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Mass Media and Psychology
Application of Psychology in Information Technology and Mass Media

Media psychology

Media Psychology seeks an understanding of how people perceive, interpret, use, and respond to a media-rich world. In doing so, media psychologists can identify potential benefits and problems and promote the development of positive media

PSYCHOLOGY AND MEDIA: AN UNEASY

RELATIONSHIP?

Why do so many psychologists still regard television as nothing more than

a tin box generating visual stimuli, while the rest of the world is constantly

digesting and regurgitating its contents? One of the reasons for psychology’s

slowness in picking up on the influence of media is that, as a young

science, it has been cautious in its selection of topics for inquiry. Partly

this caution derives from its uncertain status as a science, so there has

been a neglect of topics that do not easily lend themselves to measurement,

preferably in the context of the laboratory. This caution is not peculiar

to psychology. Within academia in general, the media are not considered

a fit topic for academic research; many media researchers can recall

snooty comments from colleagues about their interest in the “trivia” and

“junk” of media culture. This attitude has trickled down to the student

body. One of my third-year students reportedly said to another, “Surely

you can’t be studying reality TV for your final year project?” These are not

stuffy, fogeyish young people, but they feel that academia is no place in

which to pick apart their leisure pursuits.

Negative attitudes to the serious study of media pervade far beyond the

academy: in the United Kingdom, even as recently as 1993, the Education

Secretary of the Conservative government referred to media studies as “cultural

Disneyland for the weaker minded” (O’Sullivan, Dutton, & Rayner,

1998, p. ix). Furthermore, the media themselves are not above pouring

PSYCHOLOGY AND MEDIA: AN UNEASY RELATIONSHIP? 9

scorn in serious attempts to study popular culture. Every few months, on

quieter news days, an end-piece story will appear about a Ph.D. student at

some university who is conducting a thesis on Madonna or “Big Brother,”

and newsreaders will raise a quizzical eyebrow and wonder which government

body is chucking away taxpayers’ money on such frivolous pursuits.

Although cultural snobbery and concerns for psychology’s scientific

credibility may partly explain its lack of interest in media, there are other

factors as well. The pace of technological change over the last century, and

the rapidity of associated social upheavals, have made it difficult for serious

research to get to grips with either. The current climate of speculation

about the future social consequences of the internet and virtual reality

echo the speculation that initially surrounded radio and television. Every

decade in the last 50 years has seen major developments in mass communications

and media. Keeping a finger on the pulse of change is difficult

when you are trying to discover universal truths about human nature.

It would be unfair to claim that psychology has ignored all aspects of media.

A quick trawl through North American social psychology journals in

the 1970s and 1980s reveals a large number of research papers dealing with

the “effects” of television and films. Most of these studies were instigated by

a concern that, far from being a harmless box of tricks in the corner of the

living room, the television is a source of imagery and information that is capable

of turning acquiescent and innocent little children into gormless

zombies, or, worse, mass murderers. This research is largely the legacy of

behaviourism, and is discussed in full in part II of the book.

It is, however, symptomatic of much psychological research that it is essentially

problem driven, rather than curiosity driven. In other words, the research

has been conducted in response to calls for scientific evidence for

the harmful influence of media, rather than an intellectual need to understand

how media in general might influence behaviour. As a result, studies

have been devised that have the best chance of securing a statistically significant

outcome for a causal relationship between violent media and aggressive

behaviour. The resultant literature enabled Leonard Eron, one of the

leading researchers in the area, to claim that the causal link between media

violence and aggression is as powerful as the link between cigarette smoking

and lung cancer (Eron, 1993).

Despite widespread agreement as to the shortcomings of much experimental

research on media violence, its legacy has been bequeathed to the

media themselves, and to politicians, who continue to make unsubstantiated

statements about the direct relationship between media violence and

antisocial behaviour (Barker & Petley, 1997). Meanwhile, in the United

States in particular, media violence research has moved on, exploring

means of curbing the argued effects of violence, through advisory warnings,

labelling, and blocking devices such as the “V-chip.” The consensus here is

10 1. WHAT IS MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY?

that Eron is right: There is no need to prolong the experimental investigation

because it has already proved the causal link beyond doubt. Nevertheless,

there are pockets of research into media violence that draw on contemporary

theories and methods in social psychology (e.g., Shaw, 2001),

and to many minds the issue is far from settled.

What is interesting is that Eron himself never set out to investigate media

influence per se. His initial field of research was aggressive behaviour

(Fowles, 1999). Due to the lack of any established media psychology tradition,

this pattern of career development is likely to apply to most psychologists

who have conducted research on the influence or effects of media.

The exodus of staff from psychology departments to media and communications

departments in North America has given psychology the perfect excuse

to ignore media: It is now another discipline’s concern.

Despite the disappearance of media psychologists from psychology

over the last century, the influence of the media on everyday behaviour is

so insidious that it has been impossible to dispel it completely. Indeed, its

effect on social change has been so rapid that references to media phenomena

now abound in psychological research, and their status as media

phenomena is often completely ignored. A good example of this comes

from a paper on self-concept by Aron, Aron, Tudor, and Nelson (1991)

who, in a study on close relationships, happened to mention that their

participants found it easier to generate vivid visual images of the pop star

Cher than of their own mothers! Historically speaking, this is a truly remarkable

psychological finding, worthy of more than a casual comment in

a Method section.

Perhaps the most surprising thing of all is that, despite the rapid expansion

of psychology toward the end of the last century, no applied field of

psychology has welcomed media under its wing. For instance, cultural psychology

has emerged as a clear field within the discipline (e.g., Cole &

White, 1996), and it might seem that this would be the natural home for

the study of the influence of media culture on psychology. However, textbooks

on cultural psychology barely give the media a mention except for

the occasional remark about television’s deleterious effect on “traditional”

cultures.

Overwhelmingly, cultural psychology draws its data from premedia cultural

contexts and from parts of the globe where media influence is less

evident than in the West. There is a clear bias toward “cultural durability,”

implying that technologically oriented cultures are fleeting and insubstantial,

and that “culture” is not worth studying unless ingrained over several

centuries. Any contemporary theory of the role of culture in psychology

ought to take media culture into consideration. In effect, this book

is about not ignoring media, or taking them for granted, in the study of

psychology.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF E-LEARNING AS

AN IMPORTANT FIELD

E-Learning

There are a wide variety of E-learning activities, from playing five-minute

digital video in the classroom to implementing a one-semester online course

through the Internet. E-learning involves various technologies (e.g., cable TV, the

Internet, or palm-held computers), various forms (e.g., virtual learning, online

learning, distance learning, and Web-based learning), and various components

(e.g., e-book, e-dictionary, e-library, e-classroom, e-assessment, e-homework, and

e-management). Given the complexity of E-learning and consequently the

diversity in understanding E-learning, there exist various ways of defining

E-learning (e.g., Huffaker & Calvert, 2003; Mayer, 2003).

We would consider E-learning in the context of history of human learning and

define it as the third learning system that uses various electronic techniques

as its primary medium for learning (also see Rosenberg, 2001; Snyder, 1998;

Swan, Bowman, & Holmes, 2003). This particularly broad definition emphasizes

on the historic significance of E-learning. Historically, there are three major types

of learning systems on the basis of what medium is used in connecting learners

with learning objects. The first learning system can be called S-learning, using

speech as its primary medium to promote learning. Its prominence was gradually

replaced by P-learning, the second learning system that uses paper as its primary

learning medium. E-learning has become a pervasive and important learning

phenomenon in the 1990s and can be considered the third learning system that uses

the electronic technology as its primary medium for human learning.

In order to gain the knowledge of how to grow a plant, for example, S-learning

may involve a conversation between a mother and her daughter in a tribe village;

P-learning may take place when a student reads books in a school library to learn

that knowledge, while being able to learn from their teachers, parents, or peers;

for E-learning, a learner may learn the knowledge by searching Web sites

or e-mailing to experts of agriculture in the world, while still being able to learn

it from teachers, parents, peers, and books.

Thus, S-learning, P-learning, and E-learning essentially supplement or support

each other rather than reject or replace each other. With three different types of

medium (speech, paper, and electronics), however, these three learning systems

differ from each other distinctively in how knowledge is presented, preserved,

and/or delivered and how a learning process takes place (e.g., speed, timing, space,

efficiency, and accuracy).

E-Learning in Education and Corporations

The two most active areas of E-learning practice take place in educational and

corporate settings (e.g., Bonk, 2001, 2002). E-learning activities have been widely

286 / YAN ET AL.

observed in both post-secondary education and K–12 education (Riley, Holleman,

& Roberts, 2000; Schank, 2002). Good examples in post-secondary education

include innovative E-learning programs (e.g., MIT’s university-wide open course

initiatives and State University of New York Learning Network) and virtual

universities (e.g., University of Phoenix Online and Walden University). Good

examples for K–12 education include Virtual High School, Keystone National

High School, and Hundred High School in West Virginia. Virtual High School,

for example, offered 87 different courses to about 1,700 students in 112 schools

located in 29 states in 2000 (Riley et al., 2000).

Large corporations, such as IBM, GE, AT&T, and Merrill Lynch, use

E-learning as one of their key competitive strategies to effectively train employees

and distribute knowledge (Rosenberg, 2001; Schank, 2002). Chief Learning

Officers and Chief Knowledge Officers are often appointed to manage E-learning

programs in many companies (Baldwin & Danielson, 2001). Major E-learning

companies, such as New Horizons, IBM, KnowledgePool, NIIT, and SmartForce,

provide either E-training courses or E-training content (International Data Corporation,

2002). It is estimated that the worldwide corporate E-learning market

will rise from $6.6 billion in 2002 to $23.7 billion in 2006 (American Society

for Training & Development, 2002). Thus, the E-learning research community

should investigate E-learning in both educational and corporate settings, especially

since enormous funding for the latter has lead to significant progress.

The Psychology of E-Learning

Given the importance of E-learning in both education and industry, it is critical

to study E-learning not only as a learning system but also as a psychological

phenomenon. E-leaning concerns how to improve people’s learning with information

technologies. Thus, there is a need to study people’s psychological factors

(e.g., learning styles and learning motivation), process (e.g., creative thinking and

spatial cognition), and mechanisms (e.g., the dual-coding mechanism and the

split-attention effect) that underlie E-learning so that the E-learning practice

can move from technology-centered implementation to human-centered effective

learning processes.

There exists extensive literature in describing various forms of E-learning, such

as virtual learning, online learning, distance learning, computer-assisted learning,

and Web-based learning (e.g., Harasim, Hiltz, Teles, & Turoff, 1995; Khan,

1997; Porter, 1997; Windschitl, 1998). Few efforts have been made, however, to

systematically examine E-learning as a coherent learning system (e.g., Schank,

2002) and to effectively reveal psychological factors, processes, and mechanisms

(e.g., Mayer, 2001). Thus, it is timely to explore the psychology of E-learning,

synthesize the current understanding of E-learning from interdisciplinary

perspectives, facilitate exchanges and collaboration among researchers and

PSYCHOLOGY OF E-LEARNING / 287

practitioners, and develop strong and innovative research programs to inform

millions of e-learners in their everyday E-learning experiences.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF E-LEARNING AS AN

INTERDISCIPLINARY FIELD

The psychology of E-learning can be considered an interdisciplinary field of

study for two major reasons. First, E-learning is a complex human learning

phenomenon that one needs to study its multiple aspects from multiple angles.

It is not only an educational phenomenon but also a complex phenomenon that

involves cognitive, social, developmental, neurological, and other processes.

Second, psychology is a complex scientific enterprise that includes more than

50 disciplines such as cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, social

psychology, clinical psychology, and neurological psychology (Kazdin, 2002;

Smelser & Baltes, 2001). Studying psychological factors, processes, and

mechanisms of E-learning, one needs to recognize, appreciate, and integrate the

exiting research literature across different psychological disciplines. In the text

that follows, we briefly summarize important studies of E-learning from five

psychological disciplines.

Cognitive Psychology of E-Learning

One of the most productive areas of the psychology of E-learning is studying the

cognitive aspect of E-learning. Two classic theories, the dual-coding theory (Claik

& Paivio, 1991; Paivio, 1986) and the cognitive load theory (Chandler & Sweller,

1991, 1992; Sweller & Chandler, 1994) were advanced one decade ago. The

empirical research conducted by Richard Mayer and his collaborators since 1980s

(see Mayer, 2003) can be considered as one of the earliest, largest, and strongest

research programs in this area. Many research groups conducted a wide variety of

representative research on the cognitive psychology of E-learning, such as John

Black’s at Teacher’s College, John Branford’s at Vanderbilt, Christopher Dede’s

at Harvard, Roy Pea’s at Stanford, and Roger Shank’s at Northwest, just to name a

very few. This is an area of study where many “superstars” exist and more rise

above the horizon. It might continue to be “the crown jewel” of the psychology of

E-learning in the future.

Social Psychology of E-Learning

Another particularly active area in the psychology of E-learning is studying the

social process of E-learning. Among leading researchers in this area include

Everett Katz and Ronald Rice at Rutgers University, Robert Kraunt and Sara

Kiesler at Carnegie Mellon University, Sheryl Turkle at MIT, Joseph Turow at

University of Pennsylvania, and Patricia Wallace at Johns Hopkins. For instance,

the ongoing longitudinal project called HomeNet (Kiesler, Lundmark, Zdaniuk,

288 / YAN ET AL.

& Kraut, 2000; Kraut et al., 1998; Subrahmanyam, Greenfield, Kraut, & Gross,

2001) examines the impact of the Internet on daily lives of the average U.S. family.

The findings of the first two-year study demonstrated mixed effects of using the

Internet on people’s psychological well being. Based on both the fast growing

amount of the research literature and the fast growing number of research groups

in the area, the social psychology of E-learning is likely to become one of the most

influential areas in the psychology of E-learning.

Developmental Psychology of E-Learning

The third important area of the psychology of E-learning is studying E-learning

from the developmental perspective. The leading research groups include Sandra

Calvert’s at Georgetown, Rodney Cocking’s at NSF, Michael Scaife’s at Sussex

University, Patricia Greenfield’s at UCLA, Michael Resnick’s at MIT Media

Laboratory, and Jane Hawkins’ at Harvard University. For example, Scaife and his

associates (Scaife & van Duuren, 1995) explored how young children represented

computational devices and found that older children shifted from describing

perceptually salient features to more abstract ones. In another study, Scaife and

Bond (1991) examined how children used computer input devices and found

that younger children had more difficulties using the mouse or joystick than

touch screen and key-push and most children mastered all the four devices at

about eight years of age. Unfortunately, in the past three years, unfortunately,

three esteemed developmental scientists, Scaife, Cocking, and Hawkins, passed

on unexpectedly and left their celebrated legacies to the E-learning research

community.

School and Counseling Psychology of E-Learning

Another important research area includes the study of cognitive and behavioral

interventions through E-learning applications in school settings. Horan and his

colleagues (Clark, Horan, Tompkins Bjorkman, Kovalski, & Hackett, 2000;

Horan, 1996; Kovalski & Horan, 1999), for example, used computer-based or

Internet-based intervention programs to foster adolescents’ self-esteem and to

restructure maladaptive career beliefs. Bosworth and her associates (Bosworth,

Espelage, & DuBay, 1998; Bosworth, Espelage, DuBay, Dahlberg, & Daytner,

1996; Bosworth, Espelage, DuBay, Daytner, & Karageorge, 2000) studied the

application of computer-based violence prevention to improve students’ knowledge

on how to handle conflict through the use of interactive games, simulations

animation, and interviews. Margalit and her group (Margalit, 1991, Margalit

& Weisel, 1990; Margalit, Weisel, & Shulman, 1987) documented the efficacy

of computer-assisted social skills learning with students with learning disabilities,

mild retardation, and behavior disorders. These research examples

clearly demonstrate the promise and importance of studying another E-learning

application, E-intervention, in dealing with children’s mental health.

PSYCHOLOGY OF E-LEARNING / 289

The above review by no means exhausts all the important studies across over

50 psychological disciplines. Other promising areas of research, for example,

are: a) neurological psychology of E-learning (e.g., Gazzaniga, 2000; Gerli_ &

Jaušovec, 1999, 2001; Kosslyn et al., 1999; McCluskey, 1997; Mikropoulos,

2001; Rose & Meyer, 2002; Von Melchner, Pallas, Sur, 2000), b) industrial psychology

of E-learning (e.g., Norman, 1988; Shneiderman, 1998); and c) physiological

psychology of E-learning (e.g., AOA, 1995; Anshel, 1997; Quilter, 1998).

It is clear that there is a rich literature about E-learning in a wide variety of

psychological disciplines and there is a need for greater integration of these

psychological studies on E-learning. Thus, this special issue assembles a collection

of articles that is explicitly concerned with psychological processes of

E-learning and provides an initial base for interdisciplinary integration.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF E-LEARNING AS AN

EMERGING RESEARCH FIELD

Contributions to the Psychology of E-Learning

This special issue has four theoretical articles. In the lead article of the special

issue, Mayer explicitly proposed the concept of science of E-learning for the

first time and presented his theory of E-learning based on his 15 years of research

on this area. This work can be considered the first important theorizing achievement

in the psychology of E-learning. In another theoretical article, Shah and

Freedman reviewed the important literature, including their own latest work,

on visuospatial cognition. To our knowledge, this is the first important review

that effectively synthesizes a large body of the visualization literature for

general educational readers. Based on the new science of learning, Huffaker and

Calvert thoughtfully reviewed a series of innovative E-learning applications,

such as Nintendo, Playstation, Parkworld, Game Design Project, KineticCity.com,

and Junior Summit Project.

This special issue also includes five empirical studies. Roy and Chi developed a

new method called Search Diagram to quantitatively analyze children’s Web

search behaviors. Chen and Fu’s experimental study analyzed specific effects

of multimodal representation by looking into its type (word-only versus

word-plus-picture), channels (visual-only versus visual-plus-auditory), and media

(computer versus paper). Guinee, Eagleton, and Hall’s ethnographical study

extensively investigated the Internet search strategies of adolescents. Thompson

and Lynch’s survey study identified psychological factors underlying students’

opposition to Web-based instruction. Bergin and his 10 collaborators explored

cognitive and social effects of the Interactive Simulated Patient, a well-received

computer-based medical simulation. In sum, the articles contained in this special

issue deal with various psychological factors, processes, and mechanisms of

290 / YAN ET AL.

E-learning and make theoretical, empirical, methodological, and/or practical

contributions to the field of the psychology of E-learning.

Limitations of the Special Issue

While explicit efforts from both theoretical and empirical article are made to

describe psychological factors, processes, and mechanisms in E-learning, less

well represented in this special issue are psychological studies focusing on

both E-learning from multiple psychological disciplines and practice-based and

policy-based issues of E-learning that have broad social compact.

Most of the articles, if not all, in this special issue mainly examine cognitive

psychology issues (e.g., effects of multimedia learning, visuospatial cognition,

judgment of learning, and navigation strategies). Only three of the articles in this

special issue touched somehow non-cognitive issues (e.g., social success, gender

differences, collaborative study). Only two were concerned with psychological

studies of E-learning applications (entertainment program design and clinical

simulation). None of the articles involves psychological studies of Federal and

State’s E-learning policies (e.g., the National Educational Technology Plan made

by the Department of Education in 2000 and the Children’s Internet Protection

Act passed by the Congress in 2000). Thus, the title of the special issue was

changed from “The Psychology of E-learning: Interdisciplinary Studies” to “The

Psychology of E-learning: A Field of Study,” to better reflect on the true nature

of this special issue.

How to explain the phenomenon that cognitive studies of E-learning dominate

the special issue? The first possible explanation could be that cognitive science

and computing technologies have traditionally been intertwined, and as we

pointed out before, cognitive studies of E-learning currently are still the mainstream

in the field of the psychology of E-learning. The second reason could be

that there was a short time period allotted in calling for articles and there was

limited space that precluded many submitted articles. Starting from August 2002,

the call for articles was sent to all the divisions in APA, APS, and AERA. But

among all the initial inquiries and subsequent submissions, and the final collection

of the articles predominately concerns applications of E-learning or cognitive

studies of E-learning, with only two exceptions that focuses on issues of clinic and

neurological psychology. Thus, no substantial evidence indicates that the special

issue has missed a large number of potential manuscripts focusing on noncognitive

studies of E-learning. The other speculations could be: Is the field too

young to synthesize much literature (e.g., in the case of neuropsychological studies

on E-learning)? Is the time too early to generate enthusiastic responses (e.g., in

the case of social psychology of E-learning)? Or is the task of interdisciplinary

research too challenging to accomplish (e.g., in the case of the interdisciplinary

studies on the Computer Vision Syndrome)? Given these speculations, however,

one conclusion could be reached: Overall, the psychology of E-learning is a field

PSYCHOLOGY OF E-LEARNING / 291

that is currently taking shape rather than in its full blossom. We believe that the

resulting set of articles, submitted through an open call for papers and reviewed

through the standard JECR editorial procedure, provides an authentic window of

current status of psychological understanding of E-learning.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF E-LEARNING AS

A PROMISING FIELD

To further build the psychology of E-learning as a promising field, we as the

E-learning research community need to move forward in two important directions,

“going one inch deeper” and “going one mile wider.”

“Going One Inch Deeper

First, we need more empirical research programs to study explicitly various

psychological factors, processes, and mechanisms that underlie the E-learning

practice. We should know better how and why some E-learning programs are

successful and others are not. Second, we need more theorizing efforts to build

powerful theories, like Mayer’s theory of E-learning, which can guide E-learning

practices and studies. With the accumulation of research on E-learning, this need

will become strong. Third, we need more systematical studies on the research

methodology of E-learning. We should not only use the existing research techniques

but also develop E-research that really take full advantage of modern

information technologies to collect and analyze quality data on E-learning.

“Going One Mile Wider”

First, we need more interdisciplinary studies of E-learning. It is important

to both bring in theories, methods, and studies from a wide variety of psychology

disciplines and reach out to ask psychological scientists in different fields

for their assistance in addressing challenging research questions and important

policy issues of E-learning. We should develop interdisciplinary research agendas,

conduct interdisciplinary research programs, and build interdisciplinary research

teams. Second, we need more policy-based research so that major policy decisions

can be based on solid research evidence. Third, we need more research-based

applications so that the psychological studies of E-learning can be verified in

the real life world and used to guide millions of E-learners and. In sum, we need

to integrate research, theories, methods, practice, and policy to develop the

psychology of E-learning, a promising field that will have distinctive intellectual

identity and broad social impacts.

