Introduction to Communication Science week 3: 3.5 Minimal effects

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Transcript of all Week 3 videos: https://d396qusza40orc.cloudfront.net/commscience/transcripts%2FTranscript_Week_3%20Coursera.pdf

This lecture in .webm: http://d396qusza40orc.cloudfront.net/commscience/recoded_videos%2F3.5.a7cb2949a4f69ccfc6ab04c64d1be7da.webm

2. In the Coursera site, but apparently unaffected by the login block, for this lecture:

Subtitle text: https://class.coursera.org/commscience-001/lecture/subtitles?q=51_en&format=txt

Video mp4: https://class.coursera.org/commscience-001/lecture/download.mp4?lecture_id=51
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Week 3 description:
The linear effect-oriented approach
In week three, the linear effect-oriented approach is discussed and how it developed in the twentieth century. Evolving from a belief in all-powerful effects after World War I to a more nuanced negotiated effects perspective in the sixties.

I just explained that the belief in the all-powerful
media

had fuelled academic research in to the topic of
mass communication.

Although many anecdotes, like the Martian
Attack, seemed to indicate great effects,

further scientific exploration actually failed to
prove this hypothesis.

Many researchers now argued that the effects of
mass communications had been overestimated.

Also the idea of a passive audience that is either
shot or injected was also rejected.

Also the idea of a passive audience that is either
shot or injected was also rejected.

World War I and later World War II propaganda
was again looked at in this light

and scholars, like the influential psychologist
Carl Hovland,

found that audience members were often not
passive at all

but quite able to select messages and block
persuasive attempts.

Especially when they were aware a forehand
that there was going to be a persuasion attempt

this is the so called inoculation theory,

the core premise of which is basically

that a prepared audience is better able to resist
persuasion.

Also they found that it was often difficult to prove
the power of media in reality

because there are too many variables in real life

to reliably ascertain the effect of one specific
variable like media influence.

When Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet studied
the effects

of the Roosevelt presidential campaign of 1940,

they found that people were not swayed by the
campaign efforts.

There was some influence

but this had more to do with reinforcement of a
position someone already had

than with actual change.

Another element of the magic bullet theory was
debunked by this.

Also the researchers found that people were in
fact influenced quite a lot,

not by the media but by so called opinion
leaders.

Opinion leaders are those who influence and
inform the people around them.

Typically opinion leaders expose themselves to
media

in order to be informed and reinforce their
standpoints with arguments.

in order to be informed and reinforce their
standpoints with arguments.

A so called two-step flow model was proposed
were people are influenced by opinion leaders.

The media use of these opinion leaders was of
course very different

than the old powerful media model would
suggest.

They actively sought out media they wanted to
use,

made selections based on their own opinions,
wants and needs.

So basically they are quite powerful and not
easily manipulated at all.

The powerful media paradigm was discarded

and scholars like Lazarsfeld proposed a
‘minimal effects’ theory instead.

Media are only one of many variables in a
situation,

and often not the most influential one by far.

People are more likely to be persuaded through
social means

and therefore media use and influence should be
studied from this perspective.

Not viewing the audience as uniform and passive

but in fact taking into consideration audience
factors,

seeing that effects can differ from person to
person and group to group.

This approach can be characterized by a
famous quote from Berelson

"Some kinds of communication, on some kinds
of issues,

brought to the attention of some kinds of people,

under some kinds of conditions, have some
kinds of effects."

Although the minimal effects paradigm was
becoming more popular,

two things happened that sparked a new popular
belief in the powerful media idea.

Firstly we gradually learned more and more
about the Holocaust

and the world needed theories that explained
how this horror could have happened

and why so many had kept silent during the
reign of Hitler.

Secondly a new mass medium quickly rose to
prominence,

drastically changing the media landscape and
people’s daily lives.

Television.