new info.
- Bonding social capital: exists in strong ties and facilitated substantial commitments
Experiment findings:
- the more “actual” Facebook friends, the more bridging social capital
- the more FB relationship grooming behaviors (doing things to stay in touch and create reciprocal relationships: I.e. signal attention, build trust, and create reciprocal expectations) the more bridging social capital
3 behaviors that bridge social capital
- Passive consumption of info through the news feed
- Broadcasting info through public posts
- Engaging in directed communication with another user
Psychology and media (health campaigns)
Need for sensation: the need for novel, complex and ambiguous stimuli
Need for cognition: the extent to which people engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activities
Message sensation value(MSV): the degree to which formal and content audio-visual features of a television message elicit sensory and emotional arousal.
Public service announcements
Cater to high and low senasation seeking audiences
- Short and sweet
- Lots of ads
- Clear persuasive purpose
- Lot riding on their success
- if the audience has the motivation and ability to process the message of a PSA then the logic and relevance of the argument become important (unsound arguments get rejected and create a boomerang effect) ( sound arguments can be ignored if the audience is distracted)
Gladwell reading (social movements)
Key takeaways
- In order to take out an establishment you have to be a hierarchy
- Need precision and discipline that isn’t offered by social media activism
- Weak ties only create small commitments but not real change
Opposition to gladwell reading
I.e. occupy Wall Street, maple spring and fight for $15
Social media
- amplifies offline actions
- exists as channels to popularize movements (goes around normal media)
- helps connect people to other like minded people in other protests
- offers opportunities for a new kind of activism
Likes
- are starting off points for further actions
- matter to brands and firms
I.e. times up movement: anti sexism campaign spanning multiple industries and firms