The completion of this special issue in a sense indicates another starting point

rather than the ending point of an exciting but challenging intellectual journey.

Due to the time and space constraints, this special issue only includes a small

number of short articles. Thus, a book project is currently under consideration with

292 / YAN ET AL.

the hope to demonstrate effectively the interdisciplinary nature of the psychology

of E-learning that integrates research, theories, practice, and policies. We

welcome comments, inquiries, discussions, and contributions. If this special issue

serves as the first base for showing that the psychology of E-learning is an

emerging research field, the book project could serve as the second base for further

building the psychology of E-learning into a growing.

To conclude, the psychology of E-learning is a field of study that is important,

interdisciplinary, emerging, and promising. This special issue provides an

authentic window of the current psychological knowledge of E-learning. We

would like to thank Executive Editor of JECR, Robert Seidman, and Special

Issue Editor of JECR, Karen Swan, for their vision and support; all the writers

who submitted their manuscripts for choosing the special issue as the outlet of

their work; all the external reviewers for their time and work, and all the authors

whose work are included in the special issue for their multiple revision and

important contributions. Without them, this special issue would have been

simply impossible.

E-Learning: Technology Versus Psychology

Bijay Kumar Nanda

State Institute of Educational Technology, Bhubaneswar, India

This paper offers descriptive elaboration on the following salient points:

• Drawbacks of ʹchalk-and-talkʹ

• Experimental e-learning tool

• Pedagogical Problems

• Learning Models

• Courseware Design

• Virtual Labs

• Personality Types & Learning

• Professor versus Student

• Imparting Expertise

• Web-based Learning

• Technology-assisted Teaching

• Teacher: A New Role

SUMMARY :

1. Web-based Learning to be a competitor to traditional class room, if

Teachersʹ role is confined to imparting bookish knowledge.

2. Need for blending e-Learning technology with Educational Psychology

for effective learning.

3. Need for building Knowledge Warehouse for technical material

4. Teachers have to SURVIVE in Darwinian terms.

DRAWBACKS OF ʹCHALK-AND-TALKʹ:

A variety of studies are available to classify learners, in order to choose most

appropriate style of instruction for each learner, or each group of learners.

Teachers, habitually, use a mix of approaches using ‘chalk-and-talk’ in a class

room environment. A concept is presented through one approach, say giving a

formal definition, and then elaborated and explained through an example and

may be analogies and metaphors.

At times, this elaboration may be in response to a “not understood” signal from

some of the students in the class. Some students grasp concepts presented in

formal abstract manner like a definition or a formula. Some needs an image to

visualize, with which they can relate the concept. We know people who can

concentrate better when music is played in the background; at the same time, we

also know of people who finds background music to be distracting them from

concentration.

It becomes evident from this description that students with varying backgrounds

with lack of prerequisite knowledge are not benefited much from the ‘chalk-and

talk’. It becomes a prevalent necessity to ensure that the children should have the

required background to attend the class. A mediation of technology may

prescribe a development in this regard to overcome the age old drawbacks of the

‘chalk-and-talk’ .

Students with varying grasping power, students with diverse interests because

of different personality types and the compulsory attendance at specified time

are the measure drawbacks of ‘chalk-and-talk. To weaken these drawbacks it

becomes important to ensure the required background to attend the class and ‘let

the children learn at their own pace’ be the pieces of technology. Anytime &

Anywhere learning mechanism other than the compulsory attendance at

specified time with customized courseware design based on the ‘type’ ought to

be worked out for reaping the benefits invested in class.

EXPERIMENTAL E-LEARNING TOOL:

The concept of using computer technology to enhance learning experience goes

back a couple of decades. Computer Based Tutoring (CBT) systems once flooded

the market with the idea that one can buy a tutor disk say, on Mathematics or

Biology, and sit in comfort and privacy in front of a PC and ‘master’ the subject is

quite charming. However, it turned out to be a failure for most students in most

subjects and disappeared from the market.

Meanwhile, researchers in the field of Artificial Intelligence(ITS-Intelligent

Tutoring systems-to be more specific) were attempting more sophisticated

models of using computer to teach. These systems tried to go beyond the then

popular page turners to build better interaction and intelligence in the system to

emulate some capabilities and characteristics of a real human teacher. An ideal

ITS would have a detailed model of the domain to be taught, a model to

represent a given student’s understanding of the domain and associated

mechanisms to update this, detailed pedagogical models to choose an

appropriate concept or a lesson for discussion using an appropriate style of

instruction. Of course, it was too challenging for complete automation,

particularly given the computer and networking capabilities of those days. ITS,

barring a few stray success stories, blurred away without making a major impact

on education.

An intranet based tool for experimenting on effectiveness of Work –Based-Learning

(WBL) becomes a upward need to develop a database of modules with prerequisites,

topic, module duration etc. Courseware must be fortified with text, audio, video with

’explain-again’/add-on. Linking of Virtual lab to the internet sites experiments e-

Learning tools to prepare, exploratory exercise (out of syllabus questions) module for

monitoring the time taken for going through a module and correlation of performance

in pre-requisite tests, module test and personality type.

PEDAGOGICAL PROBLEMS:

The problems pertaining to the pedagogy are numerous. It becomes important to

induce the technology for an academic refinement to solve the shortage of learning

models which are to be based on personality types. Complex courseware design

distracts the interest but use of Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) may be an

advantage. Course content format be modeled using the portable code of Java and

XML’s data as well.

LEARNING MODELS:

Online learning can be seen to open up a lot of new possibilities in education. With

powerful software environment, learning models can be improvised with a skill to

demonstrate the subject through games for easy comprehension. The varieties of

methods are required to be employed for better understanding of the learners by using

the technology embedded with the psychology. Learning through story-listening, storytelling,

experimentation and MEMORIZATION has some immediate impact on framing

the objectives of learning among the learners.

e-Learning is a combination of learning services and technology to provide high value

integrated learning, anytime, anyplace. e-Learning provides a new set of tools that can

add value to all the traditional learning modes-classroom experiences, textbook study.

All these have to take care to decide the package materials considering meticulously the

personality type of the learners.

COURSEWARE DESIGN:

Some guidelines address the issues faced while creating the courseware which can

easily accessible in heterogeneous environments. When considering the barriers within

content, accessibility issues differ somewhat for each group to test the knowledge in the

prerequisites. The explanation in this regard puts to a test of “Explain-again” and addon

courseware materials. Supportive graphics are to be planned with proper placement

of graphics for visualization. To support this exercise the creation of Virtual Labs

becomes essential.

Research on Internet and out-of-syllabus help promote exploratory education.

Collaborative learning expands the meaning among the virtual learning communities.

The courseware design should have a scope for post-lecture testing through objective

tests. All these exercise may help create a Digital Library for making the courseware

design communicable and effective. This will be a distinct possibility to envelop

Multilingual content on the same web page.

VIRTUAL LABS(ACADEMIC):

‘A pretty experiment is in itself often more valuable than twenty formulae extracted

from our minds’ once said by Albert Einstein gives vent the concept of Virtual Labs in

modeling the technology aspect of e-Learning. Graphics for visualization, simulation for

on-line experimentation, web-enabled virtual labs, Virtual Reality Modeling

Language(VRML) are the major content of the pedagogy of virtual labs.

VIRTUAL LABS (TELECOM):

The virtual telecom lab is to demonstrate the telecom modulation techniques with

Interactive modules to learn programming languages for simulation of electronic and

telecom systems for evaluation of performance studies.

VIRTUAL LABS(COGNITIVE):

The psychological components contributing virtual labs for the cognitive growth that

help design on the functioning of brain. Teaching natural languages, teaching computer

languages, graphics and visualization anatomy are the important parcels to design the

technology aspect of the virtual labs. There are some specific web designs to be browsed

for knowledge gain in shaping a model like www.hazelwood.k12.mo.us.

PERSONALITY TYPES & LEARNING:

The varieties of personality types contributing learning have identified four groups

namely Introvert (I) or Extrovert (E); Sensing (S) or intuitive (I); Thinker (T) or Feeler

(F), Perceiver (P) or Judging (J) as popularly known Myers-Briggs Personality Type

Indicators (MBTI). Psychological studies say that each person belongs to one of the 16

possible types such as ISTP, ENFJ, INTJ etc. A simple description of inherent human

qualities on each group will define the psychological attributes in one and different

personality types.

Introvert (I) type avoids crowds having a handful of friends. This type gets energy from

ideas.

Extrovert (E) type is in much love of outgoing and partying temperaments and gets

energy from crowd.

Sensate (S) type, a performer who works with facts and figures. This type is strenuously

practical and loyally down to earth.

Intuitive (I) personality type is upwardly imaginative and keeps interest in theory and

gives general answers to specific questions.

Thinker (T) types use logic and reason and do not trust gut feeling but dreams in

knowing ‘How people think’.

Feeler (F) types avoid conflicts but trust gut feeling and develop interest in knowing

‘How people feel’.

Perceiver (P) personality type does not take decisions quickly and does not plan

thingsand thus sometimes grow reckless.

Judging (J) types are extraordinarily decisive, not willing to change but prefer

scheduled life but organize time & effort.

PROFESSOR VERSUS STUDENT:

It is interesting to derive the traits from the types elaborated in a manner that

designates in all activities of individuals considering their personality and

corresponding profession. One such important category is Professor versus Student.

Majority of Professors are of INTJ type those who have ‘Thirst for Knowledge and

pursue to be Perfectionists. They have the ability and psychological strength to

comprehend the concepts with excellent grasp of abstraction and more importantly

they have the ability to explain abstract concepts through logic. But they want the world

to succumb to their version of logic and unfortunately most of their version of logic is

correct. This rigid personality type struggles to judge things in their way for which they

attain academic excellence in the midst of continuous completion. But, most

interestingly the Students belong to almost ll types.

IMPARTING EXPERTISE:

e-Learning, one of the prominent online learning mechanisms, can be seen to open up a

lot of new possibilities in education. With powerful software environment, a student

working on a computer, can be provided personalized attention. Multimedia

technologies provide for richer learning experiences than what a class room

environment provides. It becomes necessary to impart codification of expertise through

‘expert systems’. Expert system for very focused expertise is through Software project

estimation(1000 chunks) and analysis of diagnostic reports (10000 chunks). To measure

the effectiveness of Expert Systems was an issue but no longer a problem. More

accurately, 70000 chunks of knowledge is the expertise of a human expert in any given

field but present expert systems have just 10000 chunks of knowledge. To develop and

make available Expert Systems on the NET would be a great research area.

WEB-BASED LEARNING:

Web based Learning expedites simulation experiments and excellent visualization

through graphics and animation (eg. www.cellsaliva.com). Virtual Laboratories may be

assessed through www.technoline.com . Tool for teaching courses that “cannot” be

taught in class rooms may be a challenging provisions to be put on research, in modern

times.

TECHNOLOGY-ASSISTED TEACHING:

It comprises the facility to put information on facts and figures through e-books.

Teaching subjects that involve extensive graphics and animation through Computer

Based Teaching (CBT)/ Web-based testing. Subjects that involve experimentation should

attain through Virtual Labs and assessment be made through on-line testing.

TEACHER: A NEW ROLE:

It is the need and demand of the time to dress a changed role to teachers who should act

as a Mentor, Motivator and Counselor. They should attach thrust not on imparting

bookish ‘knowledge’ but act on identifying the strengths and ready to play counseling

to put the student in the right path of learning. Other than a guardian they should act as

a catalyst to promote the potential creative abilities of the students. The much discussed

‘Type’ indicators be the basis to act as the guideline to identify strength and weaknesses

of the students. They should act as the facilitators to change the “Personality-Type” to

upward the homogeneity of serving education in spirit and philosophy.

CONCLUSION:

The latest technology entrant to the arena of Education is the Web. It is a combination of

computers and Internet communication technologies. Online learning is being seen as a

killer application of Internet. Web and Internet have already affected most walks of life;

and it is currently hovering around education. It is being adapted to address many of

the problems with traditional education and of the earlier approaches of computer

application in education.

Online learning has already gone through the hype and the field is maturing to be able

to distinguish the realizable and desirable roles that such technology can play. There is

wide spread realization that just by web enabling the Power point slides and lecture

notes we cannot suffice to provide a learning environment. A learning environment

should be built over a clear model of instruction. Instruction technology, e-Learning

design and operational psychology play major roles at this point.

What is media psychology? It’s a field with no consensus definition, no clearly-defined career paths, and no easy answers. In spite of that, it can add value anywhere human behavior intersects media technologies. Here’s why:

1. Media technologies are everywhere

2. People of all ages use media technologies a lot

3. Young people use them most

4. Older people worry about younger people

5. Technology is not going away

6. We all worry if this is good or bad or somewhere in-between

7. Psychology is the study of people of all ages

Media psychology is using #7 to answer #6 because of #1 through #5

Psychology is key to understanding the implications of technology. Consequently, it seems like it should be pretty straightforward to define media psychology. For some reason, though, it’s not. I have had discussions with colleagues for hours (or at least it seems like it) about what constitutes media, mediated communication, and technology and what we mean by psychology in the context of media—and we’re not even philosophers. In this and the following two posts, I will discuss my definition of media psychology and why I think media psychology is so important

Both media and psychology have made major contributions to western culture throughout the 20th century. Can you imagine The New Yorker without Freudian references or Jason Bourne without operant conditioning? The term “media,” however, used to be confinable to a bucket labeled “mass media.” Our awareness of media, however, has reached the collective consciousness, as if we all woke up yesterday, awakened by our programmable alarm with the iPod attachment, and over our coffee made automatically by our coffeemaker, checked our blackberry for emails and headline news and then looked up shocked to see that our kids are doing much the same. This awareness is leaving people clamoring for a new level of understanding. There is an infiltration of media applications and information technologies into nearly every aspect of our lives. What does it all MEAN? Just like Mighty Mouse (or maybe Underdog), media psychology emerged in a time of need.

The goal of media psychologists is to try to answer those questions by combining an understanding of human behavior, cognition, and emotions with an equal understanding of media technologies. Unlike some types of media studies, media psychology is not just concerned with content. Media psychology looks at the whole system. There is no beginning and no end. It is a continual loop including the technology developer, content producer, content perceptions, and user response. Just as Bandera describes social cognitive theory as the reciprocal action between environment, behavior, and cognition, so does media psychology evaluate the interactive process of the system. There is no chicken, no egg to this system. They all coexist and coevolve with each other.

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There is no consensus among academicians and practitioners as to the definition or scope of media psychology. This is because the field must be representative of not only the work currently being done, but also the work that needs to be done. This is a field that changes every time iTunes releases a new mobile app.

The interests of the person doing the defining often drive definitions of a field. However the fact that both ‘media’ and ‘psychology’ are themselves broad and prone to misconception contributes to the definitional confusion. In spite of our awareness of media everywhere, when someone mentions media the metaphor we fall back on is often mass media. It’s a field where you must continually define your terms. Does ‘media’ mean television or does ‘media’ include computer interfaces that facilitate information management and distribution?

The same heuristics impact the popular perception of the field of psychology. There is a wide world of psychology beyond the narrow view of clinical applications that evoke images of Freud and talk therapy. So it isn’t surprising when media psychology is perceived as a psychologist appearing in the media, such as the radio shrink for many years Dr. Toni Grant or the infamous Dr. Phil. This view of media psychology also has links to the origins of first division (46) for Media Psychology of the American Psychological Association (APA). Due to the prevalence of mass media relative to other media technologies, it was home for several psychologists with media venues. The initial emphasis in Division 46 on training psychologists to effectively appear in the media, how to deliver psychological information over the media, the ethical limitations of doing therapy using media, and as a watchdog for the accurate portrayal of psychologists in the media far outweighed the emphasis on research looking at media use and development.

Part of the confusion also comes from the cross-disciplinary aspects of media psychology. Not all people doing what I would call ‘media psychology’ are psychologists. In fact, much of the early work came frommarketing and advertising and the bulk of the research in media psychology has been published in academic and applied disciplines beyond psychology, such as sociology, communications and media studies, education, computer and information sciences, as well as business management and marketing. What has often been challenging is the lack of intellectual cross-pollination. Media psychology seeks to address that by bringing together all these approaches and vocabularies with the recognition that communication, cognition, and emotions are pretty fundamental to human experience and therefore have, by definition, foundations in psychological thought.

In the next post (Part 2), I will discuss how psychology matters to the study of media.

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Media psychology uses the lens of psychology to understand human interaction with technology. Don't believe Chicken Little. The sky is not falling.

We need media psychology because media technologies are proliferating at the speed of light with new toys and gadgets on the market every day. These technologies are introducing capabilities that are redefining the way we work, play, and communicate. As I see it, a media psychologist can add value in five ways:

1. Helping people adjust to the rapid pace of technological progress

2. Holding authors and journalists accountable to professional standards when new research reports make headlines by actually reading the ports

3. Explain the difference between correlation and causality

4. Remind everyone that the experience of media technologies varies by person, culture, context, and what you are trying to achieve

5. Helping people understand that the sky is not falling

The rapid introduction of technology is unsettling and has triggered a spectrum of reactions, from enthusiasm to distrust. We all come to grips in our own ways with change. As technology changes our lives, we are forced to change how we view the world. Human beings are not really very good at that.

Media psychology is the response to this dilemma. It is a relatively new field and hard to define. [See “Media Psychology: Why You Should Care (Part 1)."] Media psychology seeks to understand the interaction among individuals, groups, society, and technology and make sense out of it so we can make decisions and go about our lives in the most positive and productive way possible.

Media psychology only recently become an “official” academic discipline. Yet, the last 50 years have produced valuable and interesting work in media psychology-related research and study, much of it from outside of psychology. Our collective anxiety over the impact of media on individuals and society, such as the portrayals of violence, consumer manipulation, or information overload has fueled a good bit of the research. In contrast, relatively-speaking, very little research exists on the positive uses of technologies. My grandmother used to say “you find what you’re looking for.”

Fear of change is a normal human reaction. As far back as Ancient Greece, Socrates feared that writing relied on external things and neglecting the mind and that it lacked flexibility, the written word being literally “cast in stone.” Kenyon College’s President, S. Georgia Nugent (2005) draws an apt analogy from a narrative pattern: “Kill the bearer of the message” saying that the earliest references to the ‘technology’ that enabled writing in Western tradition are of profound distrust. Where Socrates worried about fixity, we worry about the fluidity of electronic media and the fuzzy boundaries between author and reader, consistent with St. Augustine’s reflections that language links our interior with our exterior creating permeable boundaries between self and body. Nugent notes that that those who do not understand new technology often want to control the “facile exchange between the inside and the outside made possible by this particular information technology.”She says:

“Confronted with a new technology for communication, we find, in both Homer and Plato, the fear that it will introduce dangerous secrecy, an undesirable development of privacy. Today, we worry that IT will usher in an untoward openness of communication, a lack of the privacy we have come to value.” (Nugent, 2005, para. 23)

From a biological perspective, we know that human brains are hardwired to notice change because the a change in the environment increases the probability of danger. On the Savannah, it was important to notice things that moved: tigers moved and were dangerous and trees were immobile and harmless. Nothing was more important to survival, yet nothing has such potential to cause problems today. Our resistance to change is a function of how we project our cost/benefit analysis, yet old habits die hard.

[pic]

Equilibrium doesn’t really exist, except in our fifth grade science textbooks. But we like to think it does because it makes us so much more comfortable. We like everything to stay put, like the trees. The human reaction to change--resistance--is normal. Humans also have the added gift of selective memoryto help maintain cognitive comfort. We pine for the “good old days" and use memories of prior times as a baseline model for how things should work and how the world should be.

Media psychology bridges this gap by helping us better understand some of the implications of technological change. Researchers hypothesize, operationalize, and quantify the impact of media. Research in media psychology, however, is difficult; complicated by the fact that it’s hard to realistically measure things that are so integrated in the fabric of everyday life. It’s extraordinarily tricky to separate out confounding variables in our complex world. Today, we are media consumers, producers and distributors and our choices have direct impact on what others produce for us to see.

Nevertheless, as order-seeking creatures, we are looking for how to assign responsibility for change in individual and group behaviors, the social zeitgeist, and all moral failings. As in any field, these factors have stimulated a mixed bag of research—some very important and well done and, unfortunately, some agenda-driven research with less rigorous academic integrity. Research is, after all, largely influenced by how you ask a question, define what you measure, measure it, and interpret the findings. Reading the methodology section and statistical results of a research report is valuable and seldom done. This is particularly important for civic responsibility because reading apparently journalists are not required to read the actual report in order to cover it in the national press. Many articles are based on press releases from the sponsoring institutions or, worse yet, on another journalist's interpretation.

[pic]

Most of the research that we would consider to be media psychology focuses on mass media and for good reason. Mass media was a game-changer, bringing information, images, and culture to a broader segment of society and the world. Researchers looked to understand what was perceived as a unidirectional flow of influence from media conglomerates, advertisers, and government bodies on the public. This media effects tradition has produced various theories—such as, the silver bullet (targeted impact), media framing (we don’t tell people what to think, we tell them what to think about), and uses and gratifications (people use media to gratify needs)--and they have evolved from viewing media consumers as a homogeneous and passive audience to one driven by individual differences and motivations.

In spite arguments for reciprocity between individuals and our cultural environment (e.g. Baudrillard, Freud, McLuhan, and Vygotsky), few psychological or media theories actually focus on media as part of a dynamic interactive system including media content providers to media consumers, co-evolving in a social environment. Bandura’s model of social cognitive theory does this, but his earlier work on social learning is much more common as the theoretical framework for media effects research.

Recent work in neurobiology and evolutionary psychology has begun to shed light on the impact of social interaction on the formation of internal structures. We are beginning to indentify variations in human brain plasticity in response to the environment and variations in cognitive processing over the lifespan to achieve psychological consonance. Birth to early adulthood is a period of high plasticity in terms of brain maturation and is subject to shaping by the environment. Once past early adulthood, change in the human brain derives from cognitive intervention–which is, as we all know, a lot more difficult. Thus, from adulthood onward, humans find it “easier” to alter the environment to suit their cognitive structures than the other way around. Human alterations include physical structures, laws, codes of behavior, language and the arts. Every generation will make their mark on the environment to support their mental models and with the vast changes in technologies and media today, this goes a long way toward describing the discrepancy in the attitudes toward media use between generations. This is a biological description of Marc Prensky’s (2001) excellent metaphor of the young as “digital natives” versus older generations of “digital immigrants.”

