Mary Jackson Pitts, Ph.D.

mpitts@astate.edu

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Part one of lecture three
Theory development-- major findings
 

•      Payne Study series

–   Assessing content of films

•   Size and composition of audience

–   Assessing the effects on those audiences of their exposures to the themes and messages of motion pictures.

Payne Study.  Major variables under study.

•      Acquisition of information

•      Change in attitude

•      Stimulation of emotions

•      Harm to health, erosion of moral standards

•      Influence on conduct

Audience and content

•      Lack of demographic information

•      Attendance

•      What was the content of the movies?

•      Other variables by dale

•      Main findings

–    Everyone went to movies

–    Kids went more than adults

•      Content

–    Sex

–    Crime

–    Love 

Acquiring information

•      Conclusion 

–   Special learning formats allowed people to retain information more so than in laboratory settings.

Changing attitudes

•      Attitude change was found.

Stimulating Emotions

•      Scenes of danger

•      Scenes of conflict

•      Scenes of tragedy 

•      Romance

Harming Health

•      Finding

–    Disturbed sleep did occur

–   Remember what to control for with variables

Eroding moral standards

–   Scenes of crime and sex were contrary to the mores of the groups studied.

Influencing conduct

•      Kids who attend movies act differently

•      Adopted behaviors from the movies

–   Methodology in question

•      Stimulating Acts of Delinquency and crime

Influencing conduct

•      Impersonated actors

•      Use movie plot lines to play games

•      With kids fantasy and make believe.

•      Adolescents were more interested in beautification, personal mannerisms, social techniques

•      Love and romance were big

Final thoughts on the Payne studies

•      The movies were thought to :

–   Bring new ideas to kids

–   Influence attitudes

–   Stimulate emotions, present moral standards, disturb sleep

–   Influence interpretations

People’s Choice

•      Lazersfeld, Berelson, Gaudet

–   How the voter makes up his mind in a Presidential election

–   Tested the panel methodology

•   Longitudinal study

•   Does exposure over time predispose people to react differently to survey questions?

•   Critical Case/Typical Case sample

People’s Choice (social categories)

•      Lazersfeld, Berelson, Gaudet

–    Social Categories

People’s Choice

–   Those high in socioeconomic level (SE5) were more likely to intend to vote Republican than Democrat

–    Fewer laborers than white-collar workers intended to vote Republican, People’s Choice

•      Self-identification made a difference

People’s Choice

–   Religious category was a strong influence on voting intention. 

People’s Choice

–   Age was very significant as a predictor of intended voting patterns. 

People’s Choice Findings

•      Three of the five factors seemed to have impact.

–   SES

–   Religion

–   Rural/Urban

People’s Choice Findings

•      Formation of voting intent and solidification of vote

People’s choice major effects of the media campaign

•      Activation

–   Propaganda arouses interest

–   Increased interest brings increased exposure

–   Increased attention causes voters to select information

–   Votes are crystallized

•      Reinforcement

•      Conversion

Importance of people’s choice study.

•      Innovative survey design

•      Insight in to political propaganda

•      Selective  influences make a difference in perceptions of candidates.

•      Generated the two step flow research.

Joseph Klapper

•      The effects of the mass media (1958)

–   Conclusions by Klapper

Katz and Lazarsfeld

•      Personal Influence:  The part played by People in the flow of mass communication

Personal Influence Katz and Lazersfeld

•      Hypothesized that a persons ties to others influenced message reception.

–   Personal ties to a primary group impacted people message reception.

•   Ties to family and peers.

Personal influence (social relationships)

•      Opinion leaders

–   Official leaders

–   Same level social leaders

Personal influence study

•      Marketing choices (food, household products)

•      Fashion(clothing, hair styles and cosmetics)

•      Public affairs( political and social)

–   Selection of movies

Study location

•      Decatur, Illinois

•      Not much info on how sample chosen

•      Identifying informal influences

–    Generally influential

•    Name someone who keeps up with things, and you trust.  Males

–    Specific influentials

•    Interviews- opinions on topics and change over time. Then asked who influenced opinion change

–    Everyday contacts.. Who do you talk things over with.. 

–    Self-designation—problem of validity

Two step flow

•      Characteristics of opinion leaders

–   Position in life cycle

•   Young to old

•   Fashion to food

•     life cycle classifications

–   Socioeconomic status

–   Social contact

–   Gregariousness

»   Clubs involvement 

»   Friends

Katz and Lazerfelds findings

•      Marketing leaders for purchasing seem to be other women peers

•      Large family wives were seen as leaders in life cycle situations

•      Women with more social contact were consider leaders

•      Fashion

–    Life cycle influence… girls more influence

–    Fashion leadership declined with life cycle advances

–    Gregariousness impact fashion leadership.

–    Fashion leaders exists at all social status levels

Katz and Lazersfeld findings

•      Public affairs leaders

–   Relationship between socioeconomic status and opinion leaders.  Higher social status.

–   Men tended to influence women’s public affairs opinions.

–   Gregariousness impacted leadership with public affairs

Katz and Lazersfeld findings

•       Movie leaders

Katz and lazersfeld’s final conclusions.

•      “Influences investigated were minor, difficult to detect and completely non threatening.”

Individual differences

•      Selective exposure

•      Selective interpretation

Selective exposure

•      Misery loves company

•      Among elderly

–   Tended to watch programming that was similar in nature to their ailments and the like.