mass-communication-theory

262 Section 4 Contemporary Mass Communication Theory
NEW DIRECTIONS IN AUDIENCE EFFECTS RESEARCH: THE RISE
OF MODERATE-EFFECTS THEORIES
moderate-effects
theories
Mass communication
theories
that conceptualize
media as capable
of inducing
important effects
under certain
conditions
informationprocessing
theory
Theory that uses
mechanistic analogies
to describe
and interpret how
people deal with
all the stimuli
they receive
elaboration likelihood
model
Model of informationprocessing
that seeks to
explain the level
of elaboration, or
effort, brought to
evaluating
messages
The remaining theories covered in this chapter and in the next two chapters continue
the tradition of audience effects research that initially led to the development
of the limited-effects perspective. Each of these theories moves beyond understandings
of effects common in the 1960s and 1970s. As in the 1950s, most are to some
extent grounded in psychological concepts and notions about psychological processes.
In discussing each we have indicated how it builds on—and moves beyond—
earlier effects notions. All are middle-range theories—they integrate many findings
from previous research. They are referred to as moderate-effects theories because
they conceptualize media as capable of inducing important effects under certain conditions.
For example, if certain routine media uses persist over a long period of time,
there could be cumulative effects—effects could keep building up until they become
fairly strong.
Most of these theories do take into account audience activity, but they often
don’t assign a central role to it. Some of these theories view audience activity
as mostly routinized and habitual rather than consciously planned. Activity is
conceptualized as one of many audience attributes mediating between exposure
to media content and the effects resulting from this exposure. These theories
recognize that conscious use of media can enable people to moderate or control
media effects. But there are many other things that could be even more important
in moderating or limiting effects. In general, these theories retain some of the
early behaviorist skepticism concerning people’s ability to consciously control
their behavior to achieve or avoid specific media effects. Our discussion of
current audience effects research is not exhaustive. Numerous books (Bryant and
Oliver, 2009; Harris, 2009; Perloff, 2010, Sparks, 2006; Preiss, 2007) provide
in-depth discussions of this literature. Our intent here is to provide examples of
some of the most interesting and best-developed theories created by postpositive
effects researchers.
Effects research has long been categorized by whether it involves one of
the three major types of effects: cognitive, affective, and behavioral. Each of the theories
we have chosen to look at focus on one of these types of effects. Cognitive
effects involve knowledge or information—do people know more after being
exposed to media? Affective effects involve feelings—are people’s feelings influenced
by media? Behavioral effects involve actions—do people act differently after exposure
to media? We will begin by looking at a theory focusing on cognitive effects—
information-processing theory. We put it first because it effectively illustrates the
basic strengths and limitations of the effects theories currently developed by postpositivists.
Information-processing theory is a middle-range theory integrating a
myriad of empirical findings. It explains why most of the information provided by
media is screened out. It also explains why certain bits and pieces of this information
are plucked out and integrated into the cognitive maps we use to negotiate the social
world.
After information-processing theory, we look at the elaboration likelihood
model (ELM), a way of understanding how individual aspects such as personal
interest and relevance can lead to more or less information-processing effort, and
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