Because the media survives only by arresting and holding the attendance of the audience, they deliver technology and content that viewers want. We must recognize the evolving media environment. Part of the job of media psychologists will be to take up the challenge of training the next generation to engage positively and productively with media; part will be easing the fears of the digital immigrants about the new media world.

We also need to place the study of psychological processes within the context of mediated communications and recognize the dynamic role of these processes in interpersonal relations, social interaction and social structures. We need to acknowledge the reciprocal relationship between individuals and media, in other words, to own our own responsibility for what circulates in the system.

As if that weren’t enough of a moving target, we need to keep this all in context. Individual experience is, well, individual, and depends on a number of factors. Goals are equally individual and not always “rational” by someone else’s standard. For example, there have been recent articles about media technologies altering brain activity, particularly as it impacts attention. But before we feel compelled to draw conclusions about something being good or bad, we need to ask questions beyond “is it different.” We need to ask what thinking skills people need to succeed in the world today and tomorrow, not in times past. Whether or not you pine for the good old days, time has the inconvenient habit of going forward—technology isn’t going away.

Distance learning through IT and mass media

Distance education or distance learning is a field of education that focuses on teaching methods and technology with the aim of delivering teaching, often on an individual basis, to students who are not physically present in a traditional educational setting such as a classroom. It has been described as "a process to create and provide access to learning when the source of information and the learners are separated by time and distance, or both."[1] Distance education courses that require a physical on-site presence for any reason (including taking examinations) have been referred to as hybrid[2] or blended[3] courses of study

Technologies used in delivery

The types of available technologies used in distance education are divided into two groups:synchronous learning and asynchronous learning.

Synchronous learning technology is a mode of delivery where all participants are "present" at the same time. It resembles traditional classroom teaching methods despite the participants being located remotely. It requires a timetable to be organized. Web conferencing, videoconferencing,Educational television, Instructional television are examples of synchronous technology, as aredirect-broadcast satellite (DBS), internet radio, live streaming, telephone, and web-based VoIP.[17]

The asynchronous learning mode of delivery is where participants access course materials on their own schedule and so is more flexible. Students are not required to be together at the same time. Mail correspondence, which is the oldest form of distance education, is an asynchronous delivery technology and others include message board forums, e-mail, video and audio recordings, print materials, voicemail and fax.[17]

The Psychology of Learning

Let's begin with what goes on in a person's head when they're learning. First, learning requires attention. Effective training grabs attention and holds it. Unfortunately, the neural systems in the brain that control attention and store information as memory get tired very quickly (in minutes). They need to rest every three to five minutes, or else they become much less responsive. They recover pretty quickly, but training has to work with this quick fatigue/boredom pattern for the person to learn efficiently.

Training that is patterned to move from one set to another provides the most effective learning model. The patterns those neural sets respond best to involve interweaving different types of information and using different areas of the brain. For example:

1. Listening to a fact e.g. Flour, when mixed with eggs, can be kneaded into a dough and cut into shapes for pasta.

2. Relating a concept to that fact e.g. Foods high in carbohydrates help the body generate energy.

3. Visualizing the two together e.g. Sports teams need quick energy that can be provided by carbohydrates, so they often have a meal of pasta prior to games.

These systems are interrelated and work together to form memory (i.e. learning). The goal is to form memory in each neural system. Information designed in a way that moves from neural system to neural system creates more effective learning.

E-learning and Retention

Besides catering to these neural systems' needs, training should also incorporate other elements such as interaction, imagery and feedback.

E-learning can incorporate many elements that make learning new material, a new process or a new program more fun. Making learning more fun -- or interesting -- is what makes it more effective. Obviously, every type of training can't be turned into e-training, but many can with excellent results. The keys to successful e-learning include:

• Varying the types of content -- Images, sounds and text work together to build memory in the brain and result in better retention of the material.

• Creating interaction that engages the attention -- Games, quizzes and even manipulation of something on the screen creates more interest, which in turn builds better retention.

• Providing immediate feedback -- E-learning courses can build in immediate feedback to correct misunderstood material. The more immediate the feedback the better, because each step of learning builds upon the previous step. If no feedback is given, then the next step may be building upon an incorrect interpretation.

• Encouraging interaction with other e-learners and an e-instructor -- Chat rooms, discussion boards, instant messaging and e-mail all offer effective interaction for e-learners and do a good job of replacing classroom discussions. Building an online community significantly influences the success of online programs.

To incorporate these elements into training, Trainersoft developed simple tools that allow you to drop in animations, video or other media, and set special attributes for them such as:

• Hot spots that link to another file or image

• Transition effects

• Pop-up questions

• Audio responses to questions

• Flash and Shockwave files

• Javascripts

• CGI (common gateway interface) scripts

• Other effects that make objects react to the user's actions

Self-paced

E-learning lets you go through the course at your own pace. This helps avoid missed information in situations where you have to leave the course or you just don't catch what the instructor said.

E-learning courses offer user-controlled elements that aren't feasible in regular training classes. For example, differentiating the sound of an irregular heart beat from that of a regular heart beat by clicking on screen icons allows the learner to listen at their own pace and replay the sound as often as they like. This self-paced element helps make e-learning effective.

Selection and training of psychology professionals to work in the field of IT and mass media

What is a Media Psychologist?

There are several misconceptions about what it means to be a media psychologist. Since it is probably easier to say what a media psychologist is not than to define what it is, let me start there.

Media psychology is NOT:

▪ A clinical degree

▪ Media studies

▪ Appearing on TV, having a radio show, or being in a movie

▪ Running the AV department for your organization

▪ Watching TV for a living

▪ Hanging out with movie stars

[pic]Some of those things would be fun, of course, and some media psychologists may, in fact, do those things too, but sadly, they are not the defining characteristics of a media psychologist.

The key to media psychology is this: you have to learn psychology AND technology. If you want to “practice” media psychology, you need to know how media technologies work–how they are developed, produced, and consumed. And you have to know psychology so you can actually apply it to issues of usability, effectiveness, and impact. It may not seem very encouraging to hear, especially from someone who is passionate about media psychology, but if you are searching for a profession with a clear career path, predictable income estimations, and logical next steps, this is not a field for you.

media psychology is the intersection of human experience and media. In other words, media psychology is the applied study of what happens when people interact with media as producers, distributors, and consumers through the lens of psychology.

I realize that definition is like waving your arms around the room and is no help at all. It makes media psychology very, very broad. Not surprisingly, the applications are also broad and equally ill-defined. The good news is that makes the potential is limitless because media psychology adds values to any place that an understanding of human behavior can be applied to media technologies.

. Media psychology is very exciting and has tremendous potential. This is the beginning of the field so the early entrants have the excitement and burden of defining the path. This is part of what I love about media psychology. There are no easy answers. It is not an “ivory tower” field. It requires a good knowledge base and draws across multiple disciplines because media technologies are not isolated or compartmentalized. It also requires the ability to think critically and have a certain amount of cognitive flexibility since the technologies (and thus the field) change constantly.

Media psychology is also considerably more complex than focusing on media as a reflection of culture because it encompasses the integration of media technologies into life in a myriad of ways. People are now interacting with media in multiple ways across multiple platforms as producers, consumers, and distributors of information of all kinds: visual images, sound, video, text, and color both synchronously and asynchronously.

My advice to recent psych grads is to get some media technology experience so that they can apply psychology to that knowledge base. If you don’t understand the technology, it doesn’t matter how well you know the psychology. This could mean anything from virtual environments like gaming, business and marketing communications, or community development in social media, to translating educational materials for technology. This can be done by working in the field in an area of interest, or finding a program in a university that has courses in both psychology and media communications and production (and not just mass media.) Areas in psychology that I think are particularly important to media psychology are cognitive psychology (how we process information, make mental models, attention, perception), developmental psychology (different stages of emotional, cognitive, and physical development across the lifespan), cultural psychology (an appreciation of how different people and cultures have different standards and goals and how that is part of the cognitive process), and positive psychology (what makes people function better both behaviorally and emotionally).

As I mentioned above, being a media psychologist is not being a psychologist in the media or promoting psychology in the media.

Media psychology is not a clinical degree. A degree in media psychology will not qualify you for the psychological treatment of patients in a mental health capacity. Not only will you not have the preparations, but there are serious ethical and legal consequences if you offer mental health treatment without adequate training and licensing.

If someone is interested in working with people in a mental health treatment capacity, then the logical next step is a clinical psychology program–even if heor she wants to use media technologies within that practice. First become a clinician and then learn how to translate that to technology. Nothing is worse than bad psychology in volume. As most people know, working with clients as a mental health professional requires specific training, supervised practice, an internship, and has licensing requirements. In the US, these requirements vary depending on the type of work/title/training (e.g. a counselor, therapist, psychologist, or psychiatrist). Each title has very specific requirements defined by the governing body where you want to practice and the type of practice it entails. (The rules differ from place to place; even state to state, in the US, so it’s important to check for the specifics in the place you want to work.)

Being a research psychologist is somewhat different in terms of official requirements. An important component of studying psychology is learning how to do research and understand research results. (Yes, the dreaded statistics and research methodology courses.) Licensing requirements do not apply to research, however most lead researchers have graduate degrees at the doctoral level. There are also are ethical requirements when you are dealing with human subjects and therefore research done at institutions are reviewed by an Internal Review Board to make sure subjects rights and well-being are not violated by the research design.

To me, media psychology is about understanding the interaction of people and media technologies in the context of the current culture. Media technologies function as a system, with a continual feedback loop between users and the producers, and thus mutually influential. As much as we’d like to blame “the media” for a bunch of stuff, it is not separable from society. Human experience does not happen independent of the current social, political, and technological environment.

Media technologies are ubiquitous, with potential roles in everything from education, healthcare, science, business, advocacy, and public policy to entertainment. I have been involved in interesting research assessing website design for pre-schoolers, games that promoted altruistic behavior, developing educational initiatives that use emerging technologies like virtual worlds and augmented reality to create immersive learning environments, how technology literacy influences identity development, and how our mental models influence our interpretation of information. I also get to see media psychology in action by teaching online.

Recognizing the interactive and dynamic relationship between humans and media is key to a more accurate and useful understanding of the human-media experience that is at the root of effective assessment, development, and production of media that can make a positive contribution to life and society. Psychology provides a robust set of tools that allow us to consider the implications of individual differences, group behaviors, identity formation, developmental pathways, cognitive styles, visual processing, persuasion, attention, social cognition, sense of place, self-efficacy, and a whole bunch of other really cool stuff.

The tools of media psychology can only help us, though, if we are also willing, as individuals, to take responsibility for our part in the system. It is the only way we can develop better technologies and use them well.

Entrepreneurship through e-commerce

Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce,eCommerce or e-comm, refers to the buying and selling ofproducts or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. However, the term may refer to more than just buying and selling products online

psychology behind persuasion.

Neuro web design

In my last post I identified factors that can encourage people to buy online. In this post I’m going to expand on this further and look in more detail at the psychological principles that we can use when we design for persuasion.

The catalyst for this article was a particularly thought provoking ‘Psych files’ podcast of an interview with Dr Susan Weinschenk about her book ‘Neuro web design’.

The interview identified some interesting principles of psychology that are relevant to designing for persuasion.

If designing the user experience means that we make it as easy and enjoyable as possible to do things, then designing for persuasion represents a layer above this where we encourage people to do the things that we want them to do.

This area has raised an interesting ethical question, most recently for me at the Information Architecture Institute summit where this very point was raised. If we have the skills to influence the way that people do things then what happens when they are not used for the greater good?

Lou Rosenfeld gave an example more recently where he has been asked by a client to deliberately tweak an IA to make it harder to find certain information that if found would cost his client money. This is the first case of deliberate ‘anti-usability’ that I had heard and I would love to hear of any similar examples that you may have.

Designing for persuasion

User experience professionals are increasingly using design patterns to help to make use of tried and tested conventions that are already in use.

These design patterns tell us how to represent common elements such as search results pages, pagination, login etc. and essentially save us time within the design process.

Design patterns are great as they enhance usability and encourage consistency but what determines which of these patterns we decide to use is based on our understanding of the overall purpose of the website.

[pic]Image source: http://ui-patterns.com/collection/fat-footer/image/366#focus

As UX professionals we have a unique view in that we understand both the motivations of our clients as well as those of their users. It is this understanding that gives us the knowledge of what a site or product needs to do and our awareness of artefacts such as design patterns gives us the tools to determine how users will interact with a site.

The concept of designing for persuasion puts a different spin on UX design as it is no longer just a case of ‘Could they do what they wanted?’ but instead ‘Could they do what I wanted them to do?’.

In effect we must make our designs usable, useful and persuasive.

So what principles should we use to influence and persuade our users?

Some examples from cognitive psychology

In the podcast Weinschenk talks about our three brains, the old, the mid and the new.

The old brain or reptilian brain is concerned with survival. Weinschenk summarises its priorities as ‘Can I eat it, will it kill me or can I have sex with it’. I like to think of it as the ‘nightclub brain’.

The Mid brain is concerned with the processing of emotions and the new with conscious, rational and logical thinking.

Weinschenk argues that to be successful we need to appeal to each of these areas of the brain. I can see how certain websites appeal very strongly to the reptilian brain but which principles can we bring into play on a more practical level?

The principle of social validation

I touched on this principle on the last blog but some further reading has uncovered Dr Robert B. Cialdini as a pioneer in the field of the psychology of persuasion.

Social validation essentially boils down to how bad we are at making decisions. When faced with decisions we often turn to other people to guide us.

A common representation of this online is the use of reviews and comments that can help us to decide what to buy. We use this advice both to reinforce what we have already decided as well as to tell us what to do.

The source of the comment is also important, as consideration should be given to the weight of opinion sourced from experts and non-experts.

[pic]Image source: Amazon.co.uk

It always amazes me how much faith people put in the opinions of non-experts but in an online world as long as someone has an experience of something that we are interested in we will listen to them.

The fear of loss

We are programmed to keep hold of what we have. It makes sense from a survival perspective if we have spent precious energy getting something that we should make sure that we don’t lose it to someone else.

The model we often see online is that of the upsell. If you buy this camera you are going to need this case, this battery, this card and quite possibly this flash and longer lens. The theory being that you start with the low price of the camera which draws the user in but they end up spending more through adding accessories.

It’s the same principle that leads retailers to try and flog you a paving slab of chocolate when you go in for your paper for a pound. Retailers are masters of the point of sale upsell where they make use of your position in a queue by offering you a cheap snack which adds 50p to the average basket size, job done.

Weinschenk argues that we should start by showing the bundle of products which allows the customer to imagine owning all of these things. It is the fear of loss that will lead to them taking away fewer objects than they would have added had they started with just the camera and no accessories.

[pic]Image source: http://accessories.us.dell.com

The question in my mind was whether the larger bundle price would put people off but Weinschenk suggests that the addition of a message that you can customise the bundle negates any concern of the higher price.

The paradox of choice

The web should be the perfect supermarket. You have limitless access to every product that you can imagine. The choice is endless.

The subject of choice is interesting. On the one hand it seems like the perfect scenario for the consumer but work by Dr Barry Schwartz has identified that as people, we don’t cope particularly well with choice.

So why does an abundance of choice cause so many problems for us?

Choice causes paralysis

When faced with too many choices we often end up unable to make a choice because there are simply too many factors to consider. It may seem logical that the more choice you have the more likely it is that there is something that is perfect for you. The opposite seems to be the case.

Even when we make a choice we can end up less satisfied with that choice because we can be subsumed in the choices that you could have made instead! It is this regrets that essentially chip away at the pleasure you gain from the choice you made.

This can be described as the opportunity cost of the choice you made. The opportunity cost is the cost of not taking an alternative course of action. The more choices you have the higher the opportunity cost of the choice you make.

Escalation of expectations

The escalation of expectation explains a situation where you have so much choice that you reassure yourself that there must be the perfect choice for you out there.

The more options that are available the higher your expectations become as again you seek the optimum product for you.

[pic]Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/andreiz/1190592277/

The reality is that we may never make the perfect choice as our high expectations can never practically be met. The effect is two fold as we are both disappointed with our choice as it doesn’t meet our expectations, and we blame ourselves for not making a better choice from all of the options that we were given.

Schwartz concludes that choice makes us miserable because it can make it harder to select something and when we finally do make a choice we regret out choice because it doesn’t meet our expectations!

So how can we design around these problems?

Prior to writing this I had always been an advocate of conveying volume to users to communicate the vast product range that an online store be able to offer. We design it into search results to convey quality and range. We pull it into product listings to show product volume and ultimately choice but is this backfiring for our users?

There must be a manageable amount of objects or search results that users are willing to process and by offering tools such as faceted search we can allow users to filter options which effectively makes reduces the choice on offer.

So if we offer people a manageable amount of bundled products, allow them to filter them and include reviews and recommendations have we cracked it?

Of course it is not this simple but an understanding of these principles is critical to starting to design interfaces that are both useable and persuasive for our clients and their customers.

This ends this series of posts on tips for optimising ecommerce. Get in touch to discuss any point raised within these posts or to chat about how you should use these tips to optimise your own sites.

web site we build is optimized for 6 critical psychological triggers.

Psychology is an essential element of modern selling. Understanding what triggers people to buy makes the difference between a sale and a failure. A desire to buy involves more than logic – it involves emotion as well as deep human psychology.

master copywriter Joe Sugarman, 95% of buying decisions are subconscious and “knowing the subconscious reasons why people buy and using this information in a fair and constructive way, will trigger greater sales response – often far beyond what you could imagine.

Joseph Sugarman, the best-selling author and top copywriter who achieved legendary fame in direct marketing and ran a highly successful mail-order company in the 1980s.

Joe learned on a mass scale which ad approaches worked and which ones didn’t. He studied the ads that achieved a high degree of success, and discovered that they were clearly successful because of certain underlying psychological triggers.

He identified 30 of these triggers that activate psychological forces buried deep within the subconscious brain, and cause people to buy.

The Six Factors of Influence

When designing a new site and business model we develop our site around 6 elements of influence identified by Cialdini. These are psychological factors that help make a product desirable and push people to want it.

six factors of influence. As you read this, we want you to think about how each of these factors can be used to enhance your site, product or service

• Commitment and Consistency

• Reciprocity

• Social Proof

• Liking

• Authority

• Scarcity

suggestions on how to apply these theories on e-commerce websites.

“Psychology E-commerce Tips” overview
Here is an overview of the tips so far (in alphabetical order):

• Aesthetic-Usability Effect August 13, 2010

• Psychological Theory: From the article Attractive Things Work Better from DA Norman: Positive affect makes people more tolerant of minor difficulties and more flexible and creative in finding solutions. Products designed for more relaxed, pleasant occasions can enhance their usability through pleasant, aesthetic design. Aesthetics matter: attractive things work better. • In short: We have the tendency to place value on products/ services/ persons based on a very limited piece of data and we value things more when they cost more. • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: How attractive are your products? How good-looking is your website to your users? Attractive doesn’t have to mean you have to spend thousands of dollars on a design agency. But you can’t get away with throwing together some lines, forms and colors. If you’re not a designer, get help of someone who is and make your shop look like it’s very user friendly. The funny part? It’ll actually become more user friendly. •

• Affect Heuristic August 25, 2010

• Psychological Theory: The affect heuristic is a heuristic in which current affect influences decisions. The emotion your in influences your decision making and judgement. • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: Emotions (subconsciously) influence our actions. You can use this to stimulate certain behavior. You can use your websites copy, images or design te evoke certain emotions te elicit feelings such as humor or pleasure.

• Anchoring and Adjustment August 8, 2010

Psychological Theory: When we make decisions, we rely too heavily (or anchor) on one trait or piece of information. Especially when the situation is unknown, we tend to appraise information based on a single known anchor from which we then make relative adjustments. (More info on Psychwiki.com: Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic. This is also known as the Focusing effect).

Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: Provide your visitors with anchors to influence their decision making (eg. the original price of the product) or present an attribute/ number as being more important than it really is (eg. the number of megapixels on a DSLR camera). Even completely irrelevant numbers can influence the buyer if relevancy is suggested in some way.

• Authority figure August 18, 2010

• Psychological Theory: We want to follow the lead and advice of a legitimate authority. (for example, take a look at the Milgram Experiment) • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: We all look for guidance and direction to some extend. Especially when something is new and users feel a little uncertain about what to do or what to choose. An authority figure or brand can guide them through you webshop to reassure them and give them direction on what the right choices are. Consider letting famous/ well known people from within your community or from TV to promote your products or your brand. • Repeat Cashmere has a Magento based e-commerce webshop and does a perfect job on ‘exploiting’ this theory. They have top model Doutzen Kroes promoting their product on their webshop. Well done!

• Autonomy September 13, 2010

Psychological Theory: We look for ways to exert influence or control over a situation.

Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: Our level of stress declines and feeling of certainty increases when we perceive greater autonomy. How larger the group, how larger this urge to make our own choices. You can introduce – even trivial – choices by introducing customization options. This can be applied to the product you sell (color, form, print, gift wrap) or your shop itself (different fontsize, another stylesheet).

• Bandwagon effect October 6, 2010

• Psychological Theory: We have the tendency to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same. • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: People use products and services because others use them. It’s a really powerful effect that can explain why sometimes groups don’t use the best or optimal product available, even if they’re aware that their product isn’t the best. People follow the herd. You can see this happening online with social networks where the main value of the product also lies with the people that use it. • For new companies this might feel like a paradox: to gain users, you need more users. But you can kickstart such a userbase through several techniques like free trials, free ‘starter’ packages or using some kind of invite system. • Important factor here is that you need to let non-users know that others are using your product which makes this closely related to Social Proof.

• Chunking November 2, 2010

• Psychological Theory: Make more efficient use of short-term memory by recoding information in familiar, easier units. • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: If you have a lot of information to show your visitors, try to give it to them in manageable groups or ‘chuncks’. This way, the information is more easily understood and recalled. We also use chunking to make regularly performed operations more routine. It helps to understand the mental routines of your visitors when creating or changing a workflow within your website.

