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I.
Conducting Social
Scientific
Media Research.
Most
media
research
employs
the
scientific
method
to st
udy m
edia’s impact
on h
uman c
haracteristics such a
s
learning, attitudes, aggression, and voting habits.
Chapter 15
Social Scientific and Cultural Approaches to Media
Research
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Chapter Opener: What power does media, especially social media, have on our culture and
on individuals in our society? We rely on t he media to provide information and opinions but
how do we ensure individual voices continue to be heard?
Early Media Research Methods
In t he n ineteenth century, philosophers analyzed the m edia u sing moral and political
arguments, but the scientific approaches to mass media research emerged in the late
1920s and early 1930s.
A. Propaganda Analysis. After World War I, researchers began studying how
governments used propaganda to advance the war effort.
II. Social
Scientific
Research
Media
researchers
used
behavioral
science
to
understand
“Who
says
what
to
whom
with
what
effect?”
A. Early
Models
of
Media
Effects.
Between
the
1930s
and
the
1970s,
media
researchers
developed
several
theories
about
how m
edia
affect
individuals’
behavior.
1. Hypodermic
Needle.
This
theory,
also
known
as
the
magic
bullet
theory,
suggests the
media
“shoot”
their messages
directly into unsuspecting victims.
2. Minimal
Effects.
This
model,
also
known
as
the
limited effects model, argues
that media usually reinforce existing behaviors and attitudes rather than
change them.
3. Uses
and
Gratifications.
This
model
suggests
that
people
are
not
passive
recipients
of
media b
ut
use t
hem
to
satisfy v
arious
needs.
B.
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III.
IV.
C. Contemporary Media Effects Theories. By the 1960s, researchers at the first
university departments of mass communication had begun developing new
theories about how media affect people.
1. Social Learning Theory. This theory suggests a link between violent media
programs and aggressive behavior.
2. Agenda–Setting Theory. This theory suggests that the media tell us what to
think about—set the agenda for—rather than tell us what to think.
3. The Cultivation Effect Theory. This theory suggests that heavy television
viewing leads people to view the world in ways that are consistent with the
portrayals they see on television.
Cultural Approaches to Media Research
In the 1 960s, a b ody of research emerged that involves interpreting written and visual
“texts” or artifacts as symbols that contain cultural, historical, and political meaning.
A. Early Developments in Cultural Studies Media Research. In Europe, media
scholars study the media from the perspective of literary or cultural critics rather
than of experimental or survey researchers.
B. Contemporary Cultural Studies Approaches. Cultural research investigates daily
experience, focusing especially on how some groups have been marginalized
throughout history.
1. Textual Analysis. This method involves the close reading and interpretation of
Media Research in a Democratic Society
Critics of academic research charge that it has little practical application to everyday
life, but in recent years, many academics have actively sought to circulate the most
important new ideas to the larger culture.
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Informal, unscientific p ublic s urveys make f or interesting stories in newspapers, radio,
and television, but they are the bane of social scientists. These informal polls often have
participants call in to one of two telephone numbers to register a yes or a no on issues.
The problem with these surveys is that the callers do not accurately represent the
population. Usually, only the most adamant of people call in, and they may call in
multiple times to register their opinion.
Detail the four influential areas of early media research: propaganda analysis, public
opinion research, social psychology studies, and marketing research.
LECTURE TOPICS
1.
2. Explain the strengths and limitations—with examples—of experimental research,
survey research, and content analysis.
3. Discuss the usefulness of academic media research to the culture at large. Also note
why some media research is understood as inaccessible (see Lecture Spin–Offs).
LECTURE SPIN–OFFS
Public Opinion Research
•
• Whereas a regular poll normally samples between one thousand and three thousand
people, tracking polls depend on a smaller polling sample of about four hundred people,
• Even if polls have become more accurate over the years, they by no means have a
perfect track record, and always exist within “margins of error” (see a lso the d iscussion
of polling during the 2016 U.S. presidential election below). As Lori Robertson writes
in the American Journalism Review, “Imagine a radio newscast that included: ‘George
W. Bush holds a narrow lead over Al Gore in the latest Zogby poll, 48 percentage points
to 45. But with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points, this really means
Gore could have the lead. Or it could be tied. Or Bush could be leading 50 to 43. And
with a confidence level of 95, there’s a 5 percent chance that this poll is just plain
wrong.’”
180
people who leave the house to go to work. Some pollsters blame the increase in
telemarketing for increasing public suspicion against unsolicited calls. Polling via the
Internet also raises concerns because re spondents are s elf–selected and can fill out
questionnaires multiple times.
