Mass Communication Theories

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Key Mass Communication Theories

How do the mass media work? That is, how do people communication with large populations? What kinds of information gets into the “pipeline,” and how do we know who pays attention to it? In any science, a theory serves as a description of how things might work. Theories don’t do anything, but they help explain various phenomena.

These brief synopses of seven different theories help describe and explain how communication works in the information age, from how different individuals may see the world in different ways, to how the mass media work to include and omit information from the mass communication pipeline.

1. Selective Perception—This perspective on how humans “see” the world is based on individual differences of upbringing, race, gender, socioeconomic status, life experiences. The result of these differences is that people perceive and interpret the world differently. Recognizing shared perceptions of the world is essential to understanding how individuals form communities.
• Selective Exposure: Individuals are exposed to different experiences and influences—some profound (like nationality or gender) and some subtle (like bigtown/smalltown)—that help shape how they see and make sense of the world, people, issues, culture, society.
• Selective Perception: As a result of these difference background and formative influences, individuals see and make sense of the world differently; we all create our own meanings of events around us, filtering information that reaches us through our own prejudices and prior knowledge, framing information so that it makes sense in our own context.
• Selective Retention: Based on how we see the world, individuals tend to pay attention to different kinds of information that is more or less relevant and familiar to their own experience. Some information flies right past us; some sticks.

2. Gatekeeping Theory—There are gatekeepers in any communication system—interpersonal, written, mass communication. These are elements that make constant decisions about what information is or isn’t important enough to pass along—what information gets through the “gate” from the sender of a message to a receiver of that message. Not only does gatekeeping occur in deciding the end message (e.g., what stories get into the newspaper), but also as a reporter decides what stories to cover, what sources to interview, what questions to ask, and what parts of her reporter’s notebook are important enough to make it into the story. So there is both “front-end” gatekeeping as a media message is created, and a “back-end” gatekeeping as an editor decides what stories to put in the paper, on what page, with what headline, and what part of the reporter’s story gets edited out. Clearly, individual perceptions of the world and what things are important in it (selective perception) are in play in this process. The ultimate gatekeeper in the mass communication process is the news reader/viewer—what do they think is important/relevant enough to permit through the “gates” of their conscious minds? In this context (and under agenda-setting, below), the media do not reflect “reality”; they filter, shape and construct a “reality.” (Remember the principles of media literacy.)

3. Agenda-Setting—This theory holds that although the mass media can’t tell us what to think, the media are stunningly successful at telling us what to think about. That is, through their selection or deselection of what is “news” (gatekeeping), the mass media serve to create an agenda for social discourse. When there were only three major national TV networks, and some 70%-80% of Americans watched them nightly, a very clear national agenda of what’s most important was created. Even in such a monopolistic and dominated mass media system, the networks couldn’t make people think in certain ways (because of individual selective perception), but they were and are able to focus attention of some issues while ignoring others. (See Project Censored for examples of stories that fall in the “woods” without a sound, and did not reach the public agenda/consciousness.) Examples of how agenda-setting works in society include: The OJ Simpson murder trial; the Clinton impeachment hearings following Zippergate; WMDs and the Iraq War/War on Terrorism. Consider the implications of agenda-setting for public policy debate and creation of laws. Another question: Who sets the agenda for the media agenda-setters?

4. Framing—This theory concerns how news and information are “framed” or presented once they pass through the news “gate” and reach the public agenda. A media “frame” is the central organizing idea for a news story that supplies a context and emphasizes certain aspects of a story while minimizing or ignoring others. This is more complex than it may seem, because framing is a complex and nuanced process. As media literacy theory tells us, media messages are constructions or representations of “reality.” It is impossible for a media message to be anything more than a summary or representation of the world. Thus, the question for message consumers is always: “What aspects of this story are not being told?” “What information lies outside the ‘frame’ of this message?” and, perhaps most importantly, “What might be the intent (ideological, intentional or inadvertent) of the senders (gatekeepers) of this message?” So framing suggests that the bottom line in evaluating media content is not just what to think about (agenda-setting), but how to think about it, based on how the story is presented. Framing is not a conspiracy to skew the news (although it can work that way); individuals, based on their selective perceptions, not only select different things as important, but inevitably frame them in different ways to conform to how they see the world. But what is the effect of that framing on the receiver of those messages, and on the larger society?

5. Coorientation—This theory examines the relationship (or lack thereof) between how gatekeepers (e.g., reporters/editors) and consumers of messages “see” the world. Shared values and perceptions can increase communication efficiency; lack of shared perceptions/attitudes can lead to a disconnect between message creators and receivers. How well does an editor (gatekeeper) understand and connect with a newspaper reader? Shared understandings (or the lack thereof) are important in communication.

6. Cultivation—The images and impressions and topics (and how they are framed) that appear in the mass media serve to “cultivate” in all of us certain impressions of the world. These messages and the way they are framed—if they are a stable set of images consistent over time—may serve to change our own individual perceptual frame of the world around us. The mass media build and maintain a stable set of images—stories about our culture, our society, who we are—that govern our lives and how we see the world, and influence the decisions we make. Ultimately, mass media messages in sufficient accumulation may influence our behavior, attitudes, decisions and life choices. This has wide implications for both individuals and for societies. One example is George Gerbner’s “mean world syndrome,” in which research found that heavy viewers of news tended to perceive the world as a more dangerous and scarier place than light TV viewers. Based on the amount and kind of stuff we include in our mass media diets, we may over time start to “cultivate” new perceptions of people, ideas, issues, etc., with which we have little direct involvement. In short, the cultivate media “reality” may become more real to us over time than real reality. This has important implications for mass media producers and consumers, and for the society in which we live—advertising, consumerism, society anxiety, racism, sexism, etc.

7. Third Person Effect (TPE)—Rather than examining media effects in terms of how media may effect the way individuals think about issues and people, TPE theory examines our beliefs about how media affects us and others. In other words—rather than taking the approach that media affect our perceptions of the world, TPE considers how our perceptions shape our ideas about media effects.

Research shows that most of us have the perception that the mass media don’t really affect us, but the media really influence other people. In other words, TPE holds that individuals think the mass media will influence other people, but they have little influence over me personally. One result, according to research, is that people who have this perception tend to overestimate media’s potential impact on others and underestimate potential impact on themselves.

Another result of individuals’ perception that media will significantly influence others is that these individuals are more likely to believe that mass media need to be restricted and censored in order to protect other people from harmful effects.