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Michael Schudson would seem to have agreed, noting that, “Despite the general
plausibility of claims about media influence, the accusations are devilishly difficult
to prove. People tend to overestimate the power of the media for the simple reason
that the media are the visible tip of the iceberg of social influences on human
behavior.” Closer examination often shows that it was indeed what the news may
have been reporting—rather than the content of the medium itself—that had the
influence. 56 Combining mass communication theory to the perspective of
historians suggests that the content of printed material had only a minor influence
on the politics of the age, that propaganda was less effective than theorized, and
that in fact an overall, systemic influence of the new media is more important to
consider.
Modern communication theorists have rejected the “magic bullet theory,”
or the idea that the content of media such as print have such complete and powerful
effects. Since 1940, various “limited effects models” have replaced this outmoded
idea. 57 Media cannot tell the public what to think, according to media theorist Ben
Bagdikian, but they can tell the public what to think about—to set the public
agenda. 58 This agenda-setting theory recognizes that while media propaganda may
have some influence, the direct effects are mediated by existing opinions and
preconditions. 59 Another theory applicable here is that of the multi-step flow of
information, which suggests that people do not get information or opinions about
politics and other matters directly from media, but rather indirectly through
56 Michael Schudson, The Sociology of News (New York: Norton, 2003), 19-20.
57 Jean Folkerts and Stephen Lacy, The Media in your Life: An Introduction to Mass
Communication, 2 nd ed. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2001), 452-457. Schlesinger and Davidson, for
example, appear to assume such a magic bullet influence and formulate no argument or defense
about assumed effects of the newspapers.
58 Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly (Boston: Beacon Press, 1983), xvi.
59 Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw, “The Agenda-Setting Function of Mass Media,”
The Public Opinion Quarterly, 36, no. 2 (Summer 1972): 176-187.