Does the Mass Media Have Enormous Power? Research Keeps Evolving — and So Do the Questions!

by David L. Martinson

Since the advent of the Industrial Revolution people of all sorts of backgrounds and political persuasions have been concerned about the “power” of the media to influence — control? — what they think about and even more ominously, how they make decisions about moral issues, political questions, and life generally. For large numbers of persons the mass media have at one time or another been perceived as instruments of something approaching social and — even more sinister — mind control.

Over the span of the years that I taught mass communication theory I readily acknowledge that it wasn’t my favorite subject to teach. There were so many “ifs, buts, and maybes” to contend with. I preferred teaching subjects like media law where at least one could turn to current court decisions in order to find “the answer” to complex and controversial contemporary legal questions. I am certainly not suggesting that media law was always nice and neat or that interpretations of that law did not evolve over the years. Nevertheless, there was a certain comfort in being able to refer to U.S. Supreme Court decision “xyz” for at the latest current parameters of the law, for example, in an area such as defamation or privacy.

The influence — the impact — of the mass media was another question. Almost as soon as the technology that allowed for a delivery of the “mass media product” emerged, concerns — FEARS — were raised by well meaning — and perhaps many not so well meaning — persons and ideological groups from all sides of the political/social spectrum. It was a time marked by fear of a “force” that could control — frequently for the worse — the way men and women responded to social/political/economic issues. In his book Introduction to Mass Communication: Media Literacy and Culture (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield, 2001), media scholar Stanley J. Baran speaks directly to this point:

…(during the late 19th century and early 20th century

large) circulation newspapers and magazines, movies,

talkies, and radio all came to prominence…This was also

a time of profound change in the nature of U.S. society…

People in traditional seats of power — the clergy, politicians,

and educators — feared a disruption in the status quo…The

media needed to be controlled to protect traditional.

values (p. 318).

Another media scholar, Don R. Pember in his book Mass Media in America (New York: Macmillan, 1992), agrees that in this early period of mass communication evolution/revolution there was a fear about the almost sinister direct and powerful effects of the media on individuals and society but, like Baran, notes that fear of such “sinister” forces had little— if any — solid support based on genuine research about the topic. Pember writes:

…These conclusions were based upon the then current and

popular stimulus-response theory…(Researchers)…borrowed

a perfectly good physics theory — for every action there is a

reaction — and tried to apply it to human behavior…(The media,

it was suggested)…stimulated the audience. The audience in

turn responded in some manner. Contemporary researchers

have dubbed this primitive idea the hypodermic needle theory

or the…(magic) bullet theory (p. 57).

Baran notes, very explicitly, that “the symbolism…is apparent — media are a dangerous drug or a killing force that directly and immediately penetrated a person’s system” (p. 318).

This symbolism — mistaken as it may be — reads like much of the rhetoric one observes if paying even the slightly amount of attention to the “commentary” which is so ubiquitous over so much of the contemporary political landscape, discussion that seems to drive much of the internet and other new technology content. Check many “conservative” oriented websites and commentators and one will find post after post bemoaning the damage being done to America and American society by the “liberal” mass media establishment. Donald Trump, in fact, seems to be continually raising fears about “fake news” being disseminated by “phony” (and in the main liberal/radical social/political dissidents! This clearly is an attempt to raise the fear level of much of the Trump audience regarding the supposed “power’ of the mass communication media establishment.

While I certainly do not align myself politically with such hysterical fear/rhetoric that dominates too much of right-wing thinking, I readily acknowledge that I observe much the same thing from the “liberal” voices that also have an active presence on political and social media via the new technology. Frequently one finds voices expressing — again — something almost approaching a paranoid fear about the dangers being perpetuated by the MSM! That is, by traditional media outlets that have their own particular political/social agendas. (MSM, incidentally, is something approaching “shorthand” for “mainstream media” by those who distrust its “control” over the general political/social/economic agenda.) Apparently, in the eyes of many on this side of the political spectrum, even the stately New York Times too often functions in something of a dysfunctional mode via the efforts on those on the left to get the “real” news out to the American people! To at least a somewhat neutral observer, it often appears in the eyes of many ideological/political partisans, to be a contest between “evil” and “evil” — between “fake” news and the MSM media in an effort to hinder/defeat efforts to bring about much needed stability/change in contemporary society!

