New Media Mania

The study of mass communication and media effects on populations has a “natural history” in that it is influenced by the circumstances of “time and place” (McQuail, 2005). Ironically the same can said for media effects themselves. But, according to McQuail, it took four phases in the history of mass communications scholarship to figure this out! I’ll summarise:-

1. All-Powerful. The first phase began at the turn of the 20^th century and lasted until the 1930s. Media was seen by most commentators as all-powerful. This was based on the observation of propagandists’ use of media to influence their respective “masses” during the First World War.
2. Powerful? Yes! No! Yes! Umm, No? In the 1930s, studies inspired by social psychology then led the transition to an empirical enquiry into media effects, which lasted until the 1960s, and collectively failed to draw strong conclusions for or against a theory of an all-powerful media. Specific studies that did draw strong conclusions were often motivated by vested interests or simply badly designed. By 1960, scholars such as Klapper (1960: as cited by McQuail, 2005) were arguing that mass communication “functions through a nexus of mediating factors”, such as the social, economic, and cultural contexts of the receiver. Many variables were at play. Scholarly disillusionment set in during which time media was briefly assumed to be powerless!
3. Powerful Sometimes. The third phase of the history of the study media of effects (1960s and ‘70s) was concerned with trying to explain the relationship between mediating factors and the day-to-day observable influence media does have (to at least some degree) on individuals’ opinions and behaviours. The mediating factors considered grew over time and included such things as the receiver’s degree of exposure to media, his/her disposition and motivation, and, eventually, consideration of the process of constructing a message.
4. Power is Negotiable. The third phase naturally evolved to become the “social constructivist” school of thought, which dominates to this day. This pays attention to how and why messages are constructed by the transmitter, how and why they are construed by the receiver, and the influences acting upon the transmitter, receiver, and everything in between – “a terrain of continuous negotiation”. McQuail calls this “negotiated media influence”.

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