• Substantial discussion after the 2016 U.S. presidential election centered around the
“failure” of polls to predict Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton. In May 2017,
the American Association for Public Opinion Research issued a detailed report
exploring the election’s polling results. As the report’s Executive Summary notes, “The
2016 presidential election was a jarring event for polling in the United States. Pre–
election polls fueled high–profile predictions that Hillary Clinton’s likelihood of
winning the presidency was about 90 percent. . . . When Donald Trump was declared
Early Models of Media Effects
You may want to consider using a clip from the 1964 video “Perversion for Profit” to
illustrate the hypodermic–needle model. Financed by Charles Keating (of Savings and Loan
scandal fame), the film includes a clip telling viewers that exposure to sexually explicit
magazines is the direct path to truancy and homosexuality. In his efforts to curb
Survey Research
• Interpreting dated survey information and using poorly written survey questions resulted
in the Roper poll’s most embarrassing moment. In 1948, Roper polls indicated that
Thomas E. Dewey would beat President Harry Truman for the nation’s highest office.
Unfortunately, Roper’s Election Day forecast was based on polls conducted in August,
many weeks before the November vote. Republicans, who presumed that their
candidate, Dewey, would win, were complacent, whereas Truman’s campaign worked
vigorously until the end, with the result that Truman was reelected.
• In 1975, researchers at the U niversity of Cincinnati conducted a f amous polling
experiment in which they asked a random sample of Cincinnati residents if the “1975
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• In his book Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), Robert D. Putnam concluded, based on survey data,
that Americans had become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, social
• In a 1999 study on female body image, Alison Field, an epidemiologist at Brigham and
Women’s Hospital and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, surveyed 548
girls in grades five through twelve in a working–class suburb near Boston. More than
two–thirds said that their idea of the perfect body shape was greatly influenced by what
they saw in magazines, and almost half said that they would diet to attain that look.
Only 29 percent were actually overweight.
• Pew Research Center puts out many survey–based reports about Internet and technology
research each year. (In 2017, publications included reports on truth and misinformation
online, automation in everyday life, the Internet of things, and cybersecurity.) The
Social Learning
• One of the earliest studies of the correlation between TV viewing and aggression was
conducted in the 1960s by psychologist Albert Bandura. The most famous of them is the
“Bobo doll” experiment. In this experiment, individual preschool children watched a
short film that showed graduate students playing aggressively with toys, including
climbing on an inflated plastic punching doll (Bobo the Clown), hitting its nose, and
yelling, “Socko!” Each child was then taken to a playroom filled with toys, including a
Bobo doll. Observers recorded the child’s play for ten minutes from behind a one–way
mirror. The play behavior of children who saw the film was then compared with that of
what the hovering researcher is looking for. (Rhodes noted that in one study,
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watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and Sesame Street supposedly tripled the
aggressiveness of preschool kids.)
•
A famous study published in 1992 in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical
Association found a correlation between the number of murders in the United States and
Canada between 1945 and 1974 (beginning with the introduction of TV) and the
number of murders in white South Africa, which introduced television after 1975. The
•Another famous study based its conclusions—that kids who watch violent television
shows are more likely to become rapists or murderers than those who do not—on the
outcomes of three boys in a study group of 145.
•In 2000, two studies by university researchers were p ublished by the A merican
Psychological Association that linked video games like Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, and
Mortal Kombat to real–life aggression.
•The first study involved 227 college students at Iowa State University. They
completed a survey about aggressive behaviors in their past, their video–game
playing habits, and their grades. The study reported two key findings. First, students
who played more violent video games in junior high and high school engaged in
more aggressive behavior. Second, the amount of time spent playing video games in
the past was associated with lower academic grades in college.
•The second study involved 210 college students who played either the violent
Wolfenstein 3D or the nonviolent Myst. The study reported that students who played
the violent game were more prone to punish the opponent in a subsequent game
•In 2007, the F CC finally released a re port on TV violence a nd its impact on kids, three
years after it was commissioned. To many, the report was a disappointment in that it
was extremely vague. For example, the report offered little direction as to what the FCC
counted as “excessively violent programming.” There was also little evidence to support
how “violent” TV programming influences or hurts children. The report cited research
•Research from the Culture and Media Institute, which has a mission to “preserve and
help restore America’s culture, character, traditional values, and morals against the
assault of the liberal media elite, and to promote fair portrayal of social conservatives
and religious believers in the media,” put out a study in 2007 that linked TV watching to
decaying moral values.
According to the study, those who watch television for four or more hours a day are
less committed to character virtues such as honesty and charity and are more permissive
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The Cultivation Effect
According to Gerbner et al., representations on television overestimate the numbers of
lawyers and physicians and other professional or management workers in American society
and underestimate blue–collar, sales, and clerical workers. Television severely
underrepresents young people, the elderly, married people, and adults who wear eyeglasses.
