Ch07 Dominant paradigm

CHALLENGING THE DOMINANT PARADIGM In today’s session we will see how the growing violence and the possible contribution of the television became a concern for the American society. Several different perspectives are discussed, including: Catharsis Social learning Social cognitive theory First the background and focus on children and violence. Society changed from a primarily rural agricultural society to a highly urban nation dependent on an industrially base economy. People had regular incomes. They had more money to spend on the leisure. More consumer goods were competing in the market place. More and more need to advertise Women entered into work force. It became more and more acceptable for both parents working outside home. The traditional community anchors –church and school- began to lose their dominance in the social development of their children The teenagers brought sharp increase in delinquency and crime. In the 1960s political changes – President John F. Kennedy Dr. Martin Luther King assassinated. New unfamiliar music – rock music. Sociologists discovered the existence of a ‘generation gap’ between conservative, middle class parent and their increasingly liberal, even radical children. Media’s role in all these change was hotly debated Although social researchers and media practitioners typically argued from the limited effects perspective, a new generation of critics charged that media were harming children and disrupting their lives. Particularly Television became the target of increasing criticism and the object of scientific inquiry, especially where harmful effects were presumed. The debate rose between the ones who strongly advocated the limited effects notions and those who were skeptical about their findings and accused them of paid messengers of the media industries, where as the over zealots critics of the television were accused of oversimplifying complex problems and ignoring alternative causes. The debate over media’s role in fomenting social instability and instigating violence reached a peak in late 1960s. The federal government itself tried to locate new answers to this problem by establishing the Surgeon General’s Scientific Advisory Committee on Television and social behavior in 1969. The collection of scientists’ research concluded after two years and a million dollars of study. It reported to a U.S. senate subcommittee: “While the … report is carefully phrased and qualified in language acceptable to social scientists , it is clear to me that the causal relationship between televised violence and antisocial behavior is sufficient to warrant appropriate and immediate remedial action. The data on social phenomena such as television and violence and or aggressive behavior will never be clear enough for all social scientists to agree on the formulation of a succinct statement of causality, But there comes a time when the data are sufficient to justify action, that time has come. President Johnson established a National Commission of the Cause and Prevention of Violence in 1968. The Commission offered some serious criticisms of media and recommended a variety of changes in both news reporting and entertainment content. Commission’s report in it preface stated that: ‘if, as the media claim, no objective correlation exists between media portrayals of violence and violent behavior-if, in other words, the one has no impact upon the other- then how can the media claim an Impact in product selection and consumption, as they obviously affect the viewers commercial attitudes and behavior? Can they do one and not the other?’ This did not stop the controversy. But ultimately the industry agreed to a self-imposed family viewing hour in which violent content was ostensibly minimized. Television Violence Theories The most important outcome of the violence research was the gradual development of a set of middle-range theories that summarized findings and offered increasingly useful insight into the media’s role in the lives of children. The accumulated research clearly demonstrated a correlation between viewing violence and aggressive behavior- that is, heavy viewers behave more aggressively that light viewers… Both experimental and longitudinal studies supported the hypothesis that viewing violence is causally associated with aggression. CATHARSIS - JUSTIFICATION OF MEDIA VIOLENCE Catharsis – sometimes called sublimation- the idea that viewing violence is sufficient to purge or at least satisfy a person’s aggressive drive and, therefore, reduce the likelihood of aggressive behavior.Catharsis suggested that television violence had social utility, providing young people with a harmless outlet for their pent-up aggression and hostility. However critics called this a ‘phony argument’. Common sense and your own media consumption offer some evidence of the weakness of the catharsis hypothesis. When we watch families devouring chocolate cakes, does it purge you of your hunger drive? If you walk out of a movie like Die Hard did you walk out of the theater a tranquil, placid person? What scientist learnt that certain presentation so mediated violence and aggression can reduce the likelihood of subsequent viewer aggression. But catharsis is not the reason. Rather viewers LEARN THAT violence might not be appropriate in a given situation. Their aggressive drive might not have been purged, but they might have simply learned that such treatment of another human is inappropriate. Their inclination towards violence was inhibited by the information in the media presentation. This leads us to the theory that is generally accepted as most useful in understanding the influence of media violence on the individual – social cognitive