Media Effects is a concise introduction which studies the ways in which media use affects society. James Shanahan explores how researchers and society became interested in media effects, outlines the important developments in the field, and looks at how research on narrative is playing a progressively important role in revealing what we know. The book also provides a timely interweaving of different perspectives, ranging from concerned and critical voices within media studies to quantitative psychological approaches which tend to be more sceptical about powerful media effects.
Concise and authoritative, Media Effects is the go-to text for students and scholars getting to grips with this fascinating and important topic.
Table of Contents
PrefaceAcknowledgments
1 Introduction
“Media effects”: What are they?
“Media effects”: An etymology
Opinion
“Mass” communication
“A word has appeared”: Propaganda
Public opinion
Toward media effects
Another way
Critical studies
Cultural studies
Other concerns and outlooks
Summary and outline
Notes
2 A Narrative Perspective
The narrative perspective
Narrative theories, communication, and media
Media effects: Reluctantly focused on persuasion
Recovering orality
Narrative structure
Narrative psychology and the evolution of narrative
The evolution of narrative
Notes
3 Media and Violence
Imitation and social learning
Scientific agreement
New technologies and new concerns: Guns, video games, institutional opinions
An uneasy consensus
Cultural indicators
The Violence Profile
Cultivation
Violence as a cultural indicator
Cultivation and narrative
Notes
4 Media and Social Representation
Representation and effects
Women
African Americans
Sexual minorities and social change
Summary
Notes
5 Media Use and Social Control
Cultural indicators and social control
Authoritarianism
The irony of the turn from propaganda: The reality of powerful media effects
Summary
Notes
6 “New” Media, New Narratives?
Categories of media effects research
The “new” new media?
Post-mass media
Networks and media theory
Two Americas?
Did technology change narrative?
Convergence culture
Digital degradation
Summary
Notes
7 Conclusion
Media as conversation
Conversations and narratives
Symptoms, Dx, and Rx
References
Index