• Conceptual Metaphor August 11, 2010

• Psychological Theory: We make sense of a new idea by comparing it to other ideas or situations. (More info on Wikipedia: Conceptual Metaphor) • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: You can help people understand your message by using a literal or implied analogy through visual imagery or evocative language. This association helps people understand (difficult) concepts. For example: If your product solves some kind of problem, compare your solution with other -more familiar- situations with the same solution. •

• Contrast September 10, 2010

• Psychological Theory: Things that stand out attract our attention. • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: The most important elements on your website should stand out. You can use several design elements (color, shapes, movement) to create a (subtle) pop-out effect. You can also use this effect by deviating from your regular routines or style by providing unexpected content, movies or newsletters.

• Curiosity November 8, 2010

• Psychological Theory: When we are presented with an interesting piece of information, we want to know more! • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: Curiosity is an important motivator of our behavior. It’s important for the discovery, development and improvement of ourselves and the world around us. As a webshop owner you can trigger this in several ways. You can present your visitors with interesting information, give a demo, show how the lives of others was greatly improved by your product or let people actually use (a tuned down version of) your product. The key is to tease people to give them just enough to want more!

• Framing effect September 17, 2010

• Psychological Theory: Presenting the same option in different formats (or ‘frames’) can alter people’s decisions. • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: Research in 1981 (link) told us that people choose differently between the exact same options if the options are presented differently (take a look at the Framing effect article on Wikipedia and the examples shown there). • Take a look at the way you present options to your users. What is the ‘story’ around each option and is the option you’d like people to choose framed in a way that it’s most likely to be chosen? For example: if you like people to subscribe to something for a small periodical fee, it helps if you can place the amount in a frame that immediately makes sense to people like ‘Subscribe now for less than a cup of thee a day‘. •

• Hyperbolic discounting November 15, 2010

• Psychological Theory: We discount the value of the later reward, by a factor that increases with the length of the delay. In other words: We prefer a small reward now over a large reward later on.

• Immidiate Feedback August 30, 2010

• Psychological Theory: We are actively engaged when our actions result in direct feedback from the system.

• Interloper effect October 15, 2010

Psychological Theory: We are likely to value third-party consultation as objective, confirming, and without motive.

• Limit choices August 20, 2010

• Psychological Theory: It’s easier (and more likely) for people to make choices when there are less options to choose from. If you offer too much, you risk Choice Paralysis.

• Limited Access (Private Sales) August 16, 2010

• Psychological Theory: We have a natural desire for thing that are (perceived as) exclusive or belonging to a selected group.

• Loss aversion October 11, 2010

• Psychological Theory: The feeling of giving something up is stronger than the feeling of acquiring it. • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: • People like to gain. But people hate to loose. Some psychological studies even show that losses are twice as powerfull as gains. So instead of persuading people to buy your products in terms of what they have to gain, try to persuade them in terms of what they will loose when they don’t. (Further reading: Loss Aversion, Wikipedia) •

• Make it fun! January 12, 2011

• Psychological Theory: We respond well to small delighters. • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: Can you create some small and unexpected pleasurable things to delight your visitors? It can be a small game, a video or maybe you can trigger the gatherer in your visitors and let the collect points or badges or other stuff on your website. Don’t go overboard though, it’s all about the small things. You don’t want to distract people from actually buying stuff on your website. • An example of a fun delighter in the Mailchimp interface: • [pic] •

• Mere exposure effect October 8, 2010

• Psychological Theory: We have the tendency to express undue liking for things merely because of familiarity with them. • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: Unfamiliar products might be better than the products we are familiar with, but we tend to stick with the familiar because… well… they’re familiar. I think this originates in that we expect from ourselves that we started using a product for a good reason. It would be highly inefficient to start doubting that decision every time we encounter an alternative and to learn to use a new product. Mere exposure already triggers this effect. • You can use this knowledge to be aware that it helps to expose people to your products (preferably multiple times) to gain an advantage over competing products. You could think about free samples, free trial or starter packages or real life exposers on en expo or conference. •

• Need for Assurance January 5, 2011

• Psychological Theory: We need to be assured we’re making te right decision. • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: What can you do to provide certainty in your webshop? Let people know their making the right decision by taking away doubt and ambiguity which might cause inaction. Provide clear benefits of your products and provide social proof of other customers who’re happy they’ve made the decision (of buying your products). •

• Ownership Bias September 29, 2010

• Psychological Theory: People value things more when they feel a sense of ownership. • Also know as the endowment effect or divestiture aversion. • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: Can you give people something that is theirs only on your website? A page with their own content or personal data? A public page for them to show what they are doing at your website? Create something that is theirs alone and they’ll value it more then it’s actually worth. On the other hand: keep in mind that if you want people to switch from another system/ product/ competitor, keep in mind that they’ll value their current (and thus ‘safe’) choice more then they actually should, so be extra convincing in telling them you have the better product/ service. •

• Positive mimicry August 27, 2010

• Psychological Theory: We learn by comparing our behavior to others. • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: What options do you offer people on your site to compare their behavior to other visitors? Show them how others interact with your website and/or products through twitter/ facebook/ comments/ a forum. Show what the most popular products or searches are (‘people who looked at eventually bought product X’). You can also highlight or reward people who demonstrate positive interactions with your site (‘customer of the month’ or a list with ‘most active commenters’). •

• Product series November 4, 2010

• Psychological Theory: The more items we have, the more eager we are to complete the series. • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: People like to collect and complete the set. Incomplete puzzles or images are a nag to our brain. Can you divide your product range into several (logical) groupings that people can ‘collect’? Or you can show them together to suggest the items being in a set to stimulate people to buy them all. You can show sets on your webshop, or e-mail people that already bought item A an B that they really should buy item C to complete the set! •

• Reciprocity August 10, 2010

• Psychological Theory: When we receive a gift, we feel a need to reciprocate. (More info on Psychwiki.com: The Norm of Reciprocity) • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: Give things away for free. A free account, a free report, a free workshop, a gift card etc. Preferably something that people won’t expect to get for free. People will feel the need to do something in return, whether it’s buying something at your shop directly or referring friends (which you can make easy with social media integration). Note: if your competitors are also giving things away for free then people might also expect this from you and it’s no longer a real gift. •

• Recognition September 3, 2010

• Psychological Theory: Recalling things from memory is hard. Recognition from previous experiences is much easier. • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: When asking people to interact with the site, suggest (defined or popular) choices instead of letting them recall information from memory. Clicking fixed choices is much easier than filling in a textfield. •

• Sensory Appeal October 4, 2010

• Psychological Theory: We remember things better when we have experienced them through multiple senses. • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: Our memory is used to experiences containing information through multiple senses, because that’s what happens in the real world. Sadly, as a website owner you can only use a very small subset of senses. Smell, touch, taste, temperature etc. don’t go through an internet connection very well, so you have to make sure you dó use the ones that are available: sight and hearing (and some might add humor). Add images, audio and video to let people experience your products and to augment the claims you make in product descriptions. •

• Social Proof September 6, 2010

• Psychological Theory: Showing how other are using your product proves it’s added value. • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: When you show reviews, ratings, testimonials or other forms of feedback from other customers, you give potential buyers proof that the product is being used and valued. It reassures that they’re not alone and making the right decision. •

• Social Status August 9, 2010

Psychological Theory:
Whatever we do, we continually assess how our actions either enhance or diminish our social position.
Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: • You can use statistics to let people privately know how they are doing compared to other customers in your shop. You could present them with well-known ‘people who bought this also bought…’ functionality so people can compare their behavior with others. • You can also create a public form to let customers ‘show off’ their status to others. You can show the number of products bought, reviews entered or points collected. Take care to only measure those thing that are linked to desired behaviors. •

• Status Quo October 13, 2010

• Psychological Theory: We prefer a status quo. • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: • We don’t like to change our behavior unless the incentive to do so is compelling enough. If the expected gain is too small or uncertain, we like to keep doing thing as we always did. Keep this in mind when writing or talking about the gains people will get from your product or service: make it a little extra convincing. •

• Subliminal Stimulation September 23, 2010

• Psychological Theory: Presenting stimuli before they are consciously processed might influence peoples opinions. • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: The idea of Subliminal Stimulation is to use text or images (or even sound) that presents a message that is presented quickly enough to be registered by the sensory organs and the first brain areas, but too fast to be consciously recognized. This is something you could use on your site when you’re using a video message/ tutorial / promo to sell your company or product. • BIG note: This is really one for the category ‘fine-tuning’ or ‘how far can you go’, but I liked to mention it since there are many (ghost) stories about it’s effect. I quote: • The near-consensus among research psychologists is that subliminal messages do not produce a powerful, enduring effect on behavior; and that laboratory research reveals little effect beyond a subtle, fleeting effect on thinking. For example, priming thirsty people with a subliminal word may, for a brief period of time, make a thirst-quenching beverage advertisement more persuasive. •

• Tell a Story September 1, 2010

• Psychological Theory: It’s much easier for people to remember a story, real or imagined. • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: Does your webshop have a story? Do you include your customers? Give people a story they can relate to,what it’s use is and how it helps them. It’ll help them remember and makes it much easier to tell their friends about your business. •

• Time is relative September 27, 2010

• Value Attribution August 12, 2010

• Psychological Theory: We have the tendency to place value on products/ services/ persons based on a very limited piece of data. We also value things more when they cost more.

• Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: One of the most difficult things to decide when selling new products or services: How should it be priced? And also when you have competitors with the same products, there’s almost always some margin to play with. On pricing pages with a range of packages, always offer at least one more expensive option than you think your clients would choose. And highlight a ‘Best value’ or ‘Most popular’ option to reassure people who’re in doubt that they’re making the right choice. •

• Visualisation October 31, 2010

• Psychological Theory: Vision is the most important sense and most direct way to perception through a computer screen. • Application idea(s) for E-commerce websites: Let your customers see your products! Use (professional) images that make your products look at their best. Or even better: use video! It’s the best way to stimulate the brain and evoke an emotional response. Use images to replace or reinforce text or to make literal of suggestive associations. Even if you don’t have physical products, you can show screenshots or a video about using the product.

[pic]

Psychological Selling Tricks for E-commerce Stores

Use General Supermarket Psychology

You may increase profits and conversion by involving some basic marketing tricks like giving better positions to products with the highest profit level or place the items complimenting each other (like wine and cheese, slippers and pajamas) into one product category or on a single page while giving out search results.

Test Minor Tricks

Analyze your store users behavior by testing every single minor edit, such as changing the button or add color, content color and background, header images, location of calls to action and sales announcements. Google Website Optimiser is a free tool that is aimed at helping you to manage your testing easily.

Tricks with Promotions, Prices and Percentages

If we remember the Marketing experiments of Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, the majority of customers perceive the first price as an average standard. Meaning if we announce the sales as “15-30% off” we should know that people will think the most goods are 15% off, and only several items are 30% off. So it’s highly recommended to use the “up to” approach naming the headline “up to X% off” in order to cause appropriate reaction. By the way, have you ever noticed that the “up to” model sounds far more persuasive than “over ” model?

Buyers are into free shipping offers and may even disregard the $20 discount in comparison with the free shipping that costs $15. Try to make use use there irrational peculiarities of human mind.
Using proper numbers and percentages you will draw people with persuasive banner ads, newsletter subject lines and things like that.

You have most likely met the Pricing model like $99.95 or $49.95. The hidden trick of it is that we subconsciously accept these numbers as closer to $90 or $40 respectively, despite the logical part of your mind knowing the real value. Some experiments show that products offered at a price of $9.99 are being sold twice as much as the ones priced at $10.00! Isn’t it unbelievable? It may be, but it’s a fact that nobody can deny. This trick is more effective for the American audience though. Moreover, it better works with the certain groups of products.

Make Use of Reciprocation Rule

This rule is colorfully presented in Robert Cialdini’s book entitled “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion”. In short, it could be explained as the favor you need to do for anyone in return.
This rule is cultivated in us in early childhood. When parents taught us to be polite and grateful they actually fostered us in yielding to manipulation. We used to think that people won’t like us if we don’t do them favors in return.

Sale is exactly a kind of a favor you need to return. Online stores can present some additional bonuses, discount coupons, upsale offers etc. and visitors will do the stores a favor by purchasing goods. This rule is as easy as breathing. And the price itself doesn’t matter: if you increase it and put the sales sign, the visitors will still come and buy.

Attractive Web Store Layout

It’s proven for many years that more nice-looking sellers bring more purchases and attractive people will be more lucky in the court of law. The buyers are just like judges – they don’t have any chance to get to know you better, so the first impression is the fundamental one. There is a firm unconscious belief that more attractive stores are nicer.

Personal Content Presentation

According to stats, people are attracted by texts written to create a more personal feel. Just imagine you enter some e-commerce store and see the cold, neutral showcase of products with an apathetic general greeting and a feeling that you are alone in this location of buttons, images and bullet points. You would be far more glad to see some appeal to your personality in some shopping cart applications and personal, conversational texts. You should create a feeling that you want to get to know your customers through the site, and open up the personality or your brand personal information.
Testimonials, polls and personal address to audience could come in handy to increase confidence in your professionalism and uniqueness.

Consistent Naming Conventions

People believe in things they do understand so try to present instructions and calls-for-action as clearly as possible. The visual cues and signs placed on your store page should be vivid and clear enough to make the users follow the right paths to get what they want. Giving consistent naming conventions will make your website easy to navigate and your company will look persuasive.

Upselling offer

What is an upselling offer? This offer is usually located on one of the checkout pages or on the product page itself. You may offer some additional services, appliances, warranty or delivery conveniences associated with the goods your customers opt for. The clients may accept this automatic upsell before confirming the order and get bonuses for minor extra fee. Your task is to make these bonus offers really awesome! E.g. extra products are usually the best bet for this purpose.

One little trick is making upselling options the default choice on the checkout page, but it can be dangerous and may result in refunds.

Price Anchoring

This trick offers a few options of different values. The price rates and packages are chosen in such a way that customers opt for the items with higher prices though the products difference is not so crucial. E.g. Amazon.com offer free “super saver” shipping you may get on any order that exceeds $25.

Let’s illustrate this trick with the following example as well:

If you offer 3 options like “web only”, “print only” and a “web + print” for the prices of $59, $125 and $135 respectively, you may notice the third option being purchased by the majority of customers. But if you exclude the “print only” option from the list you will get much less profit since the majority of people will order the cheaper “web only” option.

Color Selling Psychology

It’s not a secret for anyone that certain colors evoke certain natural emotional and physical responses, though you should always consider the cultural environment of potential visitors. Various colors may affect specific markets in a different way. So it would be helpful to make some research of colors before creating the mockup for your future store. The proper color combination will bring you more devoted users.

Major Color Regularities In Web Stores Design

Major colors for store design:

Blue is known to make a calming effect on American audience, but always consider national associations since in Iran it symbolizes mourning. The general meaning of blue on a website is tranquility and harmony.

Red is tied with strong emotions like passionate love or aggression and may even cause the rise of blood pressure.

Pink will suit better the websites built for the female audience as it emphasizes femininity and love.

Green reminds you are living beings, connected with nature and at the same time addicted to money. Americans often read it as a call to action. Therefore green is known to be effective for checkout buttons. Great Britain and Ireland accepts green as a lucky color, while Chinese audience try to avoid this color of “disgrace”.

Purple adds some air of spirituality, wealth and mystery to your store. This sensual color can be used for some website elements or its darker shade as the basic color, but not for Thai people – they connect it with mourning.

Brown is reliable and steady, it reminds of earth so will suit perfectly for real estate, landscape design or agricultural stores. Beige is a neutral shade of brown that evokes feelings of trust and friendship. But be careful with your site audience: Indians associate it with mourning.

Secondary colors to use:

Orange makes visitors more active and enthusiastic, gives a feeling of balance and could be great for the stores devoted to sports goods, tools, active rest etc.

Yellow may speed up your metabolism and therefore is nice for food stores and restaurants. It’s not recommended to use it as a major color ’cause it may cause some feeling of weakness. Yellow brings creative ideas but you are to use it carefully for your designs as it is the hardest color to perceive for human eyes.

Grey means neutrality and respect but can also evoke depressive thoughts about death for older people.

White symbolizes pureness and security. Being non-color for the Americans, it can be associated with mourning in some eastern countries.

Black stands for power and elegance but don’t overload the site with black as it may seem heavy.

As for the majority of colors: brighter and lighter shades render stronger emotional effect, while darker shades are more reserved and conservative.

Guido Jansen offers many helpful pieces of material about the Psychology of E-commerce and its various tricks such as Authority figure, Framing effect, Immediate Feedback, Limit choices, Positive mimicry, Recurring events, Reminders, Subliminal Stimulation, Conceptual Metaphor and many other recipes for providing psychological effect. You may get a deeper look at his recommendations and try to apply them to your e-stores to make them popular.

Web designers and architects use an array of psychological tricks to manipulate users into specific behaviors.

DEFAULTS AND FRICTIONS

Pretty generous of Amazon, n’est-ce pas? Well, considering that these methods strongly encourage shoppers to spend at least $25 per purchase (I recently fell victim to this with the above screenshot), it’s clear they’re tapping into the urge of the shopper to try and save money—even if that means spending more to do so. Sure feel like we’re getting the party-end of this stick: more books, appliances, clothes, what have you! But really, users are tricked into spending more to avoid the “psychological barrier” of shipping costs, and they feel smarter doing so.

In other words: the smarter retailers make their users feel—even when they may be making not-so-smart decisions—the better.

IMPULSE BUY

Online retailers aren’t stupid. They know that once frictions are removed, impulse buys become much easier for users. But impulse buys can lead to shopper guilt and, worse in a retailer’s eyes, product return.

The clever retailers have figured this out. By clever retailers, I’m referring specifically to Apple.

If you’ve purchased anything recently from iTunes or the App Store, you might have noticed that your receipt doesn’t show up in your inbox right away. In fact, it can take a day or two. When it does show up, users might pause to consider what it is he or she bought, but the “pain of paying” has passed. The guilt of the spontaneous purchase has passed and the emotional exchange that goes along with the impulse buy has dulled.

This is a basic concept of feedback; seeing the consequences of a purchase is considered negative feedback when it comes to the impulse buy. Feedback is more easily controlled in an electronic environment; the digital goods we purchase from iTunes and the App Store aren’t so much like the watch that stares us down as soon as we exit the store—a shining beacon of what it cost.

The lesson here is that when negative feedback is necessary, it’s best (for the retailer) to postpone that feedback as long as possible. It’s a smart move, but also one that feels a bit, well, cunning.

CONVINCE THEM ITS IMPORTANT

a kind of one-two-three knockout: like with Amazon, Groupon shows users how much money they can save (even if the shopper wouldn’t have otherwise even wanted the product); they pressure users into acting quickly with real-time feedback; and they have the added effect of “everyone-else-is-doing-it” syndrome.

The immediacy and appeal with which Groupon coerces its users is hyper effective (evidenced by Groupon’s incredible success), but like the other methods listed above, is undoubtedly manipulative.

psychological manipulation in business is about as old as commerce itself. But as a great deal of commerce has moved online and the face-to-face interaction of monetary exchange is slowly dwindling, does crafting an experience to specifically get more money out of customers lose any ethics points? Particularly—how do the craftsmen and women of user experience feel about such manipulation/design?

Multilevel marketing

Multi-level marketing (MLM) is a marketing strategy in which the sales force is compensated not only for sales they personally generate, but also for the sales of others they recruit, creating a downline of distributors and a hierarchy of multiple levels of compensation.[1] Other terms for MLM include network marketing,[2][3][4] pyramid selling,[5][6][7][8][9] and referral marketing.[10](eg:gold quest)

salespeople are expected to sell products directly to consumers by means of relationship referrals and word of mouth marketing.[1] Some people use "direct selling" as a namefor MLM, although MLM is only one type of direct selling, which started centuries ago withpeddling.

MLM companies have been a frequent subject of criticism as well as the target of lawsuits. Criticism has focused on their similarity to illegal pyramid schemes, price-fixing of products, high initial start-up costs, emphasis on recruitment of lower-tiered salespeople over actual sales, encouraging if not requiring salespeople to purchase and use the company's products, potential exploitation of personal relationships which are used as new sales and recruiting targets, complex and sometimes exaggerated compensation schemes, and cult-like techniques which some groups use to enhance their members' enthusiasm and devotion

ther terms that are sometimes used to describe multi-level marketing include "word-of-mouth marketing", "interactive distribution", and "relationship marketing". Critics have argued that the use of different terms and "buzzwords" is an effort to distinguish multi-level marketing from illegal Ponzi schemes, chain letters, and consumer fraud scams

History

It is generally accepted that the first multi-level marketing plan was introduced in 1945 by the California Vitamin Company (shortly afterwards to become Nutrilite).[13][23] The plan allowed Nutrilite distributors with at least 25 regular customers to recruit new distributors and draw a 3 percent commission from their sales. Unlike traditional direct selling, this was an ongoing payment whenever the customer re-ordered, allowing direct sellers to build a sales organization that could generate a residual-like income.[23]

Setup

Independent, non-salaried salespeople of multi-level marketing, referred to as distributors (or associates, independent business owners, dealers, franchise owners, sales consultants, consultants, independent agents, etc.), represent the company that produces the products or provides the services they sell. They are awarded a commission based upon the volume of product sold through their own sales efforts as well as that of their downline organization.

Independent distributors develop their organizations by either building an active customer base, who buy direct from the company, or by recruiting a downline of independent distributors who also build a customer base, thereby expanding the overall organization. Additionally, distributors can also earn a profit by retailing products they purchased from the company at wholesale price.

In india

Here are two articles that raise concerns about the future of MLM's in India. It makes you wonder if India will follow China's decision about banning Multi-Level Marketing in their country.

he Centre is reviewing the approvals granted to direct-marketing companies following reports that many of them were violating the policy guidelines regarding domestic retail trading. Some of the companies which have set up shop in India and are under review include Amway International, cosmetics major Avon, Tupperware, Oriflame, and Modicare.

