Mass Media Effects Impact of Social Media PDF
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This document discusses historical and recent studies on the impact of mass media. It examines various theories of media effects, including powerful effects theory and minimalist effects theory, highlighting the evolving understanding of how mass media influences individuals and society. The document explores different aspects of mass media, including agenda-setting, violence portrayals, and their impact on societal perceptions and behaviors.
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JRMC 2200 Ch. 16, Vivian M. Abou Oaf Ss Mass Media Effects Impact of Social Media The National Academies of Sciences https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cIA4OzLszA...
JRMC 2200 Ch. 16, Vivian M. Abou Oaf Ss Mass Media Effects Impact of Social Media The National Academies of Sciences https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cIA4OzLszA 6:38 Min WATCH HISTORICALLY: I. Effects Studies: Early mass communication scholars assumed that the mass media were so powerful that ideas could be injected into the body politic. In the 1940s, scholars began shaping their research questions on assumptions that media effects were more modest. Recent studies ask about long-term, cumulative & growing media effects. 1. Powerful Effects Theory: The first generation of mass communication scholars thought mass media had a profound, direct effect on people. WaIter Lippmann's Social commentator WaIter Lippmann's influential 1922 book Public Opinion was the foundation of this ‘powerful effects theory.’ Lippmann argued that we see the world not as it is but as "pictures in our heads.” He said the mass media shapes the "pictures" of things we have not experienced personally. 1 The powerful impact that Lippmann attributed to the media was an indicator of the powerful effects theory that evolved among scholars over the next few years. Harold Laswell: Yale psychologist Harold Laswell embodied the effects theory in his famous model of mass communication, the ‘Narrative Model’: Who says what, in which channel, to whom, and with what effect? Powerful effects theory supporters assumed that media could inject information, ideas & propaganda into the public. The theory was explained in terms of a hypodermic needle or bullet model. Scholars wrongly assume that individuals are passive and absorb uncritically and unconditionally whatever the media ejects. o Individuals read, hear, and see the same things differently. o Media consumers are skeptical of the saying, "You can't believe a thing you read in the paper." People are not mindless, uncritical souls. There are recent comeuppance/retribution/lousy fate for the powerful effects theory: Example: Hollywood publicists saw celebrity magazine covers as powerful promotion vehicles for new films. By 2003, however, this tool needed to be fixed, or at least not reliably. The Jennifer Lopez-Ben Affleck romance made more money for US Weekly, which sold millions of issues with the couple on its covers, than it did for Sony, which lost millions on the couple's movie Gigli. This was a shock to both the studio publicity team and the media world. For years, conventional wisdom has been, "Get a celebrity on the cover, and people will likely see her movie." That logic was falling apart with movie after movie. The powerful effects theory is overrated. 2. Minimalist Effects Theory: Scholarly enthusiasm for the hypodermic needle model declined after two massive studies of voter behavior. The studies, led by Columbia University sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld, were the first meticulous tests of media effects on an election. 2 Rather than citing particular newspapers, magazines, or radio stations, as had been expected, these people generally mentioned friends and acquaintances. The media had hardly any direct effect. The hypodermic needle model was off base, and the consequential effects theory needed rethinking. The rethinking developed the Minimalist Effects Theory, which included: A. Two-Step Flow Model: Paul Lazarsfeld The two-step flow model shows that voters are less motivated by the mass media than by people they know and respect. It is impossible to list these people, called opinion leaders (clergy, teachers, scholars…). Minimalist scholars point out that personal contact is more important than media contact. The two-step flow model showed that whatever effect the media have on the majority of the population is through opinion leaders. As mass communication research became more sophisticated, the two-step model was expanded into a multistep flow model to match the complex web of social relationships affecting people. B. Status Conferral: [Agenda Setting]: Media create prominence for people and issues by giving them coverage & vice versa. Related to this status conferral phenomenon is agenda setting. Professors Maxwell McCombs and Don Shaw said the media tell people not only what to think but also how to think. Example: o In covering a political campaign, the media choose which issues or topics to emphasize, thus helping set the campaign's agenda. o This ability to affect cognitive change among individuals is one of the most important aspects of mass communication power. C. Narcoticizing Dysfunction: People deceive themselves into believing they are involved when they are only well-informed. Some minimalists claim that the media rarely boost people into action. The media lulls people into being passive. 3 This effect, called narcoticizing dysfunction, suggests that: 1. People are so overwhelmed by the amount of news & information available to them that they withdraw from involvement in major public issues. 