Contributing to the cultivation of a “mean–world syndrome” are Gerbner’s findings that
Media Research and Democracy
•
An excerpt from New York University physics professor Alan Sokal’s phony jargon–
riddled parody follows:
Here my aim is to carry these deep analyses one step further, by taking account of
recent developments in quantum gravity: the e merging branch of physics in which
Heisenberg’s quantum mechanics and Einstein’s general relativity are at once
synthesized and superseded. In quantum gravity, as we shall see, the space–time
manifold ceases to exist as an objective physical reality; geometry becomes
•Harvard philosophy professor Cornel West is very much a public intellectual. He has
recorded a ra p album, makes regular appearances on TV shows, and writes for
magazines like Spin. Moreover, he appeared in Matrix Reloaded as a wise counselor of
Zion, delivering the line, “Comprehension is not requisite for cooperation.” West calls
himself an “intellectual freedom f ighter.”
•Some other public intellectuals:
•Kembrew McLeod (University of Iowa) has carried out such public pranks as
claiming the copyright to the term “Freedom of Expression” a nd actually suing
184
•Marvin Olasky is editor of World magazine, a Christian newsmagazine. Olasky’s
book The Tragedy of American Compassion (1992) was an important work in
stimulating welfare reform in the 1990s and in the development of the
“compassionate conservatism” political philosophy.
•Melissa Harris–Perry (Wake Forest University) has written about race, class, and
politics for the Nation and also hosted a news and opinion show for MSNBC.
MEDIA LITERACY DISCUSSIONS AND EXERCISES
IN BRIEF: MEDIA EFFECTS RESEARCH
Consider the incidents outlined in the chapter opener, as well as any other recent media
stories about violence and social issues. Discuss the following questions in class: What
power do the mass media, including social media, have over individuals and society? How
to do the media contribute to the dissemination of information and opinions? Does media
effects research support the charge that mass media should be held responsible for tragic
instances of online radicalization and copycat behavior? How would you balance the First
Amendment free–expression rights of the mass media with issues of social and moral
responsibility?
IN DEPTH: HOW TO APPROACH MEDIA RESEARCH
The purpose of this project is to extend students’ critical approach to media research. For
the following assignment, have students comparatively analyze methodological approaches
introduced in this chapter: a more social scientific method (such as experiments, surveys,
content analysis, or a creative combination thereof) and a cultural approach (such as textual
analysis, audience study, political economy study, or a creative combination thereof). Ask
students to investigate the following argument (they can investigate other arguments as
well): College students are less informed about current news events than their parents are.
1. Description. Describe how you could best investigate this argument using first a social
scientific method and then a cultural approach. Explain fully how each study would be
developed, step–by–step.
2. Analysis. Look at completed plans of study using each of the two methodological
approaches, noting similarities and differences. Also consider each methodology in
terms of the potential breadth and depth of findings.
3. Interpretation. What kinds of questions are certain to be answered by each or both
studies? How much does the way the research question or argument is stated determine
the best methodological approach? What kind of approach seems to offer more definite,
conclusive answers? Which approach offers more of a broad, big–picture point of view?
185
current events? How can students find more time in their day to learn about current
events?
CLASSROOM MEDIA RESOURCES
VIDEOS/DVDS/CDS
Audience and Feedback (1997, 28 minutes). This program explores the c haracteristics that
define a desirable audience, the history of audience ratings, and the ways in which
Dream Deceivers (1992, 60 minutes). The documentary’s producers interviewed members
of Judas Priest; the parents of the teenagers who shot themselves after listening to Judas
Priest music; and one of the teens, James Vance, who was disfigured by a self–inflicted
gunshot wound to the face. It is available a t Hulu.com and other outlets.
Game Over: Gender, Race, and Violence in Video Games (2000, 43 minutes). This video
offers a dialogue about the complex and controversial topic of video–game violence. It
is designed to encourage students to think critically about the video games they play.
WEB SITES
186
FURTHER READING
Berube, Michael. “Pop Goes the Academy: Cult Studs Fight the Power.” Village Voice
Literary Supplement, April 1992.
Bird, S. Elizabeth. For Enquiring Minds: A Cultural Study of Supermarket Tabloids.
Knoxville: U of Tennessee P, 1992.
Carey, James W., and Stuart G. Adam. Communication as Culture. New York: Routledge,
2009.
Czitrom, Daniel J. Media and the American Mind: From Morse to McLuhan. Chapel Hill: U
of North Carolina P, 2004.
