Political Information Processing

Media Effects in Political Communication Research

Communication theorists have identified four paradigms during the past 100 years that have led to the evolution of contemporary information processing theory. The first part of the 20th century was a time during which SR theory dominated thinking about media effects. The media were believed to have strong or powerful effects on attitudes, opinions, and beliefs of audience members. This is because effective propaganda campaigns during World War I demonstrated that media could shift public opinion. A paradigm shift came about in the 1960s with the publication of a volume titled The Effects of Mass Communication. Sociologist Joseph Klapper considered all of the research on media effects, including a large body of research on political campaigns conducted at Columbia University. He concluded that when media do have powerful effects, it is a departure from the norm, because media primarily serve to reinforce rather than shape ideas or beliefs. Although the limited effects model took into account the content of the message, how the message is structured, and the knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and predispositions of an individual, it did not sufficiently acknowledge individual differences among audience members, nor did it adequately consider the importance of selective processes, including exposure, perception, and recall.

Researchers in the 1970s leveled sharp criticisms against the limited effects model, arguing that it presented an overly simplistic view of the complex interaction among the media, information presented, and the audience members. Using new and wide-ranging social scientific methodologies, theorists and researchers began to demonstrate that while the media may not be all-powerful in altering public opinion and beliefs, the media can have significant effects under certain circumstances. To understand the true relationship, they argued, one must consider how people psychologically interact with media, signaling a shift to the SOR model. Pioneering research of the 1960s and 1970s also marked a shift to the third paradigm, in which mass [Page 585]communication theory would now focus on both messages and audience members to understand how they interact. Among the streams of research to emerge were cultivation analysis, the knowledge gap hypothesis, agenda setting, the spiral of silence, media uses and gratifications, priming, and framing.

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