In view of the preponderance of published research on the effects of the communication media, it is astounding, if not disconcerting, how little attention has been given to the systematic examination of the duration of these effects, and, as a result, how little is known about their duration. Such apparent neglect does not necessarily reflect
The established history of media effects research is characterized by a series of phases marked by fundamental paradigm shifts (see McQuail 1977, 72 –74; 2005, 457– 462; Lowery & DeFleur 1983, 22 –29; Severin & Tankard 2001, 262 –268; Baran & Davis 2006, 8 –17). Each of these phases is associated with particular concepts, researchers
The study of media effects has driven mass communication research for most of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Scholars have developed, tested, and supported various theories of media effects. The key to this research is uncovering the explanation for the way mass media exposure translates into effects. Over the history of our field, the study
Twenty-first-century mass communication scholars rarely question the existence of media effects. Research has presented significant and consistent evidence that the mass media have noticeable and meaningful effects. Evidence comes not only from the accumulation of the body of different studies, but from the various meta-analyses that organize various research studies and combine their findings to
As early as 1974, Ball-Rokeach presented the first in a series of papers that would unfold the concepts and assumptions of media system dependency (MSD) theory (Ball-Rokeach 1974). The paper was titled “The information perspective.” Its basic premise was that media effects flow from the information resources of the media system that are implicated in
In the 1940s, Paul F. Lazarsfeld defined international communication as a study of the “processes by which various cultures influence each other” (Lazarsfeld 1976, 485). The term culture has been defined in a variety of ways over the years. An all-encompassing definition of culture was given by Kroeber: culture “is a way of habitual acting
The mass media can be the major influence on the adoption of an idea after the general public begins to become aware. Initially, an idea spreads through limited social networks, with members exchanging information in formats ranging from face-to-face discussions to blogs on the Internet. Such interactivity means that participants are actively engaged in the
Emotions are commonly understood as a complex of interactive entities encompassing subjective and objective factors and consisting of affective, cognitive, conative, and physiological components. The affective component includes the subjective experience of situations, which is connected to feelings of arousal, pleasure, or dissatisfaction. The cognitive component refers to how situations relevant to emotions are perceived
The capacity for media messages to induce fear has been the object of scholarly inquiry since at least the 1930s when the Payne Fund Studies launched the first systematic effort to study the impact of media on children and adolescents. As part of that effort, Herbert Blumer (1933) found that 93 percent of the children
The term “privatization” refers to the transfer of property and/or operations from state or public ownership and control into private hands. Among the principal reasons given to justify privatization is that private ownership and operation make a company perform more efficiently because its managers will be financially obligated to make the company accountable to shareholders.