2. People pick up a lot of information from the media on a particular subject - say poverty - and believe they are doing something about a problem when they are only arrogantly well informed. I.e., Intellectual involvement becomes a substitute for active involvement. 3. Cumulative Effects Theory: [Spiral of Silence Model] German scholar Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann agreed that the media do not have powerful, immediate effects but argues that the impact over time is profound. Her cumulative effects theory notes that nobody can escape the ubiquitous or redundant media's messages. Despite surface appearances, the media works against diverse, robust public consideration of issues. Noelle-Neumann bases her observation on human psychology, encouraging people who feel they hold majority viewpoints to speak out confidently. Those views gain credibility in their claim to be dominant when the media carry them, whether they are dominant or not. While people who perceive that they are in a minority are inclined to speak out less, perhaps not at all. The result is that dominant views can escalate through the media and become consensus views without being sufficiently tested. To demonstrate her intriguing theory, Noelle-Neumann has devised the ominously labeled spiral of silence model: Definition: o Minority views are intimidated into silence and obscurity. o Noelle-Neumann's model challenges the libertarian concept that the media provide a marketplace where conflicting ideas are fully heard. o Vocal Majority intimidates others into silence. 4. Third-Person Effect: The theory can be reduced to this: "It's the other guy who can't handle it, not me." 4 The theory states that people overestimate the impact of media messages on other people. The third-person effect remains a discredited perception that media has a powerful and immediate influence. Scholar W. P. Davison (1983) produced many studies that reached the conclusions: Fears about negative impact are often unwarranted. Blocking negative messages is often unjustified. The Future of Theories: Scholar Melvin DeFleur recorded developments in mass communication theory and is pessimistic about the need for milestones and influential studies on mass communication after a rich history of significant studies from the 1930s to the early 1980s. Among those crucial projects: Payne Fund Studies: In the 1930s, these studies established theoretical fundamentals on movies' effects on children. The "War of the Worlds" Study. This 1940 study by Hadley Cantril questioned whether the mass media have a bullet effect on audiences and was used as a guide to more sophisticated understandings of mass communication. Lazarsfeld’s Studies in 1940 and 1948 created a new understanding of how mass communication influences people (Minimalist Effects Theory). Why is mass communication theory dead in the water? DeFleur says one factor has been a brain drain from universities, where such research used to take place. Corporations now offer much higher salaries than universities to attract people with doctoral degrees who can do research for their corporate pursuits. 5 II. Uses and Gratifications Studies: Beginning in the 1940s, many mass communication scholars shifted from studying the media to studying media audiences. These scholars assumed that individuals use the media to gratify needs. Their work, known as uses and gratifications studies, focused on how individuals use mass media and why. Challenges to Audience Passivity: Scholars reevaluated their assumptions that people are merely passive consumers of the mass media. They asked themselves why individuals resort to mass media. This research, called uses and gratifications studies, explored how individuals choose certain media outlets. One hint of research is that people seek certain media to satisfy specific needs. These scholars identified dozens of REASONS why people use the media, among them surveillance, socialization, and diversion: 1. Surveillance Function: 6 In modern human society, the mass media provides surveillance for individuals, scanning local and global environments for information that helps individuals make decisions to live better and sometimes even to survive. News coverage is the most evident form of mass media that serves this surveillance function. All people need reliable information about developments in politics, economics, science, and other fields in their immediate environment. Are tornadoes expected? Is the bridge fixed? Are vegetable prices coming down? The news media provide a surveillance function for their audiences, surveying the world for information that people want & need to know. It is not only news that provides surveillance: o Drama and literature teach people about great human issues, which gives them a better understanding of the human condition… 2. Socialization Function: Socialization function is a lifelong process and is greatly assisted by the mass media: 1. People always seek information to help them fit in with other people. o For example, without attention to the media, it is hard to talk about Tom Cruise's latest movie or the current political scandal… 2. Using the media can be a social activity, bringing people together. Television brings people together, gathering around sets in a shared experience like: o watching 9/11 events unfold o watching a disabled jet land o going to the movies with friends is also a group activity. 3. Media also contribute to togetherness by creating commonality. Friends who subscribe to Newsweek share the experience of reading the weekly cover story even though they do it separately. The magazine helps individuals maintain social relationships by giving them something in common. 