mass-communication-theory

INSTANT ACCESS
Information-Processing Theory
Strengths Weaknesses
1. Provides specificity for what is generally considered
routine, unimportant behavior
2. Provides objective perspective on learning;
mistakes are routine and natural
3. Permits exploration of a wide variety of
media content
4. Produces consistent results across a wide
range of communication situations and settings
schemas
More or less
highly structured
sets of categories
or patterns; sets
of interrelated
conceptual
categories
Chapter 9 Audience Theories: Uses, Reception, and Effects 267
1. Is too oriented toward the micro-level
2. Overemphasizes routine media consumption
3. Focuses too much on cognition, ignoring
such factors as emotion
1989; Graber, 1987; Gunter, 1987; Robinson and Davis, 1990; Robinson, Levy,
and Davis, 1986). Remarkably similar findings have been gained from very different
types of research, including mass audience surveys and small-scale laboratory
experiments. A rather clear picture of what people do with television news is
emerging.
Though most of us view television as an easy medium to understand and one
that can make us eyewitnesses to important events, it is actually a difficult medium
to use. Information is frequently presented in ways that inhibit rather than facilitate
learning. Part of the problem rests with audience members. Most of us view television
as primarily an entertainment medium. We have developed many informationprocessing
skills and strategies for watching television that serve us well in making
sense of entertainment content but that interfere with effective interpretation and
recall of news. We approach televised news passively and typically are engaging in
several different activities while viewing. Our attention is only rarely focused on the
screen. We depend on visual and auditory cues to draw our attention to particular
stories. When stories do get our attention, we rely on routine activation of schemas
(more or less highly structured sets of categories or patterns, sets of interrelated
conceptual categories) to help us make sense of what we are seeing and put it into
useful categories so we can remember it. We rarely engage in deep, reflective processing
of news content that might allow us to assume more conscious control
over this meaning-making. So most news story content is never adequately processed
and is quickly forgotten. Even when we do make a more conscious effort to
learn from news, we often lack the schemas necessary to make in-depth interpretations
of content or to store these interpretations in long-term memory.
But although we have many failings as an audience, news broadcasters
also bear part of the blame. The average newscast is often so difficult to make
senseofthatitmightfairlybecalled“biased against understanding.” The typical
broadcast contains too many stories, each of which tries to condense too much
information into too little time. Stories are individually packaged segments
typically composed of complex combinations of visual and verbal content.
All too often, the visual information is so powerful that it overwhelms the
verbal. Viewers are left with striking mental images but little contextual
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