theory. SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY Social learning – encompasses both imitation and identification to explain how people learn through observation of other in their environments. Imitation IMITATION is the direct, mechanical reproduction of behavior. Supposing a viewer watches a violent movie in which teenagers beat a policeman and the next day he does the same. This demonstrates imitation. The problem for mass communication theorists, however, is that these obvious examples are relatively rare. Moreover such gross examples support the argument t that negative effects occur only in those ‘predisposed’ to aggression. Identification Identification on the other hand is: “A particular form of imitation in which copying a model, generalized beyond specific acts, springs from wanting to be and trying to be like the model with respect to some broader quality.” Although there might be few who will imitate what they, there will be many who would like to be identified with movies’ characters. Imitation from media is clearly more dramatic and observable than is identification. But identification with media models might be the more lasting and significant of the media’s effects. Human learn from observation. The first serious look at learning through observation was offered by psychologists Neal Miller and John Dollard in 1941. They argued that imitative learning occurred when observers were motivated to learn, when the cues or elements of the behaviors to be learned were present, when observers performed the given behaviors, and when observers were positively reinforced for imitating those behaviors. In other words, people could imitate behavior that they saw; those behaviors would be reinforced and therefore learned. There have been questions however about how much and what kinds of behaviors people learn from the media. So instead of presenting a means of understanding how people learn from models (including media models) Miller and Dollard simply described an efficient form of traditional stimulus-response learning. They assumed that individuals behaved in certain ways and then shaped their behavior according to the reinforcement they actually received. Imitation simply made it easier for an individual to choose a behavior to choose a behavior to reinforce. The actual reinforcement, they argued, ensured learning. But this insistence on the operation of reinforcement limited their theory’s application for understanding how people learn from the mass media. The theory’s inability to account for people’s apparent skill at learning new responses through observation rather than actually receiving reinforcement limited its applicability to media impact. Learning theory SO traditional learning theory asserts that people learn new behavior when they are presented with stimuli (something in their environment), make a response to those stimuli, and have those responses reinforced either positively (rewarded) or negatively (punished) . In this way new behaviors are learned, or added to people’s behavioral repertoire- the individual’s available behaviors in a given circumstance. SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY Social theorists have advanced various theories about why people behave in the ways that they do. Some say behavior is based upon a person’s motivations. Other proposes that behavior is a response to external stimuli and subsequent reinforcements. Still others point out that people react differently in different situations, and these scholars feel that the interaction between a person and situation produces a particular behavior. One theory in particular reappears time and again in media effects literature is SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEROY. According to Albert Bandura,“ social cognitive theory explains psychosocial functioning in terms of triadic reciprocal causation , in this model of reciprocal determinism, behavior; cognitive, biological and other personal factors; and environmental events all operate as interaction determinants that influence each other bidirectional. This theory explains human thought and actions as a process of TRIDAIC RECIPROCAL CAUSATION. This means that THOUGHT AND BEHAVIOR are determined by three different factors that interact and influence each other with variable strength, at the same or at different times: Behavior Personal characteristics such a s cognitive and biological qualities (e.g. Iq, sex, or race) Environmental factors or events Baundra’s social cognitive theory of mass communication the broader social learning theory serve as the foundations for volumes of research in all areas of media effects study- Effects of media violence And sexually explicit material Pro-social or positive media effects Cultivation effects Persuasion For the student of media effects, an understanding of Bandura’s theory is therefore essential because the serve as a common denominator among many other media affects theories and hypotheses. Social cognitive theory emphasizes the importance of these uniquely human characteristics, known as the Symbolizing capacity Self-regulatory capacity Self-reflective capacity Vicarious capacities (Bandura, 1994) SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEROY According to Albert Bandura, “ social cognitive theory explains psychosocial functioning in terms of triadic reciprocal causation , in this model of reciprocal determinism, behavior; cognitive, biological and other personal factors; and environmental events all operate as interaction determinants that influence each other bidirectionally This theory explains human thought and actions as a process of TRIDAIC RECIPROCAL CAUSATION. This means that THOUGHT AND BEHAVIOR are