Social Uses of Media (Media Effect Matrix) Flashcards
(35 cards)
Domains
cognitive, affective, and behavioral
Units
individuals, organizations, institutions, and culture
Time frame
- short vs. long term - temporary vs. permanent
Scope
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.
Sources
content-dependent vs. content-irrelevant
criteria
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.
Valkenburg & Peter’s DSMM
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.

‘Television’ by Neil Postman
- 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
*

The media is the message.
Hot media
appeals more directly to one sensory channel, doe snot require much audience involvement
Ex: film is ‘hot’ media, TV is ‘cold’
The medium theory.. never goes away: Television
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
The medium theory.. never goes away: ‘No Sense of Place’ by Joshua Megrowitz
TV medium/electronic medium breaks time-space barriers
The medium theory.. never goes away: “The Rise of Network Society” by Manuel Castells
- 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
‘Understanding Media’ by Marshall McLuhan
- 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
The medium theory.. never goes away: Media Richness Theory (Robert2)
- 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

James Gibson’s affordance theory
- 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”
Gibson’s theory: Social affordances
- Potentials or possibilities for social interactions
- “greet-ability”
- “emotion-ability”
- “coordinate-ability”–> coordinate subsequent activity
Determinants of Affordance
- Affordance: a property of relationships determined by 3 sets of factors:
- Technological attributes of media
- Experiences/literacy of users
- Contexts (cultural norms/physical configuration)
Boase on Social Uses of Media (2008)
- 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.
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Results: The greater degree of network tie density, the more frequently you engage in personal interaction.
- Email is not a preferred method.
Relational Uses of TV
- Communication facilitation
- Affiliation/Avoidance
- Social Learning
- Competence/dominance
Structural Uses of TV
- Environmental
- Regulative
Communication facilitation (Relational uses of TV)
experience illustration, common ground, conversational entrance, anxiety reduction, agenda for talk, value clarification
Affiliation/Avoidance (Relational Uses of TV)
physical and or verbal contact/neglect, family solidarity, family relaxant, conflict reduction, relational maintenance