MASS MEDIA EFFECTS ASSUMPTIONS CHANGE

While some persons — many in fact — remain steadfast in their belief that the mass media does, in fact, have enormous and direct impact over individuals and society, mass media scholars and scholarship has evolved — and then evolved again — over the years. Baran, for example, writes that “media researchers often mark the beginning of the scientific perspective on mass communication as occurring on the eve of Halloween 1938 (p. 319). That, of course, is the eve of the famous — infamous!!! — Orson Welles broadcast of H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds. Baran notes:

Produced in what we would…call docudrama style, the realistic

radio play…frightened thousands. People fled their homes in panic.

Proof of mass society theory, argued media critics, pointing to

a radio play with the power to send people into the hills to hide

from aliens (p. 319).

Ah, but if life were so simple!

Baran points out that:

Research by scientists from Princeton University

demonstrated that, in fact, 1 million people had

been frightened enough by the broadcast to take

some action, but the other 5 million people who

heard the show had not, mass society theory

notwithstanding. More important, however,

these scientists determined that different factors

led some people to be influenced and others not (p. 319–320).

In short, the mass media hypodermic needle theory had some “holes in it.” Everyone did not react in a uniform manner. In a fairly short time, in fact, other — more scientific — studies seemed to suggest the media had rather limited influence. (Perhaps, one must caution, an over-reaction in the opposite direction.) A former graduate school classmate — and later a leading mass media scholar, teacher and administrator, Everette Dennis, in a book published in 1978 — had an opening chapter with a sub-section titled Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back (The Media Society — Evidence About Mass Communication in America (New York: Wm. C. Brown).

Dennis agrees that there was a period in which the mass media were looked upon as something far less powerful than the hypodermic needle theory had suggested. He cites a widely influential “study of voter behavior conduced in Erie County, New York during the election of 1940” (p. 5). He states that this study was “carried out by respected social scientists…(and) reported that with regard to changes in voting during an election campaign, the media have relatively few direct effects” (p. 5). Again, be careful — the words “direct effects” must be kept in mind. Nevertheless, Dennis notes, “study after study in the 1940s and 1950s limited and severely qualified the importance of media effects” (p. 6).

Many did not believe the experts! The research — scientific as it may have been — just seemed to be intuitively wrong. Moreover, there must have been large numbers of business people wasting substantial amounts of money on advertising via the media if the media had little impact! Also, why was there so much sexual content in the media if significant numbers of people experienced no gratification from such material?

Dennis points out that others agreed that there were “holes” in the limited effects theory. Media scholars suggest that once again a shift in thinking was needed. In another book published in the 1970s, authors David Clark and William Blankenburg (You & Media: Mass Communication and Society, New York: Canfield Press, 1973) have a chapter with the rather provocative title “What the Media Do to Us, Maybe.”

Had “maybe” become the operative word?

Dennis points out that some scholars — but now with limitations — were once again suggesting that the media had rather significant effects. He quotes Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann as arguing that “the decisive factors of media…(were) not brought to bear in the traditional experiment designs” (p. 8). Dennis also quotes at some length researchers Melvin DeFleur and Sandra Ball-Rokeach in this regard as contending:

We…(speak) to the enlargement of people’s belief systems that

new media bring; to the formation of attitudes toward a constant

flow of new topics; to subtle shifts of individual and collective

sentiments that may not have been seen in the actions of

individuals; and to a number of other kinds of society-wide

changes. We believe these changes come about because mass

media are present and operating, in the society (p. 8–9).

At that point it seems that Clark and Blankenburg were correct — that the media had perhaps an impact — perhaps a rather significant impact — MAYBE!!!

ALONG COMES THE NEW NEW TECHNOLOGY — THE INTERNET, ETC.