4. Thus, media also creates community, nationhood, and, with global communication, a society of humankind. Weakness as a social function: 7 Mass media is Parasocial interaction; it is not a genuinely social relationship that is being created. Communication is one way without audience feedback. However, many people enjoy the sense of interaction, no matter how false it is: o Many local stations encourage on-camera members of the news team to chat among themselves to give the impression of an ongoing conversation with an extended peer group that includes the individual viewer. 3. Diversion Function: People escape everyday hard work through mass media by getting involved in a soap opera, a murder mystery, or pop music; this is the diversion function. The result can be stimulation, relaxation, or emotional release. a. Stimulation: o Everybody is bored occasionally. o When our senses lack sufficient external stimuli, a sensory vacuum results, so we seek new stimuli to fill our sensory deprivation. o In modern society, the mass media are almost always boredom-canceling stimulants. o It's not only in boring situations that the mass media can be a stimulant… you can put on quicker music and turn up the volume to accelerate the pace of an already lively party. b. Relaxation: o Media can be relaxing when someone's sensory abilities are overloaded. o Relaxation can come through any change of pace. o Slower, softer music can help. o Sometimes, a high-tension movie or book can be as effective as a lullaby. c. Release: o People can use the mass media to eliminate solid feelings or energy. o Somehow, a horror movie dissolves the unexpressed frustrations. o So can a good cry over a romantic book. Using the mass media as a stimulant, relaxant, or release is a quick, healthy escapism. HOWEVER: o If carried too far, escapism becomes withdrawal. 8 o The withdrawal from reality can become a severe psychological disorder if people build their existence revolving on living out the lives of, say, Elvis Presley or Marilyn Monroe… Consistency Theory: People choose media messages that are consistent with their individual views and values. People are faced with some messages that are consistent with their views and others that are radically different; people choose to pay attention to the ones they're comfortable with and recall slightly contrary views. This phenomenon is called Consistency theory referring to: o selective exposure o selective perception o selective retention o and selective recall Consistency theory explains media habits (consciously & subconsciously). People read, watch, and listen to media with messages that don't jar them. Yet, the media can only fulfill their role if people hear what they want. The theory raised serious questions about how well the media can promote the robust exchange of divergent ideas. This takes us to ‘Individual selectivity’! III. Individual Selectivity: (How individuals perceive and retain media content) Individuals deal with media whose perspective and approaches reinforce their interests and values. Some choices are made consciously (exposure), and other selectivity phenomena are made subconsciously. 1. Selective Exposure: People make deliberate decisions in choosing media. For example: - Academics subscribe to the Chronicle of Higher Education. 9 - Young rock fans watch MTV. People expose themselves to media whose content matches their interests. Thus, individuals control the media’s effects on them. Nobody forces these selections on anybody…you are aware of your choices. This process of choosing media is called selective exposure. These choices, called selective exposure, are made consciously. 2. Selective Perception: The selectivity in reading, watching, and listening is less conscious than selective exposure. No matter how clear a message is, people see and hear egocentrically. This phenomenon is known as selective perception or (autistic perception). Example: Rural folks in North Carolina, anxious for news about farming, thought they heard the words "farm news" on the radio when the announcer said "foreign news." Explanation: Exposure to information is hedonistic (self-gratifying). People pick up what they want to pick up. Example: o Nonsmokers who read an article about smoking focus subconsciously on passages that link smoking with cancer, being secure and content, even joyful, in the information that reinforces the wisdom of their decision not to smoke. o In contrast, smokers are more attentive to passages that avoid the smoking- cancer link. People tend to perceive what they want when using mass media for information. Social commentator, Waiter Lippmann says, "For the most part, we do not first see and then define; we define first and then see." Sometimes, the human mind distorts facts to match & level with predispositions and preconceptions. 3. Selective Retention and Recall: Experts ensure that brains record forever everything to which it is exposed. The problem is with recall. 