determined by three different factors that interact and influence each other with variable strength, at the same or at different times: Behavior Personal characteristics such a s cognitive and biological qualities (e.g. IQ, sex, or race) Environmental factors or events. Baundra’s social cognitive theory of mass communication the broader social learning theory serve as the foundations for volumes of research in all areas of media effects study- Effects of media violence And sexually explicit material Pro-social or positive media effects Cultivation effects Persuasion For the student of media effects, an understanding of Bandura’s theory is therefore essential because the serve as a common denominator among many other media effects theories and hypotheses. Social cognitive theory emphasizes the importance of these uniquely human characteristics, known as the Symbolizing capacity Self-regulatory capacity Self-reflective capacity Vicarious capacities (Bandura, 1994) Symbolizing Capacity Human communication is based upon a system of shared meanings known as language that is constructed of various symbols. These symbols occur at more than on conceptual level – letters of the alphabet are symbols used to construct words, e.g. and words serve as symbols to represent specific objects, thoughts, or ideas. The capacity to understand and use these symbols allows people to store and process, and transform observed experiences into cognitive models that guide them in future actions and decisions. 2. Self Regulatory Capacity The self-regulatory capacity includes the concepts of motivation and evaluation. People have the ability to motivate themselves to achieve certain goals. To motivate themselves to achieve certain goals, they tend to evaluate their own behavior and respond accordingly. In this way, behavior is self-directed and self regulated. 3. Self Reflective Capacity This capacity involves the process of thought verification. It is the ability of a person to perform a self-check to make sure his or her thinking, is correct. Bandura identified four different self-reflective “modes” used in thought verification: Enactive Vicarious Persuasive Logical modes i. Enactive Mode In the enactive mode a person assesses the agreement between thoughts and the results of actions. Person’s actions corroborate his/her thought and provide verifications. ii. Vicarious Mode In vicarious mode observation of another’s experiences and the outcomes of those experiences serve to confirm or refute the veracity of thoughts. Example—suppose a woman thinks women are inferior and the TV comes in she watches Xena and then her thoughts about female inferiority could be shocked into some kind of reassessment. iii. Persuasive Mode An effective advertisement serves as the best demonstration of the persuasive mode, especially a commercial in which a person on the street is convinced to change brands. Despite the added cost, the viewer might be persuaded by the decision of the person to purchase the product advertised. iv. Logical Mode It involves verification by which previously acquired rules of inference. Perhaps the person who was convinced to try the new product liked it so much that he decided to try the higher-priced brands of other types of products. 4. Vicarious Capacity This is the ability to learn without direct experience, emphasizes the potential social impact of mass media- for better or worse. As an example, of positive social impact the vicarious capacity allows a person to learn all sorts of beneficial things by simply reading or watching a television program presenting these pro-social behaviors. On the other hand on the negative side, people may witness and learn certain antisocial behaviors to which they might not otherwise have been exposed. OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING AND MODELING Social learning and social cognitive theories place much emphasis on the concept of OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING. A person observes other people’s action and the consequences of those actions, and learns from what has been observed. The learned behavior can then be reenacted by the observer. MODELLING The phenomenon of behavior reenactment is called MODELLING. It is the acquisition of behaviors through observation. It includes four component processes: Attention Retention Motor reproduction Motivation 1. Attention A person must pay attention to any behavior and perceive it accurately in order to model it successfully. Example—the beginner cricketer watches the actions, listen to the instructions. 2. Retention Modeled behavior must be remembered or retained in order to be used again; the permanent memory stores the information by means of symbolic representations that subsequently can be converted into actions. Example the beginner cricketer than remembers the instructions with the demonstrations 3. Motor reproduction At first motor reproduction may be difficult and even faulty as the beginner has to ‘think through’ all the various steps involved in making a successful swing. The natural ability or the superior motor memory of the beginner largely determines the length of time required for mastery of the modeled action. 