Government sources said that the commerce ministry planned to write to the high commissions and embassies of these companies' countries to verify their track records and gather more information about their business operations overseas. The ministry will also scrutinies their operations in India. The sources said that some of these companies had set up a complex system of distributors to show that they were only doing wholesale trading to camouflage their retail business. The distributors being appointed by these companies in India are subsidiaries of their distributors overseas.
The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) has decided to refer all the direct-marketing proposals to its core group headed by the industry secretary. The group, which also includes the finance and commerce secretaries, is reviewing policy guidelines on foreign direct investment (FDI) in direct marketing. The decision was taken at a recent FIPB meeting when an application of Appco of the UK came up for discussion. The fate of the company's proposal will now be decided by the group.

The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) has decided to refer all the direct-marketing proposals to its core group headed by the industry secretary. The group, which also includes the finance and commerce secretaries, is reviewing policy guidelines on foreign direct investment (FDI) in direct marketing.

Producer arrested for MLM racket

TNN Aug 12, 2011, 12.12pm IST

HYDERABAD: Three persons, including a Telugu film producer, were arrested on Thursday for duping 38,500 people in a multi-level marketing (MLM) racket by collecting Rs 132 crore from them. They lured 38,500 gullible customers, promising them that on purchase of plots on the outskirts of the city, they would be paid money on a daily basis depending on the package they opt for.

"The trio first bought land at a cheap rate between Rs three lakh and Rs 10 lakh per acre in the suburbs. The land was then made into plots and sold at higher prices by offering various schemes like 100 square yard of land for Rs 1.3 lakh, 50 square yards for Rs 65,000. However, the actual value of the plot may not be more than Rs 10,000,'' Khan said at a press conference.

Police said that the trio had been cheating people by promising to pay Rs 550 on a daily basis for 400 days to customers who purchase 100 square yards plot for Rs 1.3 lakh.

If a customer helps the company by introducing new customers, they would be rewarded with higher commission besides several benefits, the commissioner added.

The company failed to pay the commission to its customers as promised earlier.

"The trio did not reinvest the money collected from customers in other business ventures. They were just paying commission from the money collected from customers," the police said.

"So far, Srihari and Co collected Rs 132 crore from 38,500 customers and returned nearly Rs 90 crore in the form of commission,'' the commissioner said. Police seized Rs 11 lakh cash from them, while they froze Rs 1.9 crore deposited in their bank account.

If you really take a thorough look at the MLM industry, you will discover that it is one of the few industries that is growing exceedingly well in the past a couple of years.

Well, what is the reason? Its pretty simple.

Absolutely no financial safety.

Multi level Marketing (or Network Marketing) renders a realistic pathway for an average individual to create a supplementary income stream which can develop into something really lucrative when done right.

So currently what can we say about the general Network Marketing scenario?

Actually the present situation of the MLM industry seems very rosy.

Since the crash of the international economic system resulting in massive layoffs, a lot of people are more open towards the multi level marketing industry than ever before.

In nations like USA, UK multi level marketing is considered as a legal industry which is seeing a solid growth with each passing day.Now what about the Multi Level Marketing situation in India?

Network Marketing is phenomenal no doubt but it is yet to gain universal acceptance in India.It's not like other countries welcome Multi Level Marketing with full faith, but in those nations the masses are more open to the whole idea.Why should that be the case?

The reason is that a lot of people have been conned in the past by the so called Network Marketing companies which were in reality just scams.

The Network Marketing industry is yet to be viewed as a legal industry by the Indian laws. This does not augur well for the Indian masses.There are no specific laws for governing this industry

Due to incompetent laws, scamsters tend to find it relatively easier to start fake enterprises here and they actually do it to make massive sums of cash very fast.

Does this spell doom for those indian people who are already involved in MLM?

Actually NO. Quite frankly speaking venturing into Network Marketing business aiming the Indian audience can grow into a a lucrative career in the emrging times. How can I say that? Alright, its time to go back to the basic principles.

What is the most crucial factor of the Multi Level Marketing industry industry?

If you suppose that its the products, then its incorrect. If you tell that its the comp plan, then its incorrect. If you tell that its the overall company ethics, I am very sorry you just can't be more off the mark. If you state its the PEOPLE, then yeah, you are absolutely right.

Yes, potential customers, distributors are the biggest commodity in Multi Level Marketing. The simple logic behind it is that there will always be authentic products to market, good comp plans but the currency of the Network Marketing business is PEOPLE.

Now take a closer look at this and think what this means to the Indian Network Marketing section.

Yes, it's the working class population. So does this augur well for those concentrating on the Indian Multi Level Marketing section?

This spells the starting of a really geat opportunity if used intelligently can pay out large benefits later. The Network Marketing business being by and large recession proof has gone on to pull in quite an amount of pros these days and this actually is a very big good sign.

Yes the MLM industry is not very well developed in India, but in this information age, things turn around very quickly and it is simply an issue of time before it happens to the Indian Multi Level Marketing industry too.

ROLE OF HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY IN MLM

The amazing business of MLM is all about dealing with people. It’s about meeting people, interacting with people, learning from and teaching the people, convincing people, motivating people, reasoning with people, and above all, managing people to build, lead and expand a successful organization of MLM under your belt. This business is essentially about inspiring people to strive to materialize their dreams and ambitions with the help of the truly fruitful business opportunity that they are equipped with in the form of MLM. In a nutshell, this business is about human psychology and its intricacies.

Hence, one of the most important traits that are required to succeed in Multi Level Marketing is a practical understanding of the human psychology. In fact, it is indispensable if one is serious about making a career out of MLM and really making it big, and for part timers too, a little knack of understanding the way the human brain acts and reacts is a must for achieving the desired results in this immensely rewarding yet highly competitive business.

In order to understand, explore and learn about this fundamental phenomenon comprehensively, we, at Zillion 2nd Innings initiate a series of significant related topics, herewith, wherein the readers/users are welcome to post their comments/articles on the different aspects of the subject being analyzed i.e. theROLE OF HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY IN MLM. The selected comments/articles would be published in this Blog together with the name of the author.

To start with, let us take a look at a very basic form of amusing yet highly educative comparison between a young boy and a young girl’s psychology, which often outwits a trained psychologist by its very practical nature. Go through the following pictorial analysis:

[pic]

Now, go through the Girl’s mind:
[pic]

The obvious conclusion that one can arrive at would be that there is a great deal of difference between how a young boy and a young girl’s mind react to each other. No two brains are similar. Hence, people often react differently to a given situation. They may agree with one point but be at loggerheads with the other. The very human nature is the basis of this profound study on human psychology. It’s not due to the difference in the two sexes, but due to the difference in the two minds that a boy’s actions and reactions are typically straightforward in contrast with that of a girl.

Hence, it’s important to understand the situational behavior of the people with different mindsets. Observe the following example carefully:

|THE STORY OF 4 PEOPLE |
|(Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, Nobody) |
| |
| |
|There was an important job to be done |
|and Everybody was asked to do it. |
|Everybody was sure Somebody would do it. |
|Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. |
|Somebody got angry about it, but it was Everybody’s job. |
|Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but |
|Nobody realized that Everybody would not do it. |
|It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody |
|when actually Nobody asked Anybody. |

Everybody has his/her own point of view and a different attitude towards things. It’s very human for people to love being in COMFORT and ease. In fact, that’s what everybody works hard for. Hence, shouldering responsibility and to lead by example is the trait of the rare breed. And ironically, that rare breed is the one that is most likely to view things with a positive attitude and, hence, most likely to succeed. Nobody likes to work hard yet everybody has to do exactly the same in order to achieve what he/she wants.

Hence, it is a very fundamental lesson that since people love comfort, you show them how to achieve the same with the least amount of effort. And that can be done not byWORKING HARD (they hate it) but by WORKING SMART with the help of the much tried and tested business of MLM.
Every successful network marketer knows that you’ve got to know what your prospects are thinking and speak directly to their concerns, aspirations, and desires.
Prospecting One-on-One
If you follow your company’s recommendations and call your family and friends, you probably have a “success story” to share with prospects that has the following basic structure:
I was once…
I felt…
Then I…
And now I…
In theory, that should work. People want to relate to someone else, especially if they’re successful.
But the truth is, not everyone is a great storyteller. Not everyone has the ability to inspire every time they tell a story. More to the point, not everyone is able to convey their network marketing experiences in an inspiring way.
So, if you add in addressing groups of people — on a conference call or at a presentation — you may very well lose every prospect in the room if you’re not able to touch, move, and inspire them.
Throw in the fear that many people have of public speaking and you have a recipe for why many people fail in network marketing by trying to “prospect one-on-one.”
It is simply not duplicate-able. Just because so-and-so can address a group of 50 people and have 10 of them sign up doesn’t mean you can.
Internet Network Marketing: The Mass Audience
The Internet offers the opportunity to get out of this type of prospecting. But since your prospecting isn’t one-on-one, you can’t simply get to know the person, and use that knowledge to connect. You are now doing mass prospecting, and you have to use mass psychology to connect with your prospects.
This means you have to appeal to basic human needs. And basic human reasoning. Things that any average, normal person would respond to. When you’re telling a hundred people about your network marketing opportunity, you cannot spend the time to determine individual expectations.
There are two things every human being responds to:
1. Gaining pleasure
2. Avoiding pain
(In short: WIIFM [What's In It For Me?])
Most of our decisions are based on emotion. Emotions drives sales and responds to benefits (gaining pleasure/avoiding pain). Logic justifies the emotion. Even in network marketing.
Using mass psychology comes back to having a basic knowledge of the average person’s needs and wants, which are, in short: ▪ Having financial security ▪ Avoiding risk ▪ Getting out of debt ▪ Being healthy ▪ Enjoying life
While “old-school prospecting” requires speaking skills, prospecting on the Internet requires copywriting skills to generate mass appeal.
What’s On Your Prospects’ Minds?
To break this down further, consider that when people are online, they’re in different frames of mind depending on what they’re doing.
Here are a few examples: ▪ Search engine user When people are searching, they’re seeking a solution to a problem or they’re getting ready to buy. ▪ Blog reader When people are reading blogs, they’re in a news-getting or entertainment mindset. ▪ Email reader When people are reading emails, they’re often looking to connect with people they know–friends, relatives, people they trust–and/or they’re in a “let’s be productive” frame of mind.
None of this is “a fact,” but it’s a useful model to look at how to connect with prospects on the Internet.
So, for instance, if you’re communicating with prospects or leads via email, you may want to write your email differently than you’d write, say, a “how-to” article on some technical task.
The point is: not only do you need to take into account the broader driving forces of a “mass audience,” you need to take into accountwhere that audience is encountering your marketing material.
Mind the Gap
Now, what about this duplication thing?
One of the great things about the “personal story” in one-on-one prospecting is that it gives prospects the feeling that there’s not a big difference between your success and their ability to achieve the same success. The personal relationship can make the gap seem not so great.
It’s no use to you if your prospect thinks “that sounds wonderful for you, but there’s no way I can do that.”
When communicating to a mass audience, one way to bridge the gap is to use testimonials from average, everyday people who’ve “made it.” You need to underscore the point that your past need not determine your future. Not in network marketing. (Or in life!)
So, put yourself in your prospects’ shoes when you’re preparing your Internet marketing material and speak to these points: ▪ What do you want? ▪ How can this opportunity give you what you want? ▪ Here’s what I and others have accomplished. ▪ Anyone can do it. You can too.
Yes, you can.

Compensation plans [pic]Edit
Companies have devised various MLM compensation plans over the decades.

▪ Unilevel or Stairstep Breakaway plans are the oldest and most popular. They feature two types of distributors -- managers and non-managers -- and three types of pay: ▪ Baseshop overrides are overrides of managers from their subordinate non-managers, collectively called a baseshop. This is the same as any other sales organisation. ▪ Generational overrides are overrides of managers from the baseshop of managers who were previously their subordinate. Most plans compensate at least three generations of such managers. ▪ Executive bonuses are commissions for managers who exceed a sales quota. For example, 2% of the total company sales revenue may go to a bonus pool that is shared monthly pro rata to managers who exceed $10,000 in that month. ▪ Matrix Plans limit the width of each level in a distributor's group, forcing strong distributors to pile ("spillover") their recruits over people who did not sponsor them. ▪ Binary plans limit the width of each level to two legs. Commissions are based on "cycles," where a distributor is paid a fixed amount whenever both legs achieve a certain number of sales units each. Commissions are paid incrementally when the sales volume in each leg matches. ▪ Elevator or Matrix schemes feature a game board or a list on which each distributor pays in one or more product units to participate. When a certain number of units have been paid in, the structure splits and the earlier participant receives consideration. The Matrix scheme article discusses the legality of this plan. You must do your own research as with any other investment.
Fraud in MLM [pic]Edit
Fraudulent MLM schemes can usually be identified by high entrance fees or requirements to purchase expensive inventories. They often collapse quickly when the merchandise cannot be resold, leaving all but those at the top of the pyramid with financial losses.

The Federal Trade Commission advises that multi-level marketing organizations with greater incentives for recruitment than product sales are to be viewed skeptically. In April 2006, it proposed a Business Opportunity Rule intended to require all sellers of business opportunities—including MLMs—to provide enough information to enable prospective buyers to make an informed decision about their probability of earning money. FTC trade regulation rules usually take 1-1/2 to 3 years before a final rule is established.

MLM and cults [pic]Edit
Amway has often been accused of being a cult. Informed observers have stated that Amway, the corporation which provides the products and runs the marketing organization is not a cult, but that the motivational organizationsto which many distributors of Amway (and other MLM companies) belong can, and sometimes do, act like cults. Some motivational organizations apply enormous pressure to distributors to recruit new members, not associate with non-members, purchase "motivational material" at often inflated prices, and engage in other cult-like behavior.

You must understand this -- All objections in MLM from a psychological standpoint stem from 1 of 2 things:
1) Natural Defense Mechanisms.
2) Lack of perceived Value.
And usually the defense mechanism kicks in when lack of Value is felt, although some defense mechanisms are from past experiences.
How can you create an environment to lessen the natural defense mechanisms that kick in with a lot of people?
That is simple.
Create a sense of "ownership" with your MLM prospect with your business.
The 4 Things to Create Ownership with an MLM Prospect.
1) Sincerely asking their input and thoughts on how to improve what you are doing, and take notes.
2) Edify their accomplishments and transfer that feeling to your presentation.
3) Say, "I don't know whether this is for you or not, it may not be. But I simply wanted to share some ideas and maybe get your insights."
4) "All I want is what is right for you and your family, and this may not be a fit. But if it is, I truly don't want you to miss it."
What people contribute to,(ideas, insights, etc), and feel their values are honored, that will lessen any objections, as they have taken part ownership in your success.
INFERNO Secret:
People will be more attracted to something they contribute to and add to, then what is just "presented" to them.
How do you create what we call a Massive Value Perception?
That is simple.
LISTEN to what they say when you ask this question:
"I want to ask you a serious question. If there was One Thing you could change for the better in your life, what would that be? And how would your life change because of it?"
Then again, LISTEN to what they are telling you because they are giving you Value CLUES to what is important and VALUED in their life. And there is a part of their desires that is not being honored and fulfilled in their life, and they want to change it.
INFERNO Secret:
Wrap your recruiting around that value statement.
"If there was honestly a way, that I could help you obtain that in your life, would that be something you at least would want to be made aware of?"
And what you have done is put yourself in a "Value Posture" that will be felt through your recruiting process Whatever process you use, People MUST perceive value, and a POSTURE of value if you are to create a Minimum Objection environment. And when you do get objections, you can relate them back to the value posture that tela them that you want what is best for them.
Another great question is:
"How will not having the money you desire impact your family?"
"Again...if we could figure out a solution to obtaining what you want, then we can still create the positive change you want in your life for your family."
Continue a Value Posture, and keep it focused on what they want to change and enlarge in their life, and assure them they can.
There are many ways to neutralize objections. But understand: People will never object to someone truly, honestly, and with their best interest at heart[pic], helping them to obtain what is valued or missing in their life.
Psychology the factor in MLM Network Marketing success :::
Many people overlook this vital consideration. Most people think that you need to work hard to achieve success. What makes a rich person and a poor person? Every person has been part of one of the side of the equation at some point in their lives. What people do not notice is that it is your mindset that will determine your results.

Here is a portion of a poem I once read in the book Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill:

If you think you are beaten, you are.
If you think you dare not, you don't.
If you like to win, but you think you can't,
It is almost certain you won't.

I'm sure you'll agree that mindset does have a part to play in your level of success. You see, the type A workaholic will never try to work in a smart way. With the conditioning we have been given by parents and society we believe we have to work hard to make even a decent living.

And this is the part of poverty consciousness. The prosperous man always looks at being more productive and utilizing time to its best.

::: Why is psychology important in MLM Network Marketing? :::
Your psychology is important in achieving MLM Network Marketing success because your mental psychology will determine your behaviour, and your behaviour comes out in the actions you take.

You may see someone that you want to get into your MLM Network Marketing home based business but you feel that you can't. With this type of thinking you would never have the courage to be able to go forward and get anyone into your great MLM Network Marketing home based business opportunity.

As you can see in the last case of the example above, the mindset of failure brings about the inability to have courage which in turn comes out in our actions and we may not even be aware of them. You may even go up to someone to tell them about your great MLM Network Marketing home based business opportunity only to find that you can't communicate your message well.

::: How to work on your mindset for home based business success :::
Taking a look at your current strengths and weaknesses will enable you to have a stepping stone to build a confident and achievement orientated mindset. Take a look at your beliefs and consider which area you are stuck at. When you find this out, you can go forward and work on that area to create a winning mindset.

It can be hard to work on your mindset, but doing so will pay you dividends in the long term with your work at home MLM Network Marketing home based business. As you work on each bit of your mindset and change limiting beliefs into positive beliefs, you will be stepping on the ladder of MLM Network Marketing achievement.
How is it that a man can feel defeated and end up being defeated while another who is broke and has to temporarily live on the streets come back and grow wealth which the defeated man could never imagine possible? This is a truth which happens in the world in some unique cases. It is this unique cases which the person aiming for high achievement is interested in. * Psychology the factor in achieving success with a Multilevel Marketing home biz opportunity * Why is psychology crucial in a Multilevel Marketing opportunity? * How to work on your mindset for Multilevel Marketing home biz success

[pic]

[pic]

However, the public's perceptions of network marketing are beginning to change. This is largely due to changes in behavior by the network marketers. Today, enlightened network marketers have made the subtle change in focus from building sales to building relationships. This new breed of network marketer is involved in building, not only relationships, but long-term relationships that are mutually beneficial to both parties.

In many cases network marketing has turned into a full-fledged mentoring system. When you take the risk to grow your own business channels the risk is greatly reduced when there is someone there to guide you and offer advice, making this is a true business relationship. Enlightened network marketers will also acknowledge the psychological differences in people. For example, they are aware that some people are auditory while others are more visually oriented. Therefore their teaching tools will reflect an individual's needs.

If you are researching network marketing opportunities look for those organizations that cater not only to your financial growth, but also to your personal development. Look for opportunities that are built on relationships as well as other types of rewards. Integrity is a major component of the enlightened network marketing organization.

The truth is that opportunities do exist and the rewards can be great. However, success often comes to those that are able to work within the system's framework. And, as in other walks of life, the most successful network marketers are those that are highly motivated. Your success will be measured, not by your own achievements, but by the achievements of others within your organization.

Every new industry is faced with the challenge of establishing their collective identity and ethics. Network marketing has been no exception. However changes within the industry are occurring and people's perceptions of the industry are changing. This is reflected in the growing number of individuals from all walks of life who are embracing the concepts and rewards of network marketing.

Psychological consequences of recent developments in Information Technology.

Presentation on impact of mass media on culture :

Presentation on impact of mass media on culture SHRIRAM KULKARNI F Y B com

INTRODUCTION :

INTRODUCTION The impact of mass mediain india is very significant impact and this is clearly apprent throgh the rising number of advertisements who are capitalising on these media channels to spread their messages.It is the people & their character that the masses of india seem to indetify with regards to their dressing & personifications of themselves,mass media has affected the lives of people in many ways.It is need to examine is the intangible cost involved in the burgeoning of mass media culture.This presentation aims to answer the question which is put on change of mass media & culture.

Traditional forms of communication :

Traditional forms of communication oldest culture in india : It is impossible to define indias oldest culture.Every state has carved out its own cultural niche.

Culture & preservation matters :Culture and its preservation matters a great deal to Indians, at least in rhectoric. The Government of India has even formulated a “Cultural Policy” which lays out three major objectives as preserving the cultural heritage of India, inculcating Indian art consciousness amongst Indians and promoting high standards in creative and performing arts. Unfortunately, it seems the advent of mass media has made the cultural policy redundant as performing arts seem to have virtually disappeared for the masses of India. :

Culture & preservation matters :Culture and its preservation matters a great deal to Indians, at least in rhectoric. The Government of India has even formulated a “Cultural Policy” which lays out three major objectives as preserving the cultural heritage of India, inculcating Indian art consciousness amongst Indians and promoting high standards in creative and performing arts. Unfortunately, it seems the advent of mass media has made the cultural policy redundant as performing arts seem to have virtually disappeared for the masses of India.

variation of music :

India is made up of several dozen ethnic groups, speaking their own languages and dialects, as a result, folk music plays an essential role in uniting people of the same dialect group who may be far apart geographically. An example is the folk music of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, Bhojpuri music. It serves as a means of communication as the lyrics of the songs often cover recent cultural changes and events; as well as religious content. variation of music

Television & drama :The television and print revolutions have granted access to these forms of media to the masses across india. Villages often have their own newspapers and access to television is readily available to the majority. Bollywood cinema is not restricted to the urban community and is in fact highly popular with the rural masses. :

Television & drama :The television and print revolutions have granted access to these forms of media to the masses across india. Villages often have their own newspapers and access to television is readily available to the majority. Bollywood cinema is not restricted to the urban community and is in fact highly popular with the rural masses. Changes in forms of media & communication

Slide 7:

Cassette & compact disks : In Cassette Culture, Peter Manuel tells how a new mass medium, the portable cassette player, caused a major upheaval in popular culture in the world's second-largest country. The advent of cassette technology in the 1980s transformed India's popular music industry from the virtual monopoly of a single multinational LP manufacturer to a free-for-all among hundreds of local cassette producers. The result was a revolution in the quantity, quality, and variety of Indian popular music and its patterns of dissemination and consumption.

