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.

Reinforcement Theory

Reinforcement theory is the process of shaping behavior by controlling the consequences of the behavior. In reinforcement theory a combination of rewards and/or punishments is used to reinforce desired behavior or extinguish unwanted behavior. Any behavior that elicits a consequence is called operant behavior, because the individual operates on his or her environment. Reinforcement theory concentrates on the relationship between the operant behavior and the associated consequences, and is sometimes referred to as operant conditioning.



B. F. Skinner

B.F. Skinner was a key contributor to the development of modern ideas about reinforcement theory. Skinner argued that the internal needs and drives of individuals can be ignored because people learn to exhibit certain behaviors based on what happens to them as a result of their behavior. This school of thought has been termed the behaviorist, or radical behaviorist, school.

The most important principle of reinforcement theory is, of course, reinforcement. Generally speaking, there are two types of reinforcement: positive and negative. Positive reinforcement results when the occurrence of a valued behavioral consequence has the effect of strengthening the probability of the behavior being repeated. The specific behavioral consequence is called a reinforcement. An example of positive reinforcement might be a salesperson that exerts extra effort to meet a sales quota (behavior) and is then rewarded with a bonus (positive reinforcement). The administration of the positive reinforcement should make it more likely that the salesperson will continue to exert the necessary effort in the future.

Negative reinforcement results when an undesirable behavioral consequence is withheld, with the effect of strengthening the probability of the behavior being repeated. Negative reinforcement is often confused with punishment, but they are not the same. Punishment attempts to decrease the probability of specific behaviors; negative reinforcement attempts to increase desired behavior. Thus, both positive and negative reinforcement have the effect of increasing the probability that a particular behavior will be learned and repeated. An example of negative reinforcement might be a salesperson that exerts effort to increase sales in his or her sales territory (behavior), which is followed by a decision not to reassign the salesperson to an undesirable sales route (negative reinforcer). The administration of the negative reinforcer should make it more likely that the salesperson will continue to exert the necessary effort in the future.

As mentioned above, punishment attempts to decrease the probability of specific behaviors being exhibited. Punishment is the administration of an undesirable behavioral consequence in order to reduce the occurrence of the unwanted behavior. Punishment is one of the more commonly used reinforcement-theory strategies, but many learning experts suggest that it should be used only if positive and negative reinforcement cannot be used or have previously failed, because of the potentially negative side effects of punishment. An example of punishment might be demoting an employee who does not meet performance goals or suspending an employee without pay for violating work rules.

Extinction is similar to punishment in that its purpose is to reduce unwanted behavior. The process of extinction begins when a valued behavioral consequence is withheld in order to decrease the probability that a learned behavior will continue. Over time, this is likely to result in the ceasing of that behavior. Extinction may alternately serve to reduce a wanted behavior, such as when a positive reinforcement is no longer offered when a desirable behavior occurs. For example, if an employee is continually praised for the promptness in which he completes his work for several months, but receives no praise in subsequent months for such behavior, his desirable behaviors may diminish. Thus, to avoid unwanted extinction, managers may have to continue to offer positive behavioral consequences.

Agenda-Setting Theory

The agenda-setting theory, which initially grew out of communications research on political socialization, defines agenda setting as the "creation of public awareness and concern of salient issues by the news media."

In other words, the media do not necessarily tell us what to think, but rather what to think about.

For example, through heavy coverage of such issues in a political campaign, media may tell us that past marital infidelity of candidates or whether they smoked marijuana in college are important issues on which to base our vote.  Other issues covered in less depth, such as their positions on taxation or foreign policy, are thus positioned as less important.

Although it has been explored most fully in regard to news and politics, agenda setting is also relevant to other media issues.  For example, in it is basic ignoring of religion, mainstream entertainment media in the United States are sending a message that spiritual issues are not important factors in people's lives.

Soap operas and movies that continually show characters engaging in presumably unprotected casual sex with no apparent concern for consequences like HIV infection  or pregnancy are subtly telling us that those concerns are not important.

One way than an agenda can be set is through the use of framing.  The way a problem is described selects or highlights certain aspects of its reality and neglects or downplays others.  This will affect how people respond to it.

EXAMPLE:

Is some indiscretion described as a "caper," an "affair" or a "scandal?"

Jamieson and Waldman argued that press coverage of the U.S. Presidential election campaign of 2000 framed the candidates as the "lying panderer" (Al Gore) and the "ineffective bumbler" (George W. Bush) and that the media and the public noticed details consistent with the frames and neglected details that were inconsistent.



George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000



Uses and Gratifications Theory

The uses and gratifications theory places much emphasis on the active role of the audience in making choices and being goal-directed in its media-use behavior.