The discussion cited to this point came largely before the explosive growth of the “new new” technology. The wonders of the internet and other social media means of communication certainly has had an impact on media influence. But how? Frankly, in my increasingly old age, I have as many questions as the next person. Let me cite just one example — agenda setting.

Agenda setting theory suggests the media may not be that influential in telling people what to do, but may be rather important in telling them what to thinking about. To me, the theory always seemed to make sense. Certainly, the issues that one thinks about are also often the ones which are most widely covered in the mass media. The media may spend significant amounts of time on stories, for example, as to whether there are concerns that a particular candidate for office is “too old” to be elected. The agenda, it might be suggested, is being set even though the audience has not been “told” explicitly who to vote for. Remember in 1988 when George Bush made crime and pollution in Massachusetts — and the flag — campaign issues which the media appeared ever so anxious to cover. Poor Michael Dukakis never seemed to recover. What about the “swift boat” controversy that John Kerry, another Massachusetts candidate, never seemed to be able to put behind him? Was that a “real” story or just a successful effort to set the campaign agenda?

In his book published in 1992, Pember appeared rather supportive of agenda setting theory. He wrote:

Bringing an issue to public attention may not insure that the

public will focus on that problem and ultimately reach a

solution….(However) if the public is ready to deal with an issue,

or can deal with it easily, media attention can often foster

public action (p. 62).

He also cites, as I just have, the George Bush campaign in 1988. He asks, for example, “how many times did we see pictures of a polluted Boston Harbor? (p. 63).

One immediately needs to note that the original agenda setting theory pre-dates the explosion of the internet and other new media/social technology. The audience today can effectively by-pass traditional “gatekeepers.” Today every person can, in many ways, become his or her own media gatekeeper/agenda setter. It seems every time one “gets a handle” on media effects another variable enters the picture! Who sets the media agenda when, as Nicholas Negroponte stated so well a number of years ago, the new technology allows each user to create his/her own publication — what he termed the “Daily Me.” I know I am very selective in what media “sources” I turn to on the internet. Anyone doing consumer research would likely learn quickly that it is very unlikely I would ever vote for Donald Trump. I am also sure cookies from Fox News would seldom be found on my computer — if anyone was interested!

Attention to issues in this regard certainly did not begin with me. An internet article from the European Journalism Observatory, in fact, had the specific headline — “Who Sets the Agenda in the Internet Age? (https://en.ejo.ch/digital-news. — published July 4, 2017). The author, Gil Ferreira, an associate professor of media studies in Portugal, makes the logical assumption that much digital information selection “is now largely shared…(between the media and) media users, who furthermore aggregate and curate the information they consume.” They are able to ignore all that does not interest them or that with which they disagree. There is a concern with regards to agenda setting theory that many users…like the author of this essay — will be able to effectively “close…(the) world to dissenting opinions.” Echoing Cass Sunstein, Ferreira asks if the result will be — if it has not already occurred — “the emergence of all the problems that result from social fragmentation.” He wonders, with Ben Smith of BuzzFeed, what will happen as people are able to “close…(their) world to dissenting opinions.” Perhaps that is part of the explanation for the landscape vis-a-vis the current very polarized American political scene!

IN CONCLUSION — SORT OF???

In sum, we will continue to have debates — and face controversies — regarding the impact of mass communication on society — for better or worse. As noted at the beginning of this essay, media effects were not my first area of specialty as a professor of journalism/mass communication. The terrain keeps changing so quickly. Do I believe the media has an impact on individuals and society? Absolutely! Do I subscribe to the magic bullet or hypodermic needle theory of such effects? Absolutely not! Do I agree with Clark and Blankenburg when they suggest the media has effects — MAYBE? Well, maybe more than maybe! That is, I believe the media “may” have a number of potentially powerful effects — with qualifications regarding the words “number” and “potentially.” I’m fairly sure those effects may be significant in some cases — although I am not willing to bet my social security check on exactly what are the “ifs, the “buts,” and the “maybes.”