Slide 8:

Impact of television :- It is nearly impossible to establish the precise number of people with access to a television set in “the poor world ”, as James Murdoch, chief executive of STAR TV Group told a cable conference in India; due to the fact that individual cable subscribers sometimes pass on the service illegally to an entire neighborhood. “Moreover, in parts of the developing world, large numbers of people often crowd into one house or cafe to watch television, a factor that is hard to quantify ”.

Changes in social structure :

Changes in social structure The people of India belong to thousands of castes and caste like groups--hierarchically ordered, named groups into which members are born. Caste members are expected to marry within the group and follow caste rules pertaining to diet, avoidance of ritual pollution, and many other aspects of life. With the advent of mass media and channels of communication and information, the top class people who have traditionally been at the top of the caste system have been replaced by those with colour television sets in their homes reports Kirk Johnson in his study. The next level seems now to be those with access to colour TV, followed by black and white TV owners and then those with access to black and white TVs.

Slide 10:

Caste line :- Caste lines have been blurred in the quest to gain access to information; which in itself is not a bad thing. Television watching, especially in the rural areas has become a communal event and it is not uncommon for TV owners to position their television sets such that they are facing the open door; allowing members of other caste groups to sit outside the home and enjoy the shows . Similarly, in villages where there is one common, government-provided television set, members of the village gather around to watch communally. This is especially the case for religious programs as well as those related to agriculture.

Slide 11:

Indian norms :- Other than changing the social structure and norm, the media revolution has also contributed to the disintegration of so-called 'Indian norms'. Movies such as "Monsoon Wedding" are an ideal demonstration of the culture shock faced by many young Indians today. There is a chasm between traditional values of chastity and dressing conservatively and the TV values of stylish and often skimpy dressing and more liberal values, including dating before marriage and other 'western norms'.

Culture, mass media and elites :

Culture, mass media and elites The dominant social paradigm and culture A fruitful way to start the discussion of the significance of culture and its relationship to the mass media would be to define carefully our terms. This would help to avoid the confusion, which is not rare in discussions on the matter. Culture is frequently defined as the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behaviour. However, in what follows, I am not going to deal with all these aspects of culture unless they are related to what I call the dominant social paradigm. By this I mean the system of beliefs, ideas and the corresponding values which are dominant in a particular society at a particular moment of its history.

Slide 13:

Differences between culture and the dominant social paradigm. :- Culture, exactly because of its greater scope, may express values and ideas, which are not necessarily consistent with the dominant institutions. In fact, this is usually the case characterising the arts and literature of a market economy, where, artists and writers have been given a significant degree of freedom to express their own views.

Conclusion :

Conclusion Other than dress; many other aspects of culture have been sacrificed in favour of western influences. Folk music and travelling singers have given way to cassettes and compact discs; nautanki shows have dissolved under the pressure and competition brought forth by television and cinema. The traditions of story telling has also taken a back seat due to casette playbacks of discourses and the ease with which printed material is cheaply available.

Slide 15:

Just as traditions have gone ‘out of fashion’, it seems that many beliefs have done so as well. Television has reached a stage where even religious discourse is broadcast, negating the need for temple visits and religious-social gatherings. Infrastructure and the mass media influenences that it has brought with it have created a culture where person to person interaction has nearly stopped. Information is relayed to us through media channels, radio, television, books and newspapers.

The Role and Influence of Mass Media

Mass media is communication—whether written, broadcast, or spoken—that reaches a large audience. This includes television, radio, advertising, movies, the Internet, newspapers, magazines, and so forth.

[pic]

Today, it seems that violence is an accepted part of television programming

and filmmaking, grossly exaggerated in its prevalence, and glorified

in digital clarity

MEDIA ANTI SOCIAL AND PRO SOCAIL

ANTI SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR

In Britain, 1972, violence certainly seemed to be on the rise. The Troubles

had finally exploded in Northern Ireland, the IRA’s first mainland bombing

had taken place, the Conservative government was involved in increasing

conflict with the Trade Unions, football hooliganism was rampant, and

police statistics showed rises in criminal activity. Into this atmosphere was

pitched another element: film violence.

Ten years earlier, the novelist Anthony Burgess had written A Clockwork

Orange, a novella about a teenage thug, Alex, and his behavioural therapy at

the hands of the prison service aimed at correcting his violent tendencies.

The novel’s most noteworthy feature was its strange language (an invented,

Russian-influenced argot), which Burgess used to present the narrative in

the first person, enabling the narrator to describe his “ultraviolent” activity

in chilling, detached terms. For a while, a film version had been discussed;

Mick Jagger was rumoured to be interested in the part. Eventually, the successful

director Stanley Kubrick stepped into the breach, and in 1971 delivered

a cinematic interpretation that matched the stylised charisma of the

book. Alex and his “droogs” were kitted out in white overalls, bovver boots,

and bowler hats. Each wore a single false eyelash. The first 15 minutes of

the film showed them breaking into various houses and raping, murdering,

and robbing the occupants.

Although the remainder of the film (over 2 hours) dealt largely with

Alex’s aversive therapy and rehabilitation, the blue touch paper had been

lit. Even before the film went on release, there was feverish press attention:

One paper carried the headline “THE SHOCKER TO END THEM ALL.” A

Labour MP, invited to a prerelease screening, allegedly declared: “I believe

Chapter4

The Effects of Media Violence

49

that when A Clockwork Orange is generally released, it will lead to a Clockwork

cult which will magnify teenage violence.” Nevertheless, the British

Board of Film Censors saw enough merit in the film to award it an “X”

(over-18) certificate.

The doom-mongers were not disappointed, however, as the press found

plenty of examples to bear witness to the “Clockwork cult”: A tramp beaten

to death by a 16-year-old in Oxfordshire who claimed to have been influenced

by the film; various sightings of rowdy teenagers sporting the droogs’

garb; and, eventually, the rape of a Dutch tourist in London by a group of

teenagers singing “Singing in the Rain,” in emulation of the film’s most notorious

scene. After this incident, Kubrick, fed up with constantly denying

the link between film violence and criminal behaviour, withdrew the film

from general release, where it remained until it was granted a certificate

again in 2000, after Kubrick’s death. Needless to say, the re-release of A

Clockwork Orange was greeted with much media interest, but as yet there

have been no reports of imitative violence by viewers.

Of course, movie violence had stirred up controversy long before 1972,

notably Hollywood gangster films in the 1930s. Here, again, the fear concerned

imitative behaviour; reportedly, during this period, a New Jersey 12-

year-old returned home from seeing The Secret Six and shot another child

through the head (Hoberman, 1998). This heralded a long line of controversial

films whose content has been associated with real-life violence, the

most recent being Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers, which has been linked

with 14 murders worldwide (Ruddock, 2001). Television has not been

spared; concerns about the effects of watching violence on the small screen

have been rife ever since the medium’s introduction (Himmelweit et al.,

1958).

Today, it seems that violence is an accepted part of television programming

and filmmaking, grossly exaggerated in its prevalence, and glorified

in digital clarity. Three major content analyses of television violence have

been conducted in the United States. The first, by George Gerbner and colleagues,

spanned 22 years from 1967 to 1989. This analysis found that 80%

of all the shows in the study (mostly prime-time viewing) contained some element

of physical violence (Potter, 1999), although their definition of violence

was very broad (“physical force” might be more accurate a term).

However, it was not as broad as that used by Bradley Greenberg and colleagues

in the mid-1970s, whose definition included verbal aggression as

well as other forms of antisocial behaviour. These researchers estimated

that there are, on average, 14.6 violent acts an hour on American television

(see Greenberg, 1980).

The third major content analysis was conducted during the 1990s—the

National Television Violence Study, funded by the National Cable Televi-

50 4. THE EFFECTS OF MEDIA VIOLENCE

sion Association. This study used a more precise definition of (physical) violence

and found such content in 60% of prime-time programming (Potter,

1999). It also examined the narrative contexts in which violence occurred.

In most cases, violence was used for personal gain (30%); in 58% of cases,

the victim was not shown suffering harm from the violence; and 37% of violent

perpetrators were left unpunished at any point in the show. Thirty-nine

percent of violent acts occurred in a humorous context, thereby—the authors

argued—trivialising their impact. The physical outcome of violence is

rather neglected, so there is relatively little blood and gore in prime-time

television—in fact, the authors observed close-up footage of the aftermath

in only 3% of cases (Wilson et al., 1997, 1998).

What is it about fictional violence that causes so much controversy? Are

we really that impressionable? Is there a direct causative relationship between

watching violence (or any other kinds of activity) onscreen and then

behaving violently in subsequent real-life situations? These questions troubled

media and communications researchers throughout the last century,

and the putative effects of media violence remain a source of vehement disagreement

in this one. Despite vast amounts of empirical data apparently

showing a clear relationship between watching violence onscreen and behaving

aggressively in real life, both sides of the media violence debate remain

as entrenched as ever. To paraphrase Freedman (1986), how can two

eminent psychologists look at the same set of data and draw completely opposite

inferences from it? The fact is that the media violence debate is

highly complex, tapping into many of the methodological and epistemological

arguments outlined in the previous chapters, and it raises all manner

of questions about the best ways to research media influence and what

we can conclude from the findings.

There are numerous articles, chapters, and books documenting the

many findings concerning media violence from experiments, surveys, and

field studies over the last 40 years. I do not attempt to summarise this literature

in full, but I do want to discuss a number of interesting features of

the media violence debate allied to specific studies, and suggest a number

of avenues that have yet to be fully explored. Interested readers who want

a full range of findings should consult one of the following sources. Two

meta-analyses—Wood et al. (1991) and Paik and Comstock (1994)—are

the most convincing studies to argue a correspondence between media violence

and “antisocial” behaviour. Freedman (1984) offered a sceptical

review of this literature, highlighting methodological concerns; see also

the subsequent exchange between Freedman (1986) and Friedrich-Cofer

and Huston (1986). For a complete rejection of the empirical research

evidence from a range of epistemological perspectives, see Gauntlett

(1995), Barker and Petley (1997), and Fowles (1999). For a well-balanced

INTRODUCTION 51

discussion of the media violence debate, Gunter (1994) is probably the

best source.

WHAT ARE THE IMMEDIATE EFFECTS OF WATCHING

VIOLENT MEDIA?

Two particular explanations have been very influential throughout the media

violence debate. They are role modelling, derived from social learning

theory (Bandura, 1973); and excitation transfer, a cognitive/physiological

response to watching dramatic entertainment (Zillmann, 1971). Both explanations

seem rather dated now—they have either been considerably

elaborated in recent decades, or discredited entirely, depending on which

version of the debate you read. Nevertheless, they long ago filtered into lay

discourse about media effects in general, perhaps most importantly in the

“video nasty” debate that followed the murder of toddler James Bulger in

the early 1990s (Vine, 1997).1

Imitation

The imitative modelling of media effects was studied in a series of experiments

by Albert Bandura in the 1960s, widely known as the “Bobo doll”

studies due to the use of an inflatable plastic doll that children were observed

to strike more frequently after watching an adult perform the same

activity on video (Bandura et al., 1963). These studies have become an

obligatory reference point for the coverage of aggression in social psychology

and developmental textbooks, although they have been criticised for

their low external validity. Particular problems include the artificiality of

the laboratory setting and the use of leading cues such as the juxtaposition

of the doll and a mallet; there are even reports of child participants saying,

“There’s the doll we have to hit” (Gauntlett, 1995). Perhaps the most problematic

aspect of all is the use of artificial stimuli (video footage of psychology

students playing with toys), bearing scant resemblance to the material

52 4. THE EFFECTS OF MEDIA VIOLENCE

1 1Space does not allow a full discussion of the Bulger debate here, although the supposed

link between the murder and violent media has had an enormous impact (in the United Kingdom,

at least) on public thinking about media effects. My media psychology students (at the

outset of the module, that is!) routinely offer the Bulger murder as incontestable evidence of

the effects of video nasties on impressionable youngsters, although the connection was only

made by the British press following a casual comment by the Bulger trial judge about the sort

of “culture” in which Bulger’s killers may have been brought up. A copy of the Child’s Play 3

video was subsequently discovered in one of the boys’ houses, although there is no evidence

that either child had actually watched it (Barker, 1997).

children would have watched on television, and having arguably little to do

with media at all.2

The work on imitation of media violence has been somewhat curtailed

over the years through ethical consideration for child participants (although

see Josephson, 1987), and has led to a switch to more naturalistic

forms of enquiry, notably surveys and self-report measures. Clearly, these

methods are less capable of testing causal hypotheses because they rely on

observed patterns of stastical association, and cannot test hypotheses about

direct effects of viewing. Nevertheless, Comstock and Scharrer (1999, p.

287) argued that meta-analyses of this work offer “incontestable documentation

that empirically there is a positive association between exposure to

television violence and antisocial behaviour.” This may be, although that association

is tempered by many other variables that are not consistently controlled

in all studies.

Given some of the modest effect sizes in Paik and Comstock’s (1994)

study, some caution must be exercised, particularly because the smallest effects

are those for “extremely violent criminal behaviour”—precisely the

outcome of media violence about which there is most concern. Furthermore,

there is a clear relationship between the artificiality of the measures

and the strength of the media violence effect. Experiments provide the

strongest effects, as do aggression measures of “simulated violence,” whereas

actual violent behaviour, and measures of actual media use, provide

weaker effects. I return to the measurement issue shortly.

Proponents of the media violence/aggression link often point to the results

of “natural experiments” as convincing evidence of the link. Phillips

(1983) examined U.S. crime statistics for the 10-day period following televised

heavyweight boxing matches, and discovered a significant rise in homicides

during this period. No corresponding effect was found for Super

Bowl contests. Also, the ethnic background of the homicide victims was

consistent with that of the victor in these matches, suggesting that the murders

were carried out to avenge the boxing results. Although these findings

look convincing enough, there are other significant correlations within the

same dataset that are less obviously explained. For instance, the significant

rises in homicide were observed on the third, sixth, and ninth days of the

period. Also, the effect was stronger for bouts taking place outside the

United States and for those featured on network news.

Leaving aside the question of whether sport can be lumped together

with other forms of violent media to produce identical effects, these rela-

WHAT ARE THE IMMEDIATE EFFECTS OF WATCHING VIOLENT MEDIA? 53

2 2To be fair to Bandura, the primary objective of the Bobo doll (and later) studies was to observe

the role that modelling and imitation played in the learning of aggression per se. As in

much psychological research, the inclusion of a “media” condition in the experiments seems

to have been a secondary consideration.

tionships remain spurious in the absence of any theoretical framework that

can explain them. Similar doubts surround the retrospective study of

Hennigan et al. (1982), who examined crime statistics around the time of

the erratic introduction of television to the United States between 1949 and

1952, and found that the cities that received television at the start of this period

showed an increase in crime relative to cities with delayed introduction.

The biggest rise here concerned burglary, rather than violence, and

can only be attributed to the introduction of television in general. One possibility

is that commercial television stimulates materialistic envy among disadvantaged

members of a society, although this would not explain a similar

link between violent television and burglary found by Paik and Comstock

(1994), except that most studies have noted a relationship between heavy

viewing of violent television and viewing of all television.

Imitation of violent behaviour on television is likely to be influenced by

the status of the aggressor. A common complaint is that media coverage of

violence glamourises the behaviour. Certainly the fears concerning the effects

of A Clockwork Orange were based partly on the popstarlike portrayal

of Alex and his droogs, and the sharpest criticism of films like Bonnie and

Clyde were that the casting of attractive young stars Faye Dunaway and

Warren Beatty would make their violence acceptable (even desirable)

among young fans. There is some evidence that the attractiveness of, and

degree of identification with, aggressive models enhances the effects of

media violence (Donnerstein & Smith, 1997; Huesmann, Lagerspetz, &

Eron, 1984; Jo & Berkowitz, 1994). It is even argued that video game characters

may act as violent role models for children (McDonald & Kim,

2001).

Excitation

Imitation is in the eye of the beholder; the researcher needs to make a judgment

about whether or not a child has hit a Bobo doll in response to a televised

stimulus. Physiological responses to the same stimuli are less ambiguous.

Clearly, an exciting film will speed up heart rate and increase blood

pressure and skin conductance; could violent film be an exceptionally exciting

stimulus, whose effects carry over to subsequent activity? This was essentially

the hypothesis advanced by Dolf Zillmann, who developed the

concept of “excitation transfer” in line with Schachter and Singer’s (1962)

two-factor theory of emotion. The theory states that emotions are physiological

responses to which we assign appropriate labels according to a variety

of personal, social, and cultural factors. Excitation transfer takes place

when the adrenalin produced by an exciting stimulus carries over to later

54 4. THE EFFECTS OF MEDIA VIOLENCE

activity and may be misidentified as a result. Thus, in the context of media

violence, an exciting film produces an excess of adrenalin production in a

viewer; the viewer then gets into an argument on the bus home that descends

into physical conflict, unaware that his or her physiological excitation

is the residue of the viewing experience rather than adrenalin produced

by the argument itself.

This effect is rather easier to test experimentally than imitation, because

it is, in terms of latency, a short-term response (its duration is another issue).

It is also somewhat easier to measure, because overt physiological

responses are involved. Perhaps most importantly, it is (partly) a low-level

response that can be tested using artificial stimuli; this contrasts with imitation,

which depends wholly on higher-level cognitive processes. Not surprisingly,

then, there have been numerous experimental studies examining the

short-term effects of viewing violence, and these have generally produced

positive associations between violent media and subsequent aggressive behaviour

(Paik & Comstock, 1994).

A typical excitation transfer experiment involves participants viewing

films, or short clips from films, in different conditions; usually there is a

control condition in which the film is neutral, or nonviolent, and at least

one experimental condition in which the film is violent. Participants are

then placed in a situation in which they can display aggression or hostility

toward a stimulus figure (typically, a confederate of the experimenter).

Initial excitation transfer studies (e.g., Zillmann, 1971) used Milgram’s

classic electric shock paradigm, where aggression is measured by the intensity

of (simulated) shocks given by the participant to an actor masquerading

as a participant in the context of a conditional learning task.

Usually, participants in the violent condition display higher levels of physiological

arousal during the viewing episode than do those in the control

condition. They also display significantly higher levels of aggression in the

subsequent task, particularly when anger or frustration has been induced

(Freedman, 1986).

Is excitation transfer a good explanation for media-related violence?

Much depends on the length of the effect; certainly, if the adrenalin produced

by film violence wears off within 2 hours, it cannot explain the Clockwork

Orange-related incidents, because the violence in that particular film is

restricted to the first 15 minutes of a 136-minute epic. There is also remarkably

little record of violence during film screening; the most famous examples

of lawless cinema behaviour accompanied footage of (nonviolent)

early rock ’n’ roll performances, such as Bill Haley’s “Rock Around The

Clock.” The misattribution effect in subsequent exchanges is an ingenious

theory, and Zillmann and Weaver (1997) produced some interesting evidence

in a study in which violent viewing led to the endorsement of force as

WHAT ARE THE IMMEDIATE EFFECTS OF WATCHING VIOLENT MEDIA? 55

a way of resolving conflict in a story-scenario study. However, the absence of

a pre-viewing measure of aggressive conflict resolution makes it hard to establish

causation in this particular study.

The measures of aggression themselves in excitation transfer studies do

not provide much confidence for the application of the theory in real-world

situations. Ethical considerations have greatly restrained the measures that

can be used; indeed, if induced aggression due to excitation transfer is believed

to persist well beyond the viewing episode, it is doubtful whether any

such experiments are ethically acceptable unless participants are detained

for some time afterward. Clearly, it would be unacceptable to put participants

in a situation in which actual physical violence could be elicited, and

even the manipulations used by Schachter and Singer (1962) would raise

eyebrows at ethics panels today.

Increasingly, researchers have had to get creative. “Aggression” in a

study might consist simply of a response to a questionnaire. Even studies

with more naturalistic designs have used nonharmful measures, such as the

delivery of blasts of loud noise toward opponents in a reaction time task

(Anderson & Dill, 2000). One commonly used paradigm involves the use of

a confederate of the researcher as a stimulus figure toward whom participants

can display aggression. For example, Zillmann and Weaver (1999)

had a research assistant deliver negative feedback on a pen-and-paper test

in order to induce anger in participants, who were later informed that the

assistant had been offered a permanent post in the university. They were

then asked to indicate their impression of her suitability. Low scores were

taken to indicate “hostility,” and were highest for participants in both the

“violent” and “negative feedback” conditions. But if the effect of media violence

is merely to make employers a bit more fussy, is it worth all the money

spent on research?

The biggest problem for excitation transfer theory, however, is the fact

that violent media are not necessarily the most exciting stimuli to which

viewers are exposed. This was evident in the original Zillmann (1971) study

where, as a comparison condition, participants were shown a nonaggressive

(indeed, “nonpassionate”) erotic film with nudity and “tenderness.” This

stimulus not only produced higher physiological arousal than did the violent

and control films, but also induced participants to give higher-intensity

shocks to mock participants in the learning task. This finding clearly supports

excitation transfer, but provides mixed evidence for a media violence

effect; it should perhaps be pornography users who riot in the streets. In

fact, studies that have used combinations of erotic and violent stimuli have

produced the highest aggression measures of all (Paik & Comstock, 1994).

Pornography, however, is a complex topic that requires a chapter of its

own, and I leave the issue of sexually violent media for chapter 6.

56 4. THE EFFECTS OF MEDIA VIOLENCE

Desensitisation

An important issue related to excitation transfer, or any physiological theory

of media violence, is the effect of repeated exposure to violent material

over a long period of time. Short-term effects induced in the laboratory are

spectacular in themselves, but surely don’t the effects wear off after sufficient

time as habituation sets in? The result, it is argued, is desensitisation to

violence, both on television and in real life. If such an effect occurs, might

repeated exposure to violent media not blunt the effects of laboratory research

on physiological responses? Friedrich-Cofer and Huston (1986) argued

that because of such considerations, the media violence literature actually

underestimates the real effects.

On the other hand, if exposure to violent media desensitises us to televised

violence, its effects should be more pronounced for research participants

who are unfamiliar with such material. However, large-scale analyses

of media violence have consistently noted strong effects for males, who are

much heavier consumers of violent media, and weaker effects for females—

the reverse pattern of what might be expected from desensitisation theory

(Freedman, 1984). Friedrich-Cofer and Huston (1986) dismissed this argument

on the grounds that biological differences in aggression are sufficient

explanation for any observed male/female differences in media effects.

