Sep 12 2010
Framing Week 2
1) Many of the theories that were discussed in the readings seemed to fall under the chicken and the egg paradox. On page 112 Vicker explains Klapper’s theory that the media reinforces existing opinions instead of changing them. If this is the case, then where and how are our opinions formed and what theoretical paradigms does opinion forming fall under?
2) Something mentioned under the Agenda Setting theory also seemed paradoxical to me. This theory stated that the media focuses their attention on particular stories thereby determining what the audience will find important. Could it also be argued that news organizations cater to the audience by running stories they know we are drawn to – if it bleeds it leads?
3) I found the ideas developed by Berger and Luckmann really interesting (page 185). They theorized that interactions between individuals built up over time to create society and eventually institutions that encapsulated our feelings and beliefs about the world. Although individuals were the original creators of these norms, the institutions now control and reinforce them – effectively ending our ability to change them. This made me question how interactivity and the ability of the audience to give direct feedback may have changed this model.
4) The concept of transience was also interesting (on page 96). It says that mass messages tend to be consumed and disappear within in a short period of time. I question where our constant need for new messages stems from. It’s a need and an expectation. I wonder if we have shaped the media to produce messages in this fashion, if the media has shaped our expectations or if there is some sort of two way causal relationship at play.
5) I am curious what methods you can use to ensure that participants in a self-monitoring survey are reporting their behaviors accurately and honestly. Certainly there will always be a large margin of error with this kind of sampling, but are there things you can do when selecting participants that can help reduce this margin?
September 15th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
To examine my first query I think it is important to realize that the media can change our opinions if they are not well informed. If someone makes opinions on political issues based on hearsay or with a limited understanding of the issue – their views can easily change once they become better informed on the matter. Klapper is therefore referring to our deeply held beliefs, which we arrive at through many channels. Certainly the media shape some of our more superficial views or preferences, but the majority of our beliefs are derived from our families, our class or place in the social order of things, our personal experiences and other cultural norms that are impressed upon us from the day that we are born. Our backgrounds shape our views of the world and we then seek out media sources that support that view. These days it is even easier to build a media sphere that supports your views only (selective exposure). You can choose to watch news networks that are aligned with your worldviews. You can get online and read blogs that you agree with, join discussion boards with like minded people and find people who “like” what you like. Specified media spheres could even be fueling the development of extremism in the social and political division that exists in our culture today. Getting back to my original response – people’s existing opinions are derived from an incredibly complex system of meaning that our book calls symbolic interactionism. Trying to break this down further seems like a better research paper topic than response assignment.
I think I can answer questions # 2 & 4 by addressing the issue of the media-audience relationship. Theories and philosophies have all too easy tendencies towards extremism. Even the best scholars seem to have trouble finding the middle ground, which in my experience is often how the world actually spins. Perhaps I have a mediated view because I come from a public relations background. I want my media messages to have an impact on the audience. I also function as part of an audience so I adopt the active audience view. This turns into a very circular discussion but I think the conclusion that can always be reached is that of a two-way relationship. In most cases I think that the media caters to our wants and needs, at the same time framing what we want to see in many different viewpoints. The media does use priming to turn our attention to certain issues, but I do believe that the consumers ultimately control the process. I can also reference my third question here: does interactivity give the consumer even more power? Yes and No. Most consumers of interactive media are not familiar with the technology facilitating their use so they are in that sense, completely powerless to change anything or even anticipate how it could be changed. Users do have the power of feedback though, and any sensible company will always take feedback into account. Although I think that Berger and Luckmann are more so referring to our social norms than the way that use technology. I do think that this has changed with new technology. The Internet allows us to diffuse ideas rapidly across large populations – across the entire planet actually. Culture is certainly evolving at a more rapid pace. We adopt new ideas, new phrases and new interfaces over night and so do our friends.
For my last question I examined some articles that I found on Google. It appears that the only way to reduce your margin of error in self reported survey is to include a validation measure in which your questions are asked in a different way to try to prompt the same or different answers to test honesty. Margins of error are acceptable, as long as you accurately report them