4. Motivation For various reasons, people are not always motivated to model the behaviors they learn. Motivation becomes a major factor in the decision to use modeled behavior. Three types of situations provide the incentives that motivate a person to model learned behavior. Positive outcomes through direct performance of the behavior, Observation of another’s behavior and the subsequent outcome, and evaluation based upon personal values or standards of behavior e.g. in his case , the child is motivated to avoid modeling the violent behavior because he has witnessed a horrible outcome. (power rangers, kicking a boy) his internalized standard of conduct has become more strict. Abstract Modeling New life situations require people to apply the rules of behavior learned in the past to the new and different situations. Abstract modeling takes learning to a higher level than mere mimicry of observed behavior and therefore offers many practical advantages. Rules of behavior learned in the past serve as a guide for new life situations. These rules often provide an abstract framework for decisions making in new situations. Whenever a person observe behavior or receives information that conflicts with established patterns of behavior or principles of conduct, the inner conflict causes a reexamination of motivations to perform the established behavior. In other words, existing standards of behavior are not perfect or constant for each new situation. A person is merely guided by the outcomes of his or her own past experiences or the observed experiences of other people. Abstract modeling takes learning to a new level than mere mimicry of observed behavior, new situations generate new behaviors based upon the rules of behavior learned previously, these behaviors are themselves learned and stored in memory for the future adaptation in other situations. The use of abstract modeling offers many practical advantages. One acquires personal standards for judging one’s won motivations and behavior and those of others. Abstract modeling also boosts critical thinking and communication skills. (E.g. homemade cards for mother and it is improvised for the whole family Effects of Modeling Sometimes a person observes behavior or receives information that conflicts in some way with that person’s established pattern of behavior. Two major effects are associated with such situation-inhibitory and disinhibitory effects. Inhibitory Effects Most studies on inhibitory and disinhibitory effect have examined transgressive, aggressive or sexual behavior. Inhibitory effects occur whenever new information or the observation of new behavior inhibits or restrain a person from acting in a previously learned way. Inhibitory effects occur whenever a person refrains from reprehensible conduct for fear of the consequences. So INHIBITORY EFFFECTS Seeing a model punished from a behavior is sufficient to reduce the likelihood that the observer will make that behavior Disinhibitory effect disinhibits or lifts previously learned internal restraints on certain behaviors E.g. smoker might decide to change his behavior if he sees his favorite uncle suffer miserably and die due to excessive smoking. - Inhibitory effect. When a girl decides to smoke coming from a family which considers smoking a taboo. Disinhibitory effect Seeing a model rewarded for a prohibited or threatening behavior increase the likelihood that the observer will make that behavior. Disinhibitory effects lift previously learned internal restraints on certain behaviors. Modeling from mass media Modeling from mass media, then is an efficient way to learn wide range of behavior and solution to problems that we otherwise learn slowly or not at all, or pay too high a price to learn in the actual environment. And according to Bandura things people experience in their environments e.g. mass media can affect people’s behaviors and that affect is influenced by various personal factors specific to those people. MODELING FROM MASS MEDIA Modeling from mass media, then is an efficient way to learn wide range of behavior and solution to problems that we otherwise learn slowly or not at all, or pay too high a price to learn in the actual environment. And according to Bandura things people experience in their environments e.g. mass media can affect people’s behaviors and that affect is influenced by various personal factors specific to those people. Learning from Media Content and Modeling Whenever a person sees a character on the screen expressing some strong emotion or performing some powerful action, the viewer is affected or aroused. The viewer remembers similar experiences and emotions, and these thoughts and images serve as cues that trigger self-arousal. E.g. ET, Jaws, horror movies—fear reaction. Such experiences of arousal are not always fleeting in nature, several studies have shown that audience members sometimes develop lasting emotional reactions, attitudes and behaviors after viewing emotional content that arouses them. Social construction of reality and cultivation Some studies show that realities depicted on television programs do not always reflect the true state of affairs in the real world. Some scholars believe that heavy viewing of television tends to shape or cultivate viewers’ perceptions and beliefs so that they are more in line with the world portrayed on television than with that of the real world. Media scholars call this media effects phenomenon the social construction of reality. E.g. chances of being on the plane and it will crash; chances of being a victim of a violent crime; stereotypical portrayals of men and women especially in terms of their profession. Effects of viewing televised or film violence Through the years, most media effects studies have examined the negative effects that result from the vicarious capacity, such as the learning of aggressive behavior by viewing televised or filmed violence. When carried to it s worst extreme, the modeling of such behavior has been linked to violent and brutal “copycat’ crimes such as rape, murder. Learning good things from media In recent years, a growing body of research that examines children’s television programming has yielded promising findings. These studies have shown that many