The experience and effects of media depend, in part, on the uses one is putting those media to and the gratifications one is receiving from them.

For example, the experience of watching a horror film will be very different for someone who is experiencing much empathy with the victim than for someone who is being only superficially entertained by the suspense of the plot.

Watching CNN Headline News or surfing Internet news sites may be a very different experience for someone trying to be entertained than for someone trying to be seriously informed on the details of a political candidate's positions.

 This statement is made in regard to four assumptions made by the uses and gratification theory:

1. The audience is active,
2. The media are used to meet needs,
3. Other factors nay be involved, and
4. Media compete for our attention.

Attudinal theorists Elihu Katz, Jay Blumler and Michael Gurevitch maintained that people have certain psychological needs, like that of comfort, social interaction, activity and so on.  They continued that different needs are associated with individual personalities, stages of maturation, background and social roles.


Uses and gratifications theory takes a more humanistic approach to looking at media use.  Blumler and Katz believe that there is not merely one way that the populace uses media.  Instead, they believe there are as many reasons for using the media, as there are media users.  According to the theory, media consumers have a free will to decide how they will use the media and how it will effect them.  Blumler and Katz values are clearly seen by the fact that they believe that media consumers can choose the influence media has on them as well as the idea that users choose media alternatives merely as a means to and end.  Uses and gratification is the optimist’s view of the media.  The theory takes out the possibility that the media can have an unconscious influence over our lives and how we view the world.  The idea that we simply use the media to satisfy a given need does not seem to fully recognize the power of the media in today’s society.

Socialization Theories

Socialization theories discuss the impact of media in very broad strokes by taking a similar approach to the cultivation theory and emphasizing how prolonged exposure to media comes to teach us about the world and our role in it.

For example, theorists Joshua Meyrowitz and Neil Postman argued that children are socialized into the role of adults far earlier in the age of television than had been the case for the previous several hundred years.

I mean, really?

Television is the window through which children learn about the world of adults, and adults become more like children.  This has numerous social implications beyond the world of media.  For example, children and adults dress more alike, talk more alike and go to more of the same places.

Willow Smith, nine, with her mother Jada Pinkett-Smith at Fashion Week.

No longer do only children wear t-shirts and only adults swear.  Similar blurring of the dichotomies of masculinity-femininity and politician-citizen are also posited and attributed to electronic media, with the effects increasing androgynous behavior and holding political candidates to personal standards.

Guys in girl jeans???

Another socialization theory focuses on conditions leading to maximal media social influence.  Van Evra argued that the cumulative media effects on children are the greatest when the purpose of viewing is diversion and when they perceive the media content to be realistic, perhaps due to a lack of critical thinking mode present during the viewing.

Socialization effects are especially strong on frequent viewers who have few information alternatives and relevant life experience available.

The Cultivation Theory

The cultivation theory looks at the way that extensive, repeated exposure to the media over time gradually shapes our view of the world and our social reality.

The more media we are exposed to, the more our views of the world wil come to resemble the media worldview. 

Cultivation theory was initially developed by George Gerbner and his colleagues in the Cultural Indicators research project studying television at the University of Pennsylvania.



Cultivation Theory model

One of the major constructs of cultivation theory is mainstreaming, the gradual homogenization of people's divergent perceptions of social reality into a convergent mainstream.  This apparently happens through a process of construction. whereby viewers learn about the real world from observing the the world of media.  Memory traces from media experiences are stored relatively automatically.  We then use this stored information to formulate beliefs about the real world.

Cast from MTV's reality show, "Jersey Shore"

Although cultivation theory generally focuses on the cumulative effect of may repeated images, some images may be far more influential than others.  For example, drench hypothesis says that a highly respected popular TV character at the top of the ratings can have far more impact than a dozen other characters seen and indentified with by far fewer viewers.

Will Truman, from the hit sitcom "Will and Grace," may help improve more people's attitudes toward gay men than numerous characters on less often seen shows.



The Modeling Theory

The modeling theory is also known as the social learning theory.

It contends that an individual perceives a form of behavior described or portrayed by a character in media content.

The individual judges this behavior to be attractive and potentially useful for coping with some personal situation.

Then, the portrayed behavior is reproduced by the individual in a personally relevant situation.

As a result, the reproduced behavior proves useful or effective in coping with the situation, thus rewarding the individual.

With further use, the modeled behavior becomes the person's habitual way of handling that type of situation, unless it is no longer effective and rewarding.

This behavioral theory was popularized and tested by Albert Bandura, when he used inflatable bobo dolls to elicit aggressive behaviors in children.

Psychologist Albert Bandura