Nevertheless, even when boys have been studied separately, the amount of

televised violence they have watched predicts their levels of aggression

(Huesmann et al., 1984).

All in all, the direct effects of media violence offer something of a mixed

bag of findings (Freedman, 1984; Gunter, 1994). Whether we accept the

positive relationships found by researchers in experiments with numerous

shortcomings may depend on what we are prepared to consider evidence of

an effect. Do we allow a modicum of imperfection in our research designs?

Is internal validity the most important feature of good science, or must we

be able to generalise from all studies? Increasingly, researchers are moving

away from “magic bullet” theories such as excitation transfer and modelling;

even those theories’ original authors have elaborated considerably on

their ideas. Nevertheless, there are many other important factors that need

to be taken into account when assessing the impact of media violence.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE USERS OF VIOLENT

MEDIA

A year before writing this book, on hearing that A Clockwork Orange was due

for official general re-release, I headed for the cinema, eager to see what all

the fuss was about. Some of my favourite films are extremely violent—

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE USERS OF VIOLENT MEDIA 57

Scorsese’s GoodFellas and Casino, for example, which, according to Comstock

and Scharrer (1999), are liable to increase my use of aggressive language.

Perhaps they have. I have certainly not hit anyone since watching

these films, or other favourites such as Pulp Fiction and Trainspotting, all of

which contain scenes of extreme violence. Furthermore, if the effects of

media violence were universal, we should be most concerned about the film

censors themselves, who watch endless scenes of graphic violence, some of

them too disturbing to merit a certificate!

As a middle-class academic, it could be argued, I have developed a critical

sensibility that allows me to enjoy such cultural fare without it interfering

with my day-to-day behaviour. But we must beware of applying what has

become known as the third-person effect with regard to media, which is

particularly strong in relation to media violence and aggression (Hoffner et

al., 2001). In this situation, the effects of media on other people are overestimated,

especially on people of lower social class and educational level,

and on members of outgroups. Conversely, the effects of media on the self,

and on members of the same social group, tend to be underestimated

(Duck, Hogg, & Terry, 1999). If violent media induce physiological effects,

as excitation transfer theory would suggest, these should override individual

differences in response. Nevertheless, gender has been found to moderate

the effects of violent media considerably (Freedman, 1984). Perhaps

other individual characteristics are important too.

In order to study individual differences rather than blanket responses, it

is necessary to move from experimental designs to survey designs and the

use of psychometric tests. This makes direct causation impossible to infer,

but indicates a less reductionist approach to the problem, examining the effects

of violent media on people with different personal histories and attributes,

rather than as experimental subjects in a laboratory. It also prompts

a shift from studying direct effects to actual media use. This has important

implications for media psychology, because it means we can begin to consider

the functions of watching violent media.

Personality Characteristics

What sorts of people are attracted to violent media, and what individual

characteristics make some people more vulnerable to its effects than others?

Personality, or dispositional, variables have been increasingly built

into media violence research designs. Most obvious, perhaps, is the level

of aggression exhibited by participants at the outset of a study. Brad

Bushman (1995) assessed trait aggression (the biological tendency for an

individual to display aggression) in a series of studies that examined both

preferences for violent media and the amount of noise delivered against

58 4. THE EFFECTS OF MEDIA VIOLENCE

an opponent in a reaction-time task following exposure to violent film.

High levels of aggression measured by a standard questionnaire predicted

both a preference for violent films and the volume of the noise delivered

in the reaction-time task.

Bushman (p. 950) interpreted these results as evidence for differential

effects of media violence, quoting movie director Alan Pakula as saying that

“movie violence is like eating salt. The more you eat, the more you need to

eat to taste it.” This is the desensitisation argument in a nutshell. It also suggests

that individuals actively seek out violent stimuli to satisfy a craving.

Krcmar and Greene (1999) developed this idea in their research relating violent

media use to self-report measures of risk-taking and sensation-seeking

behaviour. Like a lot of multivariate studies of media violence, their findings

are mixed; the subscales of their instruments have different associations

with different forms of media use. For example, disinhibition predicts

viewing of cop shows and contact sports, but thrill seeking predicts noncontact

sports alone! The authors admit that their data offer little support

for any direct causative influence of these personality characteristics on violent

media use.

Perhaps the biggest popular concern about violent media is that they

may act as a trigger for dormant aggressive tendencies in certain viewers.

Zillmann and Weaver (1997) examined the relationship between the effects

of violent media (measured by a choice for violent solutions to conflict

scenarios) and scores on the psychoticism scale of the Eysenck Personality

Inventory. Although no overall relationship was found between psychoticism

and preference for violent solutions, there was a strong association

between these measures for males scoring in the upper half of the scale.

This concurs with other findings in relation to gender and violent media,

and Bushman’s findings relating to trait aggression.

Studies of young offenders’ media preferences, although thin on the

ground, paint a different picture—not one of vulnerable psychopaths

tipped over the edge by the antics of Arnold Schwarzenegger, but instead

one of distinct social groups differing in their use of media. These individuals—

the kind who elicit most concern in popular fears about media violence—

display similar viewing habits to other young people except that

they actually watch less television, and rarely watch films either at the cinema

or on video (Gauntlett, 1995). These findings concur with Paik and

Comstock’s (1994) low levels of association between violent media and extremely

violent criminal behaviour. Intuitively, we might suggest that teenage

criminals spend their evenings out burgling and mugging, not staying

in to watch video nasties.

McGuire (1986) claimed to have identified two subgroups of media users

who buck the overall trend: One, “street fighting men,” fit the previously

described profile, displaying highly antisocial behaviour but little vio-

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE USERS OF VIOLENT MEDIA 59

lent media use; the other, ironically labelled “wimps,” watch large amounts

of violent media but refrain from acting it out in real life. The street fighting

pattern makes logical sense, but the wimps are surely a much more interesting

bunch than McGuire’s dismissive label might suggest, and warrant

closer inspection.

Other personality attributes have been studied in relation to media violence,

such as extraversion. It is hard to imagine low-arousal individuals being

content to sit quietly and watch television for long stretches.3 One study

that directly related extraversion to media use found that adolescent extraverts

showed a preference for action and adventure films (Aluja-Fabregat &

Torrubia-Beltri, 1998). Conversely, Krcmar and Greene (1999) found that

risk taking negatively predicted violent media use, also suggesting that perhaps

individuals requiring high arousal find that media, however violent,

fail to satisfy this need.

Motivations for Violent Media Use

Why do people watch violent films and television? The studies discussed so

far seem to treat media violence as an unfortunate by-product of media use

in general. The literature is full of content analyses detailing the prevalence

and nature of violent scenes on television (Comstock & Scharrer, 1999;

Gunter, 1985a; Signorielli, Gerbner, & Morgan, 1995), but there is relatively

little data collected on people’s reasons for actively selecting violent

media in the first place. However, we cannot answer this question without

taking a closer look at what actually constitutes violent media, a major problem

with the literature.

The rape and murder scenes in A Clockwork Orange are indisputably violent.

Thirty years on, however, their impact is considerably diminished by

more relaxed attitudes of filmmakers and censors, and by technological innovations

that have increased the graphic realism of screen depictions of violence.

Nevertheless, one of the features of the media violence literature

has been a tendency to ignore different genres of media to the effect that

the category “violent media” can encompass such diverse material as Bugs

Bunny, contact sports, adventure films, and snuff movies across several

decades, and there is no distinction between the presentation of this material

on grainy black-and-white movie reel and on DVD. One content analy-

60 4. THE EFFECTS OF MEDIA VIOLENCE

3 3Environmental factors might override the effects of (inherited) personality; for example,

heavy television viewing has been blamed for the inability “to sit quietly for several minutes”

(Singer, Singer, & Rapaczynski, 1984, p. 87). However, other explanations for this finding

might include cultural factors, family background, or even the idea that television has replaced

“doing nothing” as a way of passing the time.

sis identified no fewer than 31 different types of violence in a range of popular

media (Berger, 1995).

When we talk about violent media we must be precise about what we

mean. Signorielli et al. (1995, p. 280) described television violence as “the

overt expression of physical force . . . compelling action against one’s will

on pain of being hurt or killed or actually hurting or killing.” Such a definition

can suffice for a content analysis, but it is too broad to capture the type

of media that is actively sought out for its violence. Simple content description

also ignores the cultural value of the material; motivations for viewing

a film like A Clockwork Orange will differ enormously between cinema or

video users. Most films that receive certificates based on violent content are

valued for other reasons, such as comic appeal or general artistic merit

(e.g., Pulp Fiction, GoodFellas). In the purest sense, the term violent media refers

to cultural material that has little to recommend it apart from its violent

content—films that would be classified as “video nasties.”

There are two fundamental reasons why an individual (or a group)

might seek out violent media. The first is simple curiosity; the second is that

violent media presents viewers with a challenge. Curiosity is aroused initially

by the publicity surrounding violent movies. Audiences flock to the

cinema to see what all the fuss is about, and are then drawn into a test of endurance

as the drama unfolds.

Initial curiosity may be driven by the ratings that censors award to films.

Although the aim of this system is to guide parents and protect children,

some researchers have found that it may have the effect of turning adult

material into “forbidden fruit” (Christensen, 1992). In an experiment involving

undergraduates, Bushman and Stack (1996) found that warning

labels positively influenced participants’ choices of programs from a television

guide. For adolescents, gender is a mediating factor; whereas the attraction

of forbidden fruit increases boys’ preference for material with

warnings, girls tend to avoid potentially disturbing or inappropriate material

(Sneegas & Plank, 1998). Gunter (2000b) argued that a ratings system

based on age evolved because it was thought that viewers might avoid a film

if explicit information were included in the warning (e.g., “contains scenes

of graphic violence”). He proposed a system closer to that for children’s

toys, based more on age-appropriate information (“suitable for age 12 and

upward”).

The attraction of “forbidden fruit” for teenage boys is part of a broader

rite-of-passage that is part of the preparation for adulthood ( Johnston,

1995). Like smoking a first cigarette and tasting a first alcoholic drink, seeing

an adult-only movie has become one of the targets of early adolescence.

Goldstein (1998b), in an analysis of the attractions of violent entertainment

throughout history, emphasised the importance of the group viewing context

for the enjoyment of violent movies. Enduring a video nasty with your

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE USERS OF VIOLENT MEDIA 61

friends is a test of nerve. Open revulsion, or avoidance, are signs of failure;

instead, adolescent boys distance themselves from the drama by marvelling

at the special effects. This way, the effects of violence are rationalised, although

displays of excitement are not uncommon, providing an acceptable

outlet for emotional expression. Teenage girls are more likely to use romantic

drama (“weepies”) for this purpose.

Annette Hill (1997) studied the reactions of viewing violence by conducting

focus group interviews with undergraduates. She found that the endurance

test of adolescence appears to continue in adulthood, with “testing

boundaries” emerging as a key theme in the interviews. Much of the time

this involves a form of self-censorship—for example, a viewer may cover his

or her eyes in anticipation of a grisly scene. However, these interviewees

were articulate, educated adults discussing artistic fare such as Reservoir

Dogs, where the violence itself is not the primary attraction of the film (although

the surrounding controversy may act as a spur to potential viewers).

Catharsis

One long-held theory is that watching violence has a cathartic effect on the

viewer, enabling them to discharge violent tendencies by acting them out

vicariously through identification with fictional aggressors. This derives

from Freudian theory, and the belief that humans enter the world programmed

with a set of “primitive” impulses; civilized society, so the story

goes, has developed ever-more elaborate outlets for releasing these impulses,

including artistic expression (Freud, 1930). This is excitation transfer

in reverse—viewers enter the cinema full of pent-up aggression and leave

it sated and becalmed. In actual fact, this is probably just what does happen

in the cinema, especially when lurid press reports of sensational violence attract

groups of viewers bristling with the anticipation of a good bloodbath.

The rarity of actual violence in the cinema provoked by onscreen violence

suggests that this is a classic case of the expectancy-value effect (see chap.

2). Audiences are more likely to riot if the anticipated shocker turns out to

be a frothy romance.

Note, however, that empirical research offers little support for the catharsis

hypothesis, but this may reflect the fact that media violence in the

laboratory tends to be unexpected, and not actively selected by participants.

Few studies have been designed to investigate the cathartic effect of

media violence, and it is not enough to reject the catharsis hypothesis on

the evidence of excitation transfer studies. In the latter, baseline measures

of excitation are carried out to ensure that participants are screened to

make sure that they are not highly aroused prior to viewing the violent stimuli,

and it is likely that highly aroused participants are excluded from any

analyses (dropped as “outliers”). According to the catharsis theory, these

62 4. THE EFFECTS OF MEDIA VIOLENCE

are the people who are most likely to seek out violent fare. This is one area

that would still benefit from further experimental study.

Studies of everyday violent media use are less common, but in a diary

study of long-term media use, adult males were found to watch more violent

media during periods of stress (Anderson, Collins, Schmitt, & Jacobvitz,

1996). One suggestion is that the cathartic effect of screen violence works at

a symbolic level, particularly for children watching cartoons. In an unusual

study observing children’s facial expressions as they watched television,

Lagerspetz, Waldroos, and Wendelin (1978) found that although adult aggression

and violence were clearly disturbing, the children responded to

the violent antics of cartoon characters with expressions of pure joy.

This finding is consistent with Bruno Bettelheim’s (1976) theory (following

Freud) that violent fairy tales perform a therapeutic function in childhood,

purging children’s primitive desires. However, Tatar (1998) suggested

that the childhood appeal of violence lies more in the nature of its

telling—children are responding with glee to the “surreal excess” of the

narrative. Asbach (1994) argued that there is a symbolic aspect to such material,

maintaining that the appeal of violent cartoons lies in children’s

identification with the underdogs as they are seen to triumph over physically

more powerful aggressors (e.g., Jerry in Tom and Jerry, Road Runner

and Tweety Pie). This identification works at a metaphorical level, with the

sympathetic characters as children and their opponents adults. A similar

framework underpins much adult-oriented media violence, particularly in

the “Rambo,” Clint Eastwood, and Arnold Schwarzenegger films that pit

lone, essentially moral, figures against a cast of hostile aggressors (e.g., the

Terminator films).

Does Media Violence Sell?

One other long-standing debate in media research concerns the attractions

of violent media. A commonly held (and somewhat paradoxical) view is

that “violence sells,” and thus it is inserted into otherwise harmless television

shows and films by unscrupulous producers intent on upping the ratings

and box-office takings. How true is this? Diener and de Four (1978)

conducted a study in which they compared students’ ratings of favourite

television shows with the amount of violence the shows contained. Not surprisingly,

perhaps, there was no relationship between the two. Diener and

de Four tested this experimentally by showing participants two versions of a

cop show—one with violence inserted and one without—and found no significant

association between enjoyment and inclusion of violent content.

Similar findings were obtained in a British study examining audience appreciation

of programmes and the amount of violence they contained

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE USERS OF VIOLENT MEDIA 63

(Wober, 1992). When respondents were asked directly about the aspects of

shows that enhanced viewers’ enjoyment, there were mixed findings. Some

viewers enjoyed an episode more if the violence resulted in the baddies’

comeuppance; for others, notably females, a negative relationship between

violence and appreciation was found (Wober, 1997). These issues suggest

that a key element in the media violence debate is the meaning of violence

for viewers, which may differ sharply among individuals. This element has

been largely neglected in the laboratory research.

COGNITIVE FACTORS IN MEDIA VIOLENCE

Cultivation theorists took a perspective on the media violence debate different

from the effects researchers. For them, the primary concern was not

that violence would be imitated, but instead that the prevalence of violence

in the media resulted in a climate of fear in the population at large. This

“mean world” effect was demonstrated in studies that found that heavy viewers

of television were likely to overestimate the amount of violent crime that

took place in the real world (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, & Signorielli, 1980).

Although this interpretation rests largely on an association between total

viewing of television in general and estimates of crime, Gerbner and colleagues

defended their argument by addressing their many profiles of

mainstream television that found substantially higher levels of violence

than real crime figures would predict (Gerbner et al., 1978).

Subsequent research in this vein has looked more closely at the precise

link between media use and attitudes. For example, Reith (1999) argued

that frequent viewers of crime dramas developed an authoritarian “aggression

structure.” Aggressive individuals are attracted to crime dramas, which

tend to portray the defenders of law and order in a victorious light, and this

channels their aggression into an authoritarian direction against lawbreakers.

However, the data in Reith’s study seem rather ill suited to test her hypothesis,

consisting of 1976 U.S. election survey statistics that point to nothing

more startling than a relationship between amount of crime drama

viewing and positive attitudes toward the police and the military. Other

studies have suggested that crime drama is popular because it has a reassuring

effect on the viewer (Berkowitz, 1984; Zillmann & Wakshlag, 1985);

however, the current popularity of more realistic crime programmes (such

as ITV’s The Bill ), which often lack the “closure” of traditional cops-androbbers

shows, may require alternative explanations.4

64 4. THE EFFECTS OF MEDIA VIOLENCE

4 4Indeed, The Bill is arguably a soap opera (see chap. 15), and its success has spawned many

“warts and all” crime dramas on British television. Does the current diversity of this genre render

most of the earlier theories redundant? Some follow-up studies would seem to be in order

here.

Most public concern about media violence concerns the effects of films

and entertainment in general. Cultivation theory forces us to look more

broadly, particularly at the role that news bulletins and current affairs television

play in perpetuating fear about crime. For example, memory for disturbing

features of TV news tends to be more powerful than for other kinds

of information (Newhagen, 1998; Newhagen & Reeves, 1992), thereby making

crime and violence more salient to viewers. At an individual level, negative

news bulletins have been found to intensify personal concerns, even

when not directly related to the content of the programme ( Johnston &

Davey, 1997).

At a more general level, there is occasional concern about “copycat violence,”

particularly in relation to civil unrest. Outbreaks of street disturbances

in different urban areas of the United Kingdom often cluster together

in time, although it is difficult to determine how television coverage

of the first incident has acted as a catalyst for subsequent disturbances in

other areas of simmering tension. Esser and Brosius (1996) carried out a

study of right-wing attacks on ethnic minorities in Germany, and found that

there appeared to be a pattern relating to media coverage of previous attacks.

As this correlation might be spurious, they further analysed the data

in terms of the outcome of the attacks. During the first wave of violence, victims

tended to be rehoused in foreign workers’ hostels away from the area

of the attack—presumably a desired outcome as far as the racist aggressors

were concerned. During the second wave, this outcome was less common.

The correlation between news reports and subsequent attacks was much

stronger for the first wave, suggesting a “priming” effect whereby rightwingers

were more likely to attack minorities if they heard of similar attacks

that had resulted in victims’ relocation.

Concerns about the effect of television news have, however, tended to be

downplayed in relation to the effect of entertainment. This result perhaps

stems from the opinion that news programmes are faithful reflections of reality,

and that it is simply a matter of public interest to be informed about

real-life violence.

Priming Effects

One way in which media violence might elicit aggressive behaviour in viewers

over long periods of time (a lifetime, perhaps) is through cognitive processing

rather than crude behavioural responses. Cognitive effects of media

can be grouped into two very broad categories: They may elicit obtrusive

thoughts (e.g., dreams, fantasies, or preoccupations about violence), or

they may work at a more conscious level in that they stimulate ideas about

how to behave. It is the latter mechanism that is thought to provide the basis

for imitation of screen violence, rather than the simple learning and re-

COGNITIVE FACTORS IN MEDIA VIOLENCE 65

inforcement process argued by behaviourists. In fact, Bandura has revised

his earlier proposals considerably over recent decades into a more global

social cognitive model of media effects (Bandura, 2001).

Another earlier theory of the effects of violent media has also been modified

in recent decades. This is the disinhibition argument, which states that

media violence causes viewers to shed their (supposedly natural) inhibitions

about displaying aggression—for example, if violence is seen to be successful

for a screen hero, according to the disinhibition argument we are likely to select

a violent option for solving real-life problems. This theory was tested using

movie footage of a fight and providing half the participants with a justification

for the violence; those participants then responded more aggressively

to a graduate assistant who subsequently angered them (Berkowitz & Rawlings,

1963). The problem with disinhibition theory is that it assumes that an

individual is naturally predisposed to solve problems peaceably—fair enough

in the sample of college students used in this study, but hardly true of the violent

criminal offenders who pose a greater threat to society.

Berkowitz has since refined his theory into a more general cognitive–

associationist approach to media violence, in which the key mechanism is

priming (Berkowitz, 1984). According to this theory, implicit (or unconscious)

memories of violent scenes can be reactivated if appropriate cues

are provided. In one study, participants watched either a hostile or a neutral

film, and were then presented with a series of incomplete sentences.

Those in the hostile condition chose significantly more hostile words to

complete the sentences ( Jo & Berkowitz, 1994). These processes are

thought to underly the effects produced in studies like Zillmann and

Weaver (1999), in which target people are rated negatively after watching

violent films, because the violence is said to have activated hostile thoughts

and associations.

Similarly, when individuals are required to make decisions, the priming

of violent stimuli may influence their choice. In one study, a group of children

were shown a film containing either a fight scene or a boat ride, and

the content of the film predicted whether they would subsequently choose

to take part in a pie fight or a raft ride (Worchel, 1972). Another way in

which media violence might prime subsequent behaviour is by activating

certain patterns of cognition or behaviour that have become formulaic over

time. Huesmann (1986) described this process as the learning of aggressive

“schemas,” or scripts, which are activated under certain conditions. For example,

a young man confronted by an aggressive drunk in a bar might respond

by throwing a series of punches in the style of a favourite film star,

perhaps emulating a sample of videotape that he has watched repeatedly.

These findings suggest that the effects of media violence may well depend

on the meaning that the violence has for the viewer. Research into

children’s attitudes to cartoon violence indicates that cartoons are gener-

66 4. THE EFFECTS OF MEDIA VIOLENCE

ally not perceived as violent, particularly by boys (Aluja-Fabregat & Torrubia-

Beltri, 1998). Perceptions of violence by adults also seem to depend

on programme genre, and on specific aspects of the action. Gunter and

Furnham (1984) found that British viewers rated violent scenes from British

television as more violent than similar scenes from U.S. television,

largely because the portrayals were believed to be more realistic. The type

of violence was also important; many of the British victims were stabbed or

beaten (i.e., scenes involving actual physical contact), whereas American

victims tended to be shot (remote, long-distance violence). Interestingly,

this trend was reversed among highly aggressive viewers, perhaps because

they identified more closely with the use of firearms in real life.