children’s television shows have pro-social or positive effects. Children improve literacy, science, and mathematics skills and learn positive social behavior, enhance their imaginative powers and develop problem –solving. Longitudinal studies have revealed that positive effects, in terms of academic achievement and reading skills especially from viewing Sesame Street as preschool. Positive benefits of educational programming for children are enhanced whenever parents or care givers view programs with the children and reinforce the messages. Social prompting or persuasion Advertising campaigns and other efforts of persuasion serve as excellent examples of social prompting, another example of modeled behavior. Social prompting does not involve learning new behavior, and therefore it differs from observational learning and disinhibition. Social prompting implies that a person is offered an inducement (an incentive) to act in a particular way that has already been learned. E.g. most people are not inclined to try a new product unless of course, the new product is shown to offer great benefits of inducements- toothpaste Diffusion by way of symbolic modeling One important area of media effects research involves the study of diffusion or spread of an innovation a new technology, tool behavior, farming techniques- throughout the society or a large group of people. Diffusion of innovations research examines the different strengths of media and interpersonal influences in adoption of new behavior. Social changes have occurred due to the influences of television on elite societies of viewers who model the various behaviors, styles and ideas that they see and learn Recent research Social cognitive theory serves as the theoretical basis for many types of media effects research- from media violence studies and fright reactions to media content to effects from sexually explicit content and effects from persuasive media messages. In recent years, social cognitive theory of mass communication has proven especially useful as the theoretical underpinning for communication campaigns and their design, for health communications, election campaigns etc Summary Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory serves as the basis for many other theories of media effects. It provides a framework to analyze human cognitions that produce certain behaviors and describe mental processes at work, whenever a person learns. Social cognitive theory is an offshoot of Bandura’s more comprehensive social learning theory, which explains behavior by examining the triadic reciprocal causation process, or the interaction among cognitive, behavioral and environmental factors. Cognitive traits Social cognitive theory emphasizes the importance of several distinct cognitive traits that set human beings apart. These include the symbolizing, self regulatory, self-reflective, and vicarious. Social cognitive theory helps explain cultivation effects, priming effects and pro-social effects in terms of cognition, observational learning and modeling. The basis for many persuasion effects or social prompting from mass media can be found in social cognitive theory, which recognizes that motivations or influences to model new behavior or adopt new ideas are dynamic and usually a combination of outside factors and personal cognitions and characteristics. Diffusion of innovations, another important arm of media effects research, also finds a conceptual basis in social cognitive theory. Diffusion of an innovation throughout a society or a large group o f people is explained in terms of symbolic modeling, persuasion or social prompting and motivation PRIMING EFFECTS Often questions like these bother the researchers about violent content in the media Does media violence cause viewers to make associations with angry or critical thoughts stored in their own memories? Does the viewing of mediated violence and the mental associations it arouses make viewers more likely to commit acts of violence themselves? These questions are related to the psychological processes present whenever media effects do indeed occur. Priming occurs when exposure to mediated communication activates related thoughts that have been stored in the mind of an audience member. Media message content triggers concepts, thoughts, learning, or knowledge acquired in the past that are related to the message content. In this way, message content is connected, associated, or reinforced by related thoughts and concepts that it brings to mind. For a certain period after viewing such content, a person is more likely to have thoughts or memories become permanently associated with the message content, or stimulus. E.g. if one views a rail accident or air accident the viewer might recall an accident he is part of. his interest in he news story and his reaction to it may well be affected by his existing knowledge and previous experiences. In other words his memories primed him to react in a particular way to the story. The priming activation may also influence a person’s behavior, causing him or her to act or react in some way, sometimes with undesirable consequences. The most sensational example of undesirable Priming, in this case operating with social learning theory may be that of COPYCAT crimes- especially murder or other violent crimes that occurred after the person was PRIMED by movie or program Instance of copycat crimes are grave extremes of priming. Such cases represent a very small percentage of the population experience priming affects so completely that they actually MODEL OR IMITATE the viewed behavior. Priming effects from the viewing of media violence are normally much more subtle but even that level they represent cause for concern.