Schema Theory

Part of what guides the perception, comprehension, and later memories of information from media are schemas.

The construct of schema refers to knowledge structures or frameworks that organize an individual's memory for people or events.  A schema is a general mental construct or model about some knowledge domain.

A person holds mental schemas based on past experiences; for example, our schemas about Latinos, schizophrenics, or the Iraq War.  One consequence of holding these schemas for information processing is that the individual is like to go beyond the information actually presented to draw inferences about people or events that are congruent with previously formed schemas.

For example, someone with a very negative schema about Mexican Americans might notice and remember all sorts of negative things about Latinos in response to watching a TV show set in Latino East Los Angeles, whereas someone with a more positive schema would notice and remember different, and more favorable, information from the same show.

Danny Trejo as Machete in the movie "Machete"

Michelle Rodriguez in "Machete"

Much of the content in schemas is typically culture specific.  For example, Trejo is depicted as violent-scarred killer, and Rodriguez in an exotic, young beauty.  The schema that members of one culture may hold may cause them to interpret the same story very differently than members of a different culture.

In mass media, activation of a schema in the mind of the audience member may be triggered by some particular information in the TV program, magazine, article or website.  It may also be triggered by the content of certain formal features of the particular medium; for example, flashbacks, montage or instant replays in television or film (in football the first-down line in digitally added, and some children and even adults think it actually exists on the field). 

The first down line in football is digitally added.

Young children do not understand these conventions and will interpret the input literally.  Part of the socialization to the use of a medium like television is to learn about these formal features and how to interpret them.