10 People remember many pleasurable things that coincided with their beliefs. Yet they need help remembering other things. Selective retention happens to mothers deemphasizing the disturbances of pregnancy & pains of birth. This phenomenon works the opposite way when individuals encounter things that reinforce their beliefs. Nostalgia also affects recall here. Examples: o Mothers usually predate when their children abandon an undesirable behavior like thumb-sucking. o Mothers also tend to suggest precocity about the age at which Jill or Joe first walked or talked. Thus, people often use attractive-colored lenses rather than clear ones when recalling information and ideas from the media. This is known as selective recall. Individuals have a significant degree of control over how the mass media affects them: o Individuals make conscious choices in exposing themselves to particular media o Their beliefs & values subconsciously shape how their minds pick up and store information and ideas. People who portray mass media as powerful and individuals as helpless and manipulated pawns (game pieces) typically overlook and underestimate the phenomena of selective exposure, selective perception, and selective retention and recall. IV. Socialization: Mass media play a significant role in initiating children into society. This socialization process is essential to perpetuating cultural values. Still, it can be damaging if the media reports and portrays undesirable behavior & attitudes, such as violence & racism. 11 A. Media's Initiating Role: Nobody is born knowing how to fit into society. This is learned through a process that begins: 1. At home: Children imitate parents, brothers & sisters. 2. From listening and observing, children learn values and behaviors that are applauded or scolded. 3. This culturization and socialization process expands to include friends, neighbors, school & mass media. In earlier times, mass media roles came late because books, magazines & newspapers required reading skills learned in school. Today, TV is universal from the moment of birth. Television requires no special skills and has replaced much of the socializing influence that used to come from parents. By definition, socialization is pro-social; it perpetuates positive values. The stability of a society is ensured through the transmission of values to subsequent generations. B. Role Models: The extent of media influence on individuals may never be 100% accurate because: o Every individual is a distinct person. o Media exposure varies from person to person. Yet, some media influence is undeniable: o Consider the effect of entertainment idols through media. o Remember all the Spice Girls look-alikes in high school some years ago? - "Hasta la vista, baby" - "yadda-yadda-yadda" from Seinfeld. - ‘quote and quote’ from Friends. This imitation is called role modeling and includes speech mannerisms (traits) from the hip of the moment. Serious questions can be raised about whether role modeling extends to behavior. Media message producers recognize a responsibility for role modeling. 12 o Whenever Batman and Robin are in their Batmobile in the 1960s TV series, the camera always shows them fastening their seat belts. o Many newspapers have a policy to mention whether seat belts were in use in accident stories. Role modeling can work for good purposes: o promoting safety consciousness o disease prevention Role modeling also has negative effects: o Some people linked the Columbine High School massacre in Littleton, Colorado, to a scene in the Leonardo DiCaprio movie “The Basketball Diaries.” In one scene, a student in a black coat executes classmates. C. Stereotyping: Stereotypes flow from the mass media. Stereotypes are inaccurate in generalization, but they have a long-term impact. Stereotyping is a shorthand that facilitates communication. Yet, Stereotypes are also a problem: A generalization, no matter how useful, is inaccurate: - not all Scots are stingy, - nor are all Wall Street brokers twisted, - nor are all college jocks dumb. Mass media perpetuate stereotypes by using them. There is no problem with benign stereotypes, but the media can perpetuate social injustice with stereotypes. - In the late 1970s, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission found that blacks on network television were portrayed excessively in immature, demeaning, or comic roles. Feminists have leveled objections that women are both underrepresented and misrepresented in the media. - Most female television parts were decorative, played by pretty California women in their 20s, who most frequently were prostitutes (16 percent) - Career women tended to be man-haters or domestic failures. Every family has at least one TV set, which is turned on seven hours per day; thus, TV has become an essential source of promulgating attitudes, values, and customs. 13 Media critics call for the media to become activists to amend demeaning stereotypes. In general, activists against stereotyping have succeeded: o Italian-Americans lobbied successfully against Mafia characters being identified as Italians. o Black and Latino women characters are playing non-stereotypical roles in popular shows like NBC's “Law &. Order” and CBS's “CSI”. D. Socialization via Eavesdropping: Mass media, especially TV, eroded the boundaries people once respected between generations, genders, and other social institutions. Today, children eavesdrop on all kinds of adult topics by seeing them depicted (shown & represented) on television. Though meant as a joke, these lines stand true today to many embarrassed parents: Father to a friend: My son and I had that father-and-son talk about the birds and the bees yesterday. Friend: Did you learn anything? The old socially recognized institution of childhood was protected from "grown- up issues" like money, divorce, and sex; it is disappearing. From television sitcoms, kids today learn that adults fight, goof up, and sometimes are just plain silly. The ubiquity of television and the ease of access to it accelerated the breakdown of traditional institutional barriers. 