Social Uses of Media (Media Effect Matrix)

Question 1

Domains

Answer 1

cognitive, affective, and behavioral

Question 2

Units

Answer 2

individuals, organizations, institutions, and culture

Question 3

Time frame

Answer 3

• short vs. long term - temporary vs. permanent

Question 4

Scope

Answer 4

universal vs. contingent

• Contingent media: will have an effect on only a segment of the population
• Ex) Advertisements for a weight loss pill will only effect those who want to reduce their weight.

Question 5

Sources

Answer 5

content-dependent vs. content-irrelevant

Question 6

criteria

Answer 6

intentional vs. unintentional outcomes (different (media) will have different kinds of effects on different people in different situations)

• Ex. Viewing a skinny model in a magazine may give a teenage girl an eating disorder, but a homeless man will be unaffected.

Question 7

Valkenburg & Peter’s DSMM

Answer 7

Proposition 1:

• • Dispositional: people have different personality dispositions that determine their susceptibility to media effects

Proposition 1:

• -Developmental: people are at different developmental stages
• • Social
• • Situational conditions

Prop. 2: Mediating mechanisms are cognitive, emotional, and physiological

Prop. 4: Reciprocal causal dynamics.

• The causal direction is bidirectional
• People incorporate and respond to media in a way that is a reflection of who/what they are.
• Replacing causal agency with that of the individuals.

Question 8

‘Television’ by Neil Postman

Answer 8

• Presents the world in a nonlinear pattern which is different from the presentation of the Enlightenment era.
• Need a commercial break.
• Logical reasoning needs to be light.
• Expectation for entertainment.
• Destroys media that is text-based
  *

Question 9

The media is the message.

Question 10

Hot media

Answer 10

appeals more directly to one sensory channel, doe snot require much audience involvement

Ex: film is ‘hot’ media, TV is ‘cold’

Question 11

The medium theory.. never goes away: Television

Answer 11

Televsion (electronic media)

• Removing barriers
• Exposing ‘secrets’ (Ex. learning about sex early on)
• Fostering the expectancy of ‘seeing’, that most people have seen something
  
  • Simulating proximity

Question 12

The medium theory.. never goes away: ‘No Sense of Place’ by Joshua Megrowitz

Answer 12

TV medium/electronic medium breaks time-space barriers

Question 13

The medium theory.. never goes away: “The Rise of Network Society” by Manuel Castells

Answer 13

• Society as a hierarchal structure made of interdependent parts
• Invidiuals are like ‘nodes’ on the network, highly interconnected

“The contemporary society may be describes as.. ‘replacing the antiquated metaphor of the machine with that of the network’”- Castells

Question 14

‘Understanding Media’ by Marshall McLuhan

Answer 14

• The media is the message.
• Media shapes the way in which we present/receive messages and understand the outside world.
• Film is a ‘hot’ media, tv is a ‘cold’ media
• Media attributes as casual agents

Question 15

The medium theory.. never goes away: Media Richness Theory (Robert²)

Answer 15

• Media varies in communicative capacity

And that media should allow us to:

• Ability to handle multiple informational cues simulatneously.
• Ability to facitate rapid feedback.
• Ability to establish a personal focus.
• Ability to utilize natural language.

Thus, face to face communication should be ideal because we utilize all 5 senses.

• It is instantaneous, reciprocal, and synchronizable

Question 16

James Gibson’s affordance theory

Answer 16

• Affordance refers to the interaction between actor and her enivronment via perceptions
• “the affordance of anything refers to combo of properties of its surfaces taken with reference to an animal, implies complementarily of the animal & environment”
• “Combination of features of media technology & ability of using those features in a media context”

Question 17

Gibson’s theory: Social affordances

Answer 17

• Potentials or possibilities for social interactions
  
  • “greet-ability”
  • “emotion-ability”
  • “coordinate-ability”–> coordinate subsequent activity

Question 18

Determinants of Affordance

Answer 18

• Affordance: a property of relationships determined by 3 sets of factors:
  
  • Technological attributes of media
  • Experiences/literacy of users
  • Contexts (cultural norms/physical configuration)

Question 19

Boase on Social Uses of Media (2008)

Answer 19

• Based in social affordance
• Central prop.: Individuals will use particular types of commun. media when there is a congruency between the opportunities that they provide and the characterstics of the ties with whom they are used to communicate.
• Central question: “To what extent does the use of each communication medium vary with personal network composition
• Methods: Asked the number of people in kinship ties, work-related, neighbors, and others.
• Results: The greater degree of network tie density, the more frequently you engage in personal interaction.
  
  • Email is not a preferred method.

Question 21

Relational Uses of TV

Answer 21

• Communication facilitation
• Affiliation/Avoidance
• Social Learning
• Competence/dominance

Question 22

Structural Uses of TV

Answer 22

• Environmental
• Regulative

Question 23

Communication facilitation (Relational uses of TV)

Answer 23

experience illustration, common ground, conversational entrance, anxiety reduction, agenda for talk, value clarification

Question 24

Affiliation/Avoidance (Relational Uses of TV)

Answer 24

physical and or verbal contact/neglect, family solidarity, family relaxant, conflict reduction, relational maintenance

Question 25

Social learning (Relational Uses of TV)

Answer 25

decision-making, behavioral modeling, comon ground, conversational entrance, legitimation, info dissemination, substitute schooling

Question 26

Competence/dominance (Relational Uses of TV)

Answer 26

role enactment, role enforcement, substitute role portrayal

Question 27

Environmental (Structural Uses of TV)

Answer 27

background noise, companionship, entertainment

Question 28

Regulative (Structural Uses of TV)

Answer 28

punctuation of time and activity, talk patterns, spatial markers

Question 29

Social Uses of Media: What do we use media for?

Answer 29

• Choices and constraints
• Reasons or goals
• Satisfaction/gratification

Question 30

Contraints Upon How much we use social media: The Geographics

Answer 30

• Most of the time we are moving around in small geographic area
• 93% average predictably in user mobility

Question 31

Contraints Upon How much we use social media: The Demographics

Answer 31

Young people phenomen in use of social media

Question 32

Summary (Social Uses of Media)

Answer 32

• Media vary in opportunities and possibilities.
• We are ‘anchored’ and confined’ geographically through social networks.
• We choose adn use
• We ‘integrate’ realizing ‘affordances’ of the media
• Social uses: in and for social networks, by and for social goals; sociality-centric

Question 33

Elihu “Map” of Media Effects

Answer 33

• ‘Media effects’- some aspects of some medium may operate as causal input, responsible for some outcome
• Kinds of communication studies:
  
  • Single unit
  • General unit
  • Economic & social structure of medium
  • General technological nature of medium
  • (elaborate on this)
    *

Question 35

Valkenburg & Peter: DSMM Study Design

Answer 35

• Media is a mediator between individual difference variables and outcomes of media use
• Cognitive: extent to which users invest cognitive effort to understand media content
• Emotional: reactions to media content
• Excitative: degree of physiological arousal in response to media
• Assumed media effects are most long lasting and evident when these ^ 3 things are high
• Hypothesis: media that is congruent with your predispositions is more likely to have an effect.