Welcome to Comms 411

Welcome to Comms 411, Spring Term 2012. During the course of this term our goal will be to explore the effects of mass media on institutions and individuals within modern society. In this class, we will explore the effects literature and relevant effects theories by answering questions about how the media influence our lives. The goal of this class is to create an ongoing dialogue among class members that will give us the opportunity to engage in lively debates and discussions.

I will use this blog space to communicate with you and to initiate our discussions. Please log on to this blog to obtain your class preparation assignments several days in advance of our class meetings. I will pose a series of questions that will require you to engage in some fieldwork and then write about your experiences. Please post your response (which should be in the form of a short essay of about 300 words or so) as a comment to my posting. You will have the opportunity to read what your classmates are writing and I would encourage you to respond to their comments as well. Please post your comment no later than 3 p.m. on the afternoon of the day prior to our class meeting. All of this is explained in the Course Syllabus, which is available through the BYU Learning Suite.

I'm looking forward to learning with you this term.

May 23 Notes

Summary info for those who responded to my blog question:


Everyone said the Internet was the primary source


Twitter
Facebook
CNN.com
FoxNews.com
USAToday.com
RealClearPolitics.com
Drudgereport.com
reddit.com
npr.org
NYTimes.com
WSJ.com
HuffingtonPost
MSN.com
Yahoo News
Local Media websites
Politico
Parents
Word of Mouth
Radio

Important Issues of the Day:


Economy/Debt Crisis
Election
Health Care
Foreign Policy
LGBT Social Issues
Foreign Policy
Celebrity News


Topic #1: Media Bias vs. Media Objectivity


Question: Is there such a thing as media objectivity?

"Subjective" stages in news gathering/collecting/reporting:

1. Decision to cover one story over another (gatekeeping)
2. Reporter's scanning of event/story upon arrival or use of press materials supplied by public relations agent
3. Reporter's decision of who to interview and what questions to ask
4. Reporter's note taking process
5. Editor's decision on space/time allotted for story
6. Reporter's decision on what constitutes the story--what to include, what to leave out
7. Packaging/production of the story

Question: What does Third Person Effect Hypothesis tell us about audience response? Is there a "vast right wing" or "vast left wing" conspiracy?

Question: What happens when news is viewed as a commodity? When the success or failure or a story is based on "hits"? Is news now about appealing to a particular market segment rather than simply informing?

Topic #2: What do the Theory of Cognitive Dissonance and the Selectivity Hypotheses inform our conversation?

Occurs when we are presented with new information that is inconsistent or dissonant with how we have cognitively organized what we think we know about that particular topic (think of my file folder, cognitive complexity example from our earlier discussions).

Festinger (1957) argues that we constantly are in the process of seeking cognitive balance or consistency and go to great lengths to avoid dissonance. As a result, we engage in the following stragegies:


  • Change one or more of our cognitive elements
  • Modify our behavior
  • Devalue the importance of one of the elements
  • Seek additional consonant elements to support our beliefs (question the info that creates the dissonance)




From Festinger:


Cognitive dissonance, “being psychology uncomfortable, will motivate the person to try to reduce dissonance and achieve consonance” and “…in addition to trying to reduce it, the person will actively avoid situations and information which would likely increase the dissonance.”



The Selectivity Hypothesis (Sears and Freedman) tells us how this might work:

Selective Attention


  • Systematic bias in audience composition
  • Congruency with our opinions and attitudes
  • Preference for supportive information


Selective Perception

  • Cognitive processing, ordering, and structuring of information


Selective Retention

  • A bi-product of perceptive processes
  • Memory and recall



Topic #3: Our "Talking Head"  Culture what does that mean?

Question: What are the implications for public discussion? public civility? Public debate?

Question: Does our talking head culture have its roots in the television talk show culture?

In 1988 Herald Rivera hosted a show called the "Hate Mongers." His guests include white supremacists, Black activists, and Jewish activists. The audience happened to be full of skin heads. Click on the link to see what happened.  



Agenda Setting Theory

Introduced by McCombs and Shaw after two groundbreaking studies of the presidential elections in 1968 and 1972.

This theory focuses on how the media influence our perceptions of what is important or significant.

Level 1--general importance of topics
Level 2--how those topics are "framed" in the media might have greater influence on our opinions
Level 3--who influences the media agenda: the role of social media and "agenda velocity" or the concept of "trending"

Agenda Setting Theory Video Clip

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