14 V. Media-Depicted Violence: Experts argue that: Some individuals mimic aggressive behaviors conveyed via media. Some media depicted violence as actually reducing real-life aggressive behavior. A. Learning about Violence: Mass media demonstrate dominant behaviors and norms to bring young people into society's mainstream. This pro-social process, called observational learning, can go wrong if children learn deviant behaviors from the media. People can learn about violent behavior from the media, yet the central issue is whether the media causes aberrant behavior. Individuals on trial for criminal acts occasionally plead that "the media made me do it." Courts never accepted a transfer of responsibility as a legal defense, yet the media can imitate violent behavior. Some experts say the negative effect of media-depicted violence is overstated, and media violence has a positive side. B. Media Violence as Positive: People who downplay the effect of media portrayals of blood, guts, and violence often refer to a Cathartic Effect. This theory suggests that watching violence allows individuals vicariously to release the frustration that might explode. Scholar Seymour Feshbach conducted studies that supported the cathartic effect theory. Opponents of the cathartic effect theory pointed out flaws in Feshbach's research methods. Yet, his conclusions were influential because of the study's unprecedented size (625 individuals). It was conducted in a real-life environment rather than in a laboratory, and the findings were consistent. 15 Prodding Socially Positive Action: Another argument for portraying violence (besides the cathartic effect theory) is that it prompts people to socially positive action: o NBC aired “The Burning Bed,” a television movie about an abused woman who set fire to her sleeping husband. The night the movie was shown, battered spouse centers nationwide were overwhelmed by calls from battered women who had been putting off doing anything to extract themselves from abusive mates. On the negative side, one man set his estranged wife afire; another man who hit his wife senselessly both explained that The Burning Bed inspired them. C. Media Violence as Negative: The predominance of evidence is that media-depicted violence has the potential to prompt real-life violence. However, the Aggressive Stimulation Theory needs to be more balanced. Few people act out media violence in their lives. Scholar Wayne Danielson participated in the 1995 -1997 National Television Violence Study. The study concluded that: "Viewing violence on TV tends to increase violent behavior in viewers, more in some situations and less in others. For whatever reason, when the circumstances are right, we tend to imitate what we see others doing. Our inner resistance to engage in violent behavior weakens." The study concluded that children may be more vulnerable than adults to media violence. Why, then, do many people believe that media violence begets real-life violence? Some early studies pointed to a causal link: o Bobo doll studies of Albert Bandura (1960): An alternative to Aggressive Stimulation Theory is a theory that people with aggressive & violent feelings & views are attracted to violence in movies, TV & other media depictions of violence. This theory holds that violent people are simply predisposed (liable, prone, inclined) to violence. 16 This leads to the Catalytic theory, which sees media-depicted violence as having a contributing role in violent behavior, not as triggering it. Catalytic Theory: Media violence is among the factors that MAY contribute to real-life violence. Media have a role in real-life violence but do not necessarily trigger it …only if several non-media factors are also present. Among these other non-media influences are: 1. If violence is portrayed in the media, it is rewarded. 2. If media exposure is heavy & extended. 3. If a violent person fits other profiles with other variables. Similarly, researchers note that screen-triggered violence is increased if the aggression: 1. Is realistic and exciting. 2. Succeeds in righting a wrong. 3. Includes situations or characters similar to those in the viewer's own experience. Thus, the presence of media violence can be a factor in reallife violence but NOT a cause by itself. In Brief: Violence is far too complex to be explained by a single factor. Regarding the effects of media-depicted violence on individuals articulated, Scholars Wilbur Schramm, Jack Lyle, and Edwin Parker stated that: "For some children under some conditions, some television is harmful. For other children under the same conditions, or the same children under other conditions, it may be beneficial. For most children, under most conditions, most television is probably neither particularly harmful nor particularly beneficial." Societally Debilitating Effects: Media-depicted violence scares people far more than it stirs violence. According to George Gerbner, this leads some people to believe the world is more dangerous than it is. It seems that TV violence leads people to think they are in far greater real- life jeopardy than they are. The implications of Gerbner's findings go to the heart of a free and democratic society. With such exaggerated fears about their safety, people: 17 will demand greater police protection. may submit to established authority. may accept police violence to secure their security. Media Violence and Youth: Talk Shows: Example: In Jerry Springer's television talk show, consider the following: Does talk-show viewing desensitize teenagers to tawdry behavior? Many politicians calling for television reform claim that teenagers are numbed by all the antisocial, deviant, and deceitful figures on talk shows. Do talk shows damage society's values? According to Davis and Mares: "The world of talk shows may be quite conservative. Studio audiences reinforce traditional moral codes by booing guests who disobey social norms and cheering those who support the show's theme. So, it almost seems talk shows serve as cautionary tales, heightening teens' perceptions of how often certain behaviors occur and how serious social issues are." Tolerance of Violence: Some claim that media-depicted violence has a numbing, callousing effect on people. This introduces the ‘Desensitizing Theory.’ Individuals are becoming hardened by media violence, and societies are increasingly tolerant of such antisocial behavior. Some respond that the desensitization has forced them to make the violence in their shows even more graphic. This is a chicken-or-egg question; the media are in no position to use the desensitization theory to excuse increasing violence in their products if they contributed to the desensitization. Desensitization is also apparent in the news. In 2004, the New York Times, traditionally cautious about gore, showed a photo of victims' corpses hanging from a bridge in Fallujah, Iraq. 18 The desensitizing theory explains the audience's acceptance of more violence. Still, it hardly explains why people watching television have heightened anxiety about their safety but less about others. People worrying about their own safety are hardly desensitized. VI. Media Agenda-Setting for Individuals: Agenda-setting is when media coverage defines things for people to think & worry about. It occurs as media create awareness of issues through their coverage, thus highlighting them. The audience’s priorities should be the determent of setting the agenda. A. Media Selection of Issues: Sociologist Robert Park (1920s) expressed the theory by rejecting that the media tells people what to think. As Park saw it, the media create awareness of issues more than they generate knowledge or attitudes. Agenda-setting occurs at several levels: 1. Creating Awareness: o Only if individuals are aware of an issue can they be concerned about it. o Over intense media attention, the nation may learn about morbid details of events and become better informed about a wide range of issues via media coverage. 2. Establishing Priorities: o People trust news media to order the events of the day for them. o Lead-off stories on a newscast or Front Page are expected to be the most significant. o How a story is played, time, and frequency of display all affect people's agendas o Lavish graphics can boost an item higher. 3. Perpetuating Issues: 19 o Continuing coverage lends importance to an issue. o A single story might soon be forgotten, but day-after-day follow-ups can fuel ethics reforms. o Conversely, if gatekeepers are diverted from a story, a hot issue can cool overnight, out of sight, out of mind. B. Intramedia Agenda-Setting: Agenda-setting is also a phenomenon that affects people in the media, who constantly monitor one another. Reporters and editors are often MORE concerned with how their peers are handling a story than with what their audience wants. Sometimes, the media focuses on one topic, making it seem more important than it is until it becomes a concern or a bore. Even so, individuals have control over their agendas. If people are not interested, an issue won't become part of their agendas … quickly. The individual values in selective exposure, perception, and retention can prevent media impact in agenda-setting. Depending on the mass audiences, the media take cues for their coverage from their audiences. Today, news organizations tap the public pulse through scientific sampling to deliver what people want. The mass media both exert leadership in agenda-setting and mirror the agendas of their audiences. VII. Media-Induced Anxiety and Apathy: Mass media pervasiveness is not necessarily a good thing: A. Some theorists say a plethora of information and access to ideas and entertainment can bring on information anxiety. B. Others say news media can even encourage passivity by implying that their reporting is so complete that there's nothing left to know or do. A. Information Anxiety: How could anyone manage all that information? 20 One issue in contemporary life is the total quantity of information technology that allows us access and spread. Educated people traditionally crave information, yet the quantity is overwhelming, creating 'information pollution.’ Consider college students at a significant metropolitan campus: 1. Newspaper vending machines & racks… dozens of dailies, weeklies, and freebies on the radio 40 stations. 2. Solicitations for discount subscriptions to 240 magazines 3. Choose among 50 channels on TV. (break hour) 4. At lunch, they notice advertisements simply everywhere… 5. At libraries, dorm rooms, and homes, computer systems provide instant online access to more information than any human being could possibly deal with. Example: Trend analyst John Naisbitt said: o When President Lincoln was shot in 1865, people in London learned about it five days later. o On September 11, 2001, the all-day news services were live in real-time. Worsening the quantity of information available is the accelerating rate at which it is available. The solution knows how to locate relevant information and tune out the rest, but this isn’t easy. Many people do not even try to sort through all the information available; their solution to information anxiety is to give up. Others have a false sense of being on top of things because so much information is available. B. Media-Induced Passivity: Studies indicate that: Television is on seven hours a day in US homes. Americans spend 4 to 6 hours a day with the mass media. Such media-induced passivity & access to more leisure activities caused significant changes in how people live their lives: 1. Worship services 2. Churches and lodges. 21 3. Neighborhood taverns. 4. Participatory sports. Although people's increased use of mass media may be responsible for these phenomena, it is crucial to recognize that social forces also contribute to them. DONE 22