Please define the term selective exposure.
- choose content that confirm opinions, attitudes, or values
- selective exposure to news
- also applies to general programming
Please define the term selective perception.
- tend to interpret media in accordance with pre-existing opinions, attitudes, or beliefs
- media no change beliefs, use beliefs to make sense of msg
How did racial attitudes affect the interpretation of the media texts discussed in class (e.g., All in the Family, Remember the Titans, Rosewood)?
All in the Family: show intent to change racial attitudes. Archie racist. Mike not racist, open to gays, etc. high prejudice found program more appealing. Low prejudice people thought Mike made more sense.
Remember the Titans: looked at relationships between racial attitudes and interpretation of film. Racist not interpreted film to be about civil rights. Anti-black attitude predicted interpreting the film about overcoming football odds.
Rosewood: implicit attitude – attitude you may hold without acknowledgement. Implicit attitude correlated not seeing black characters as being responsible for heroic events. Motivation to respond without prejudice correlate with seeing blacks as heroic and not being responsible for violence.
Does the news media accurately report the extent to which media use correlates with aggression?
???Some scholars disagree with relationship between media violence and real world violence – but are the minority. Much of their argument is that ‘violence’ is not increased by media (e.g. more murders
What are the four explanations for why the news media doesn’t accurately report the extent to which media correlates with aggression?
- media industry has a vested interest
- balanced as a bias – journalistic norms, need to get both sides of every story
- researchers have failed to distinguish between the importance of findings
- some scholars disagree with relationship between media violence and real world violence – but are the minority
What is the more nuanced approach that brings together the selective exposure and media effects lines of research in communication?
Acknowledge the need to move beyond cause and effect studies
- reinforcing spiral
- attitudes drive media consumption
- media affects attitudes
- attitudes drive media consumption
Please define the term media literacy.
Ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and process media messages. US produces most media, prob least media literate
Why does the US have lower levels of media literacy compared to other countries?
Cuz countries want to point out the Americanization of media content
Please list and describe the six principles of media literacy.
- media contribute to construction of realities-the more we rely on media for info, the more it constructs our reality.
- media influenced by industrial pressures- pressure to make money
- media influenced by political pressures-rules created by government, pressure from political groups.
- media constrained by format-same story will look and feel different depending on format (ex: Nixon, Kennedy)
- media tells us about who we are as society- stories about gender, youth, elderly, etc.
- audiences are active recipients of the media-literacy is a continuum, not a category. High literacy vs. low literacy
What is the theoretical term that explains media literacy? Please describe the theory.
Inoculation theory : get weak persuasion message so you can refute these arguments in the future. (think of flu shot) … give weak msg bout media shaping body image, more powerful msgs (mags) will have less impact later on .
Please list and describe the five media literacy tools.
- consider authorship (who made msg)
- evaluate the audience (who intended targets)
- determine institutional purpose (why content being sent)
- analyze the content (values, lifestyles, points of views being represented)
- identify the creative techniques (what techniques used to get attention)
