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I just explained that the belief in the all-powerful
media
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had fuelled academic research in to the topic of
mass communication.
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Although many anecdotes, like the Martian
Attack, seemed to indicate great effects,
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further scientific exploration actually failed to
prove this hypothesis.
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Many researchers now argued that the effects of
mass communications had been overestimated.
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Also the idea of a passive audience that is either
shot or injected was also rejected.
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Also the idea of a passive audience that is either
shot or injected was also rejected.
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World War I and later World War II propaganda
was again looked at in this light
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and scholars, like the influential psychologist
Carl Hovland,
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found that audience members were often not
passive at all
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but quite able to select messages and block
persuasive attempts.
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Especially when they were aware a forehand
that there was going to be a persuasion attempt
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this is the so called inoculation theory,
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the core premise of which is basically
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that a prepared audience is better able to resist
persuasion.
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Also they found that it was often difficult to prove
the power of media in reality
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because there are too many variables in real life
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to reliably ascertain the effect of one specific
variable like media influence.
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When Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet studied
the effects
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of the Roosevelt presidential campaign of 1940,
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they found that people were not swayed by the
campaign efforts.
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There was some influence
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but this had more to do with reinforcement of a
position someone already had
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than with actual change.
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Another element of the magic bullet theory was
debunked by this.
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Also the researchers found that people were in
fact influenced quite a lot,
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not by the media but by so called opinion
leaders.
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Opinion leaders are those who influence and
inform the people around them.
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Typically opinion leaders expose themselves to
media
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in order to be informed and reinforce their
standpoints with arguments.
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in order to be informed and reinforce their
standpoints with arguments.
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A so called two-step flow model was proposed
were people are influenced by opinion leaders.
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The media use of these opinion leaders was of
course very different
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than the old powerful media model would
suggest.
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They actively sought out media they wanted to
use,
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made selections based on their own opinions,
wants and needs.
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So basically they are quite powerful and not
easily manipulated at all.
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The powerful media paradigm was discarded
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and scholars like Lazarsfeld proposed a
‘minimal effects’ theory instead.
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Media are only one of many variables in a
situation,
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and often not the most influential one by far.
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People are more likely to be persuaded through
social means
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and therefore media use and influence should be
studied from this perspective.
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Not viewing the audience as uniform and passive
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but in fact taking into consideration audience
factors,
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seeing that effects can differ from person to
person and group to group.
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This approach can be characterized by a
famous quote from Berelson
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"Some kinds of communication, on some kinds
of issues,
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brought to the attention of some kinds of people,
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under some kinds of conditions, have some
kinds of effects."
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Although the minimal effects paradigm was
becoming more popular,
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two things happened that sparked a new popular
belief in the powerful media idea.
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Firstly we gradually learned more and more
about the Holocaust
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and the world needed theories that explained
how this horror could have happened
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and why so many had kept silent during the
reign of Hitler.
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Secondly a new mass medium quickly rose to
prominence,
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drastically changing the media landscape and
people’s daily lives.
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Television.