Denzin, Norman K. and Yvonna S. Lincoln, eds. The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative
Research. 4th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2011.
Dines, Gail, and Jean M. Humez. Gender, Race, and Class in Media a Critical Reader. Los
Angeles: Sage, 2015.
187
———. Public Opinion. New York: Macmillan, 1922.
McCombs, Maxwell, and Donald Shaw. “The Agenda–Setting Function of Mass Media.”
Public Opinion Quarterly 36, no. 2 (1972): 176–187.
Newcomb, Horace. TV: The Most Popular Art. Garden City, NY: Anchor, 1974.
O’Hehir, Andrew. “The Myth of Media Violence.” Salon, March 17, 2005,
http://www.salon.com/2005/03/18/media_271/.
Pauly, John. “A Beginner’s Guide to Doing Qualitative Research in Mass Communication.”
Journalism Monographs 125 (February 1991).
Rogers, Everett M. A History of Communication Study: A Biographical Approach. New
York: Free Press, 1994.
Scholle, David, and Stan Denski. Media Education and the (Re)Production of Culture.
Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 1994.
Schramm, Wilbur, Jack Lyle, and Edwin Parker. Television in the Lives of Our Children.
Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 1961.
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Mass Communication Video Resources
ADVERTISING: HISTORY
The 30–Second President (1984, 55 minutes). Bill Moyers examines the role of advertising
in politics in the twentieth century, providing numerous examples of political ads.
Available from various sources.
The AD and the Ego (1997, 57 minutes). This video traces advertising’s development as a
mass medium, offers a comprehensive examination of ads in American consumer
Sell and Spin: A History of Advertising (2000, 100 minutes). Explores the techniques that
have pushed everything from patent medicines to Volkswagens; revisits the slogans,
jingles, and catch lines that have become part of our culture; and presents comments
Vintage Commercials (1950s and 1960s, 60 minutes). Features many celebrity stars, such as
Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore, Andy Griffith and
Don Knotts, Danny Thomas and Jean Hagen; also includes the Flintstones smoking
cigarettes, Bugs Bunny drinking orange juice, and a cigarette company claiming that
“you’ll feel better” and that “coughs due to smoking disappear” when using its product.
Vintage Commercials II (1950s and 1960s, 60 minutes). Features Buster Keaton, the Three
Stooges, Jack Benny, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Louise Lasser, Steve Allen, Jay
North, Anita Bryant, Lucie Arnaz, Vivian Vance, Ernie Kovacs, John Cameron Swayze,
Jack Somack, the Flintstones, Bugs Bunny, Bucky Beaver, and a peanut butter
commercial that suggests spreading it on baked ham. Also includes some foreign
commercials and a special segment from the 1960s featuring Josephine the Plumber,
189
ADVERTISING: PRODUCTION
The Best of Broadcast Commercials (1991–1993). Nine collections of television
commercials, including prize–winning advertisements from the United States and
advertisements aimed at French and Hungarian audiences: From Scooters to Fryers
(1992, 62 minutes); From Famine to Feast (1991, 55 minutes); From Winecoolers to
Greenpeace (1991, 58 minutes); Sneakers, Laptops, and the Homeless (1993, 76
minutes); The Natural Dog and the Tango Tale (1993, 62 minutes); From Cookies to
Cornflakes (1993, 58 minutes); Ads on the Former Socialist Screen (1992, 58 minutes);
Sparkling: Clean, Gems, Water (1992, 58 minutes); and French Style in Ads (1992, 58
minutes). Producers, directors, copywriters, and agency directors are also interviewed.
ADVERTISING: CULTURE
30 Second Spots: TV Commercials for Artists (1982, 15 minutes). These “anticommercials”
feature portraits of avant–garde performers John Cage, Robert Ashley, Bill T. Jones,
Steve Reich, Phillip Glass, Laurie Anderson, and Nam June Paik. Available on
YouTube.
Advertising and the End of the World (1998, 50 minutes). Focusing on the world of
commercial images, Professor Sut Jhally asks some basic questions about the cultural
messages emanating from this market–based view of the world. Distributed by the
190
tandem with promotion to doctors. Distributed by the Media Education Foundation,
Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood (2007/2008, 72 minutes). With
virtually no government or public outcry, the multibillion–dollar youth marketing
industry has been able to use the latest advances in psychology, anthropology, and
neuroscience to transform American children into one of the most powerful and
profitable consumer demographics in the world. Distributed by the Media Education
BOOKS: HISTORY
The History of Print (1997, 30 minutes). This video illustrates the evolution of print culture
and notes print’s influence on cultural changes in Europe and the United States. The
program also evaluates the impact of new technologies on print culture. Distributed by