If semantic characteristics of media violence are important, does violence

actually have to be viewed to have an impact? A current area of concern,

particularly in the United States, is the violent content of popular music

lyrics, particularly in rap music. Artists like Eminem and 2 Live Crew

have provoked much press controversy (no doubt with a bit of help from

their publicists!) in recent years by reciting lyrics that are loaded with sexist,

homophobic, and brutally violent words and imagery. Rubin, West, and

Mitchell (2001) found that fans of rap and heavy metal music scored significantly

higher on measures of aggression than did fans of other musical genres.

Catharsis theory might suggest that loud, angry music serves as a tension

release for aggressive listeners, but fans of this music also displayed less

trust (toward people in general) than did fans of the other genres in this

study. Rubin and colleagues hypothesised that rap music in particular is

popular among disaffected youth, and questioned whether the appeal of violent

lyrics can be explained by catharsis alone.

One recent study suggests that although violent rap lyrics may or may

not prime aggressive cognitions, they may serve a negative purpose by contributing

to stereotypes about minority groups. Johnson, Trawalter, and

Davidio (2000) played participants either a violent or nonviolent rap track

and then presented them with a list of scenarios in which the stimulus figure

was either a Black or White man. In the “violent” condition, participants

of both ethnic groups rated the Black figure as both dispositionally

more violent and lower in IQ than the White figure.

CULTURAL AND IDEOLOGICAL ASPECTS

OF THE MEDIA VIOLENCE DEBATE

Scientific evidence alone is not enough to convince sceptics of the association

between media violence and real-life aggression. The debate is coloured

by all manner of cultural and ideological issues, and even if the

methodological flaws in the literature were to be ironed out, many academ-

CULTURAL AND IDEOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE MEDIA VIOLENCE DEBATE 67

ics would still be unwilling to acknowledge the relationship. Frustration engendered

by the situation has led some proponents of the link to make

ever-more ludicrous claims, such as Centerwall’s (1993) comment that media

violence is responsible for 10,000 homicides annually! Such hyperbole

does not lend credibility to the scientific argument.

Many authors see the media as a scapegoat, cited by cultural commentators

and politicians who are desperate to provide a simple explanation for

what appears to be an uncontrollable rise in violent crime (Fowles, 1999;

Gauntlett, 1995). Media influence also provides a good argument for a defence

lawyer who wishes to present his or her client as the victim of uncontrollable

psychological forces (indeed, one police officer at the time of the

Clockwork Orange furore claimed that many youngsters were successfully citing

the film as an excuse in order to reduce the length of their sentences).

Ironically, the media themselves seem as keen as anyone to promote the

link. The press frenzy surrounding the James Bulger murder trial in Britain

in 1993 is a case in point. This was sparked by a report, written at a politician’s

request, by a child psychologist (whose research was not remotely

connected with media psychology) about her concerns over the effects of

violent video. The report was subsequently published in The Psychologist

(Newson, 1994a).

Following a short radio interview about the report, press agencies informed

the British national newspapers that, after years of denying the link,

psychologists had changed their minds and were now eating their words.

The following morning’s headlines screamed: BOFFINS’ U-TURN ON

VIDEO NASTIES (or words to that effect). It was a fantastic opportunity for

the media to bash academia, but why should the media be so eager to hurl

blame at themselves? The answer may have something to do with the idea of

a media hierarchy in which newspapers present themselves as arbiters of

truth, whereas entertainment media are essentially vulgar and of little

value. However, it is interesting to note that two crimes involving reenacted

scenes from Child’s Play 3 occurred after the publicity explosion surrounding

the video in question (which had been available for some time before

the Bulger murder itself; Newson, 1994b). The prospect that ideas based on

the film may have been actively “primed” by the tabloid coverage of the Bulger

trial has been conveniently overlooked!

Cultural snobbery has been cited as a key factor in the media violence

debate. Barker (1997) argued that fears about violent entertainment are

part of a general attack on lower-class culture by the middle classes through

history, pointing to numerous analogies in recent history. During the

1950s, comic books were the subject of similar concerns about the effects of

depictions of violence on impressionable minds, and even as far back as the

19th century the same argument was used to condemn “penny dreadfuls”—

the forerunners of tabloid newspapers.

68 4. THE EFFECTS OF MEDIA VIOLENCE

Gunter (1994) argued that these concerns are part of the culture of uncertainty

that accompanies the advent of each new medium, and so it is not

surprising that the latest version of the media violence debate concerns the

effects of video games. A much-publicised link between violent video games

and real violence was made following the gun attack on fellow students by

two boys at Columbine High School in 1999. Subsequent reports claimed

that the boys were frequent players of “shoot-em-up” video games and that

their penchant for these games must be linked to their crime (a link keenly

pursued by other groups with interests in deflecting attention away from issues

such as the availability of firearms).

Not surprisingly, the effects of video game violence have been researched

to some extent by media academics and psychologists, typically

drawing on the same experimental paradigm as the media violence literature

of the 1960s and 1970s. The Bobo doll has even made a comeback, this

time clad in a white karate-style robe (Schutte, Malouff, Post-Gorden, &

Rodasta, 1988). However, it is not clear whether media violence methods

(and findings) can be translated directly to the effects of video game play.

First, because video games are, above all else, games rather than entertainment

media, the role of the user is notably different. The interactive nature

of games such as Tomb Raider means that excitation transfer effects are

likely to be greater, especially in the short term; video games may also have

a greater role to play as cathartic activity. Second, individual differences are

likely to be more salient for video game effects given the fact that the user

plays a more active role in choosing to play a specific game than, say, the

role of a television viewer who may simply watch whatever channel is on, or

whatever show his or her parents are already viewing.

For a variety of reasons, the findings of research on the effects video

game play are even more inconclusive than is the media violence literature

in general (Griffiths, 1997). There is some evidence that trait aggression

may enhance the negative effects of game play (Anderson & Dill, 2000), although

this study was carried out using an adult sample, and its findings

have not been replicated with adolescents (Warm, 2000). General increases

in hostility were found in both studies, which suggests that there may be

some excitation transfer, although these increases were evident for video

game play in general, regardless of the violent content.

Violent games and toys of the nonelectronic variety—such as toy soldiers—

have a long history, although these have inspired little psychological

research into their adverse “effects.” Goldstein (1998a) suggested that such

predominantly masculine pastimes may serve, like media violence, as rites

of passage in gender role acquisition. However, the function of video game

violence may be closer to that of cartoon violence as far as children and adolescents

are concerned. More research is needed on this topic, particularly

from the uses and gratifications tradition.

CULTURAL AND IDEOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE MEDIA VIOLENCE DEBATE 69

FUTURE AVENUES IN MEDIA VIOLENCE RESEARCH

One path that researchers have taken is to treat scientific progress as a linear

process—each new field of research yielding new information that can

be added to the old to create ever-more comprehensive behavioural explanations.

Hence, there has been a gradual appearance of what can only be

described as “kitchen sink” theories, such as Anderson and Dill’s (2000)

General Affective Aggression Model (which was designed to explain the effects

of playing violent video games) and Potter’s (1999) lineation theory

(which is less of an explanatory theory about media violence than a comprehensive

synthesis of research findings).

Potter’s work is important in that it addresses the limitations of the existing

research, and is certainly more constructive than Eron’s (and others’)

argument that there is no need for any further research on the media violence

topic because its causal link to aggression is proven beyond doubt.

However, the search for an all-encompassing model of media violence effects

may ultimately prove a thankless task. An alternative is to explore certain

aspects of media violence that have been neglected, perhaps due to the

preference for experimental designs and quantitative surveys.

The study of the cultural meanings of violent media—and how these

may determine the use of such media—has not been fully explored. Some

work on this topic has been conducted in recent years in the United Kingdom

using focus groups. In two separate studies of male and female groups

discussing a range of media violence, Philip Schlesinger and colleagues

found that their participants drew on their own disparate life experiences

to understand the meaning of acts of violence. For example, viewers from

violent backgrounds sometimes failed to interpret acts as “violent” that

frightened those with a gentler upbringing (Schlesinger et al., 1998; Schlesinger,

Dobash, Dobash, & Weaver, 1992).

Other studies have examined the importance of context for understanding

media violence through conducting interviews with groups of viewers

(Morrison, 1999). In one study, the discourse of viewers in response to isolated

violent clips from the film Natural Born Killers was compared, using a

group who were familiar with the film and a group who had not seen it. The

former group were able to use their knowledge of the narrative to make

sense of the clips, whereas to the latter group the scenes simply represented

mindless acts of violence (Shaw, 2001). Shaw suggested that three contexts

need to be considered in order to understand media violence. First, the

narrative itself has a powerful influence on viewers’ responses; by setting up

a storyline and creating characters, viewers are able to interpret the violence,

and through the use of social scripts may even be able to anticipate it

(e.g., an arrest scene in a police drama). Second, the program or movie

genre may determine viewers’ anticipation. We would arrive at the screen-

70 4. THE EFFECTS OF MEDIA VIOLENCE

ing of a gangster movie fully expecting bloodshed and would probably be

disappointed if it failed to appear, whereas viewers of a period drama would

be shocked if it suddenly descended into a shootout. Third, in accordance

with Schlesinger’s findings, viewers’ own experiences—both of viewing violent

media and of real-life violence—will have a moderating effect for their

interpretation of and reaction to a violent incident on screen.

For too long, media effects research has utilised inappropriate stimuli;

for example, equating research assistants performing acts on video with the

rich cultural environment of children’s television. It may be time to give the

producers of violent entertainment some credit: How do they put this material

together; how do they think it works? Understandably, many directors

are reticent when it comes to discussing technique; Hitchcock, for instance,

was notoriously coy when interviewed about the art of production, even

when probed by a psychiatrist concerned about the effects of his films

(Rebello, 1990).

It could be argued that it makes more sense to study violence in television

series because they are subject to continuous evaluation on part of

viewers and subsequent adjustment by producers. For example, the makers

of one BBC police series were allegedly requested to “beef up” the violence

quotient in order to boost flagging viewing figures (Wober, 1997). In either

case, the view from the creative side of the fence would contribute valuable

insight into the relationship between media culture and the psychology of

the viewer.

CONCLUSION

Potter’s brave attempt to construct a theory out of the existing research on

media violence may be overoptimistic in its ambitions. Nevertheless, it is

probably the right way to go. At present, there is something of a stalemate

in the media violence debate. North American researchers in the field of

communication science have effectively closed the book on psychology by

moving on to the effectiveness of technological devices such as the V-chip.

Meanwhile, European researchers from the cultural studies field are openly

hostile toward “the effects tradition.” Many of the shortcomings levelled at

earlier “effects” research are no longer applicable to studies like the National

Television Violence Study, in which, for example, narrative context

was examined (albeit in a more restricted way than that advocated by qualitative

researchers).

Both sides in the debate suffer, in my opinion, from an outdated view of

psychology, in which the individual person is isolated from his or her social

and cultural environment. Moving toward the study of natural viewing

groups, and those who actively select violent entertainment, should help us

begin to understand more about both the appeal and influence of media vi-

CONCLUSION 71

olence. Nor should we rule out the importance of history. There is no disputing

the (often spectacular) effects of violent media that were demonstrated

in the laboratories of the 1960s and 1970s, where adults (typically

undergraduate students) responded aggressively to violent stimuli. But this

was a point in history where television was relatively new, and contained

scenes of violence that seem laughably unrealistic alongside the vivid digital

horrors of modern cinema. Would these findings be replicated with modern-

day audiences? It is perhaps time to brush some of the dust off those

old studies and reexamine their impact on a different generation.

PRO SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR

Look in the subject index of any psychology textbook, and you will find no

more than a smattering of entries for “media.” Chances are that those entries

will be associated with exclusively negative aspects of media. Here are

three examples that I have plucked at random from the bookshelf. Hogg

and Vaughan (1998), renowned European social psychology text, has the

following entries under media: aggression, attitude formation, propaganda,

sex role stereotypes, violence. Westen (1999), introductory psychology

text, has only one: aggression. Hewstone and Stroebe (2001), renowned

multi-author social psychology text, fails to list “media” at all,

although a quick glance finds “television violence.” Can media’s influence

on human behaviour really be all bad?

It is probably no surprise that the vast bulk of research examining the effects

of media has concentrated on the supposed negative influence of television,

films, and video games. In the same way that we only call the doctor

when we are feeling ill, social scientists are increasingly called into action

only to solve social problems. Some attempts to counter this trend have

been made in the United States recently, as Martin Seligman and other psychologists

have pioneered the field of “positive psychology,” whose goal is

to use scientific research to enhance social well-being and quality of life

rather than to simply troubleshoot. Although there is no sign so far of media

playing any role in this project, it may yet bring about a change in the

way psychology views media in the long run.

If viewing media violence can be cited as a causal factor in aggressive or

violent behaviour, then the reverse side of the coin should also hold true—

viewing prosocial behaviour in the media should make us nicer to one an-

Chapter5

Prosocial Effects

of Media

73

other. For all the blood and bullets in mainstream cinema and television,

there are probably more acts of kindness and affection, and certainly more

comic moments. If, therefore, television has made society more violent, it

should also have made us kinder and more cheerful. If cognitive “priming”

is the main effect, then along with all the horrific ideas for violence and

murder might mainstream television not pass on far more beneficial information

on the whole? Tales of a teenage boy successfully giving mouth-tomouth

resuscitation to a drowning friend after watching a similar scene on

Baywatch suggest ways of communicating socially useful material without

dressing it up as education.

The largely negative attitude to media over the years means that much of

the psychological literature on media is somewhat reactive; there are many

studies of the effects of violent media, but relatively few examining the effects

of other kinds of media, even though they should ostensibly share certain

characteristics. At low levels, perceptual and cognitive responses to

televisual stimuli should hold true whatever the programme content; at

higher levels, processes such as identification and parasocial interaction

with media figures, or comprehension of story lines and the “reading” of

generic and formulaic media styles, should shape understandings and responses

to all televised material.

One way of framing the question is to use the media violence research as

a template for media psychological research in general. Take “priming” as

an example: If aggressive behaviour can be “primed” by violent scenes,

might altruism be similarly primed by acts of kindness? There is a body of

literature on prosocial media effects that is not dissimilar to research on

media violence in terms of theory and methodology, although—consistent

with psychology’s role as a reactive science—its findings have received far

less attention than have those relating to violence. The first part of this

chapter broadly reviews the findings of this research.

An important difference between the antisocial and prosocial effects of

media is that the former are almost invariably accidental. The primary function

of most violent media is entertainment. Filmmakers may set out to shock

viewers as part of the entertainment process, but the media content itself is

not designed to produce the effects that have been investigated by social

scientists (i.e., long-term increases in viewer aggression). It is probably safe

to say that no media producer has ever deliberately set out to produce such

effects. On the other hand, media producers frequently set out to create

material that will have positive long-term benefits on consumers, whether it

be a soap opera storyline that informs viewers about health issues, or an educational

programme for children. In this sense we can talk about “prosocial

media,” and the second part of the chapter examines attempts by the

makers of television programmes and public service information to induce

prosocial behaviour in the media audience.

INTRODUCTION 74

Another approach to prosocial effects of media is to study the ways in

which children come to understand the content of television and video. Parental

mediation—by which parents actively participate in their child’s

viewing experiences—is of particular importance here.1 This research is

somewhat different to the first two types, because it deals with media material

that is both pro- and antisocial. The implications are that children can

learn how to deal with disturbing or violent material so long as they interpret

it with a critical eye. This research is discussed in the final part of the

chapter.

MEDIA AND PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOUR:

THE “EFFECTS” TRADITION

Before discussing the research on prosocial effects of media, it is necessary

to define what is meant by prosocial behaviour, and the best way of studying

it. Whereas studies of media and antisocial behaviour have concentrated on

aggression and violence, studies of prosocial behaviour have been more diverse.

Prosocial behaviour may be explicit; the most heavily researched behaviour

is altruism, or helping (typically, going to the aid of another person

in difficulty or distress). This type of behaviour is frequently studied using

experimental methods, as in the bystander intervention tradition (e.g.,

Latané & Darley, 1970).

Less easily researched behaviours include sharing and empathy. Sharing

behaviour might lend itself to an observational design—children in the

playground, for instance. Empathy is a rather more elusive phenomenon,

open to many differing interpretations. Zillmann (1991) regarded empathy

as a complex experience operating on several different cognitive and behavioural

levels, but essentially involving an affective response to another

person whose emotional expression has a causal explanation. Typically, empathy

has been researched using psychometric scales (Davis, 1980). These

behaviours have universal application—they would generally be seen as

prosocial in any society or historical period. Other prosocial behaviours are

less observable and more culture specific, such as holding a nonracist or

nonsexist attitude.

MEDIA AND PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOUR: THE “EFFECTS” TRADITION 75

1 1It is, perhaps, unfortunate that the term mediation has been used to describe the effects of

parental intervention. In quantitative (multivariate) social and clinical psychology, mediation

refers to behaviour that reinforces the association between two other variables (here, media use

and effects; Baron & Kenny, 1986). Although this might describe parental mediation in relation

to prosocial media content, for antisocial material the appropriate term would be parental

moderation. Then again, it could be argued that parental mediation describes the act of intervention

rather than its presumed effects (it may not always work). Either way, there is plenty of

scope for confusion!

The earliest studies of media and prosocial behaviour were very much like

studies of media and aggression. A typical example is the experiment reported

by Baran, Chase, and Courtright (1979) in which three groups of 7- to

9-year-old children were shown different segments of The Waltons, containing

“cooperative,” “noncooperative,” or “neutral” behaviour. Then an associate

of the experimenter walked past the room and dropped a pile of books. The

children’s responses were recorded in terms of (a) whether they offered unprompted

help, (b) how quickly, and (c) whether they helped if requested.

Children who had watched the “cooperative” segment were more likely to offer

help (81%) and did so more quickly than did those in the other groups.

However, those in the “noncooperative” condition were also much keener to

help than were those in the control condition.

An alternative approach is to observe prosocial behaviour in unconstrained

social interaction. One example is the study of Sprafkin and

Rubenstein (1979) that assessed children’s viewing habits, rated the

programmes for anti- and prosocial content, and then worked out an index

for each child. The authors then asked children (and teachers) to rate their

classmates on a series of items (e.g., “X does nice things,” “X stays out of

fights”). As with many antisocial media studies, the results were rather inconclusive:

Gender, parents’ education level, and academic performance

all emerged as the most significant predictors of prosocial ratings. Viewing

amount, and anti- and prosocial indexes came out much lower, although

marginally significant. Even less conclusive results were obtained in a later

Dutch study (Wiegman, Kuttschreuter, & Baarda, 1992). Although no

meta-analytical studies on prosocial media have been published in the literature

to date, it is likely that the pattern of antisocial media effects would be

repeated but with smaller effect sizes (and, again, the experimental studies

have tended to produce larger effects than have surveys).

Perhaps not surprisingly, studies of viewer empathy have produced a

mixture of findings. Feshbach (1975) found that 3- to 5-year-old children

were less scared by a televised scene in which a swarm of bees buzzed

around a boy’s head than were 9- and 10-year-olds. When the bees alone

were presented, the younger children were scared; when the distressed boy

was presented alone, only the older children reported negative feelings. In

Piagetian terms, this could be explained as an egocentric response on behalf

of the younger children; however, it could be related to age differences

in reality perceptions of televised material.

Zillmann and Bryant (1975) examined children at two stages of moral

development in a study of empathic responses to a televised fairy tale. In

the story, a “good” prince is betrayed and banished by a “bad” prince, and

subsequently returns to wreak his revenge. Three different endings were

created for the story: In one, the revenge is overly mild and forgiving; in another,

it matches the hurt bestowed by the initial wrong; in the third, it is

76 5. PROSOCIAL EFFECTS OF MEDIA

unnecessarily brutal. Children at the earlier stage of moral development,

where “expiatory retribution” is the only concept that can be grasped, displayed

more facial joy as the revenge became harsher. Children at the later,

“equitable retribution” stage displayed highest facial joy for the second ending;

the harsh revenge produced as little joy as did the mild revenge. This

finding suggests that empathy is strongly determined by character judgments,

usually involving some degree of moral evaluation.

Zillmann (1991) argued that empathy is hard to establish given the fast

pace of action adventure films and also of contemporary news media,

where “an interview with a woman who has just lost her wife to a mine disaster

is followed, without delay, by a report on union demands in a strike by

auto workers” (p. 161). Although this format might blunt the immediate effects

of empathy with the victims of accidents or crime, the accumulation of

news reports both on television and in print media often results in extreme

instances of public empathy for injured parties in high-profile stories. The

anger that followed the murder of Liverpool toddler James Bulger in 1993

arose through empathy with his parents; similar public support was evident

after the death of Essex teenager Leah Betts from an ecstasy tablet shortly

afterward the Bulger murder. Increasingly, the relatives of victims of murder

and other unlawful deaths are invited to give press conferences, because

the police are well aware of the empathic impact of television, and

the resultant increased likelihood of members of the public coming forward

with useful information.

Thus far, the evidence for prosocial effects of media is mixed. One problem

is that, as with violent content, prosocial content is usually embedded

deep within the narrative context of a dramatic production. Attempts to

classify a programme as “violent” or “prosocial” are misguided—for instance,

within the same show (e.g., a soap), a fist fight might be followed by

an act of kindness within a few minutes—so it is not surprising that attempts

to classify research participants as viewers of either violent or prosocial media

have been remarkably unsuccessful. Indeed, it seems that the main criterion

that distinguishes among viewers is viewing quantity rather than viewing

quality. In their sample, Wiegman et al. (1992) found a 0.9 correlation

between the amount of anti- and prosocial TV watched.

An alternative is to examine viewing preferences for shows that have an

abundance of either violent or prosocial content. Davis (1983) found that

children who scored highly on an empathy scale tended to prefer prosocial

programmes such as The Waltons. However, this relationship is at odds with

the finding that a measure of “perspective taking” was inversely related to

both pro- and antisocial viewing. We must be wary of treating overall media

use as a causative variable by itself; heavy use may be determined by a third

variable (education, social class, or whatever), which might also explain

variation in the dependent variable (in this instance, perspective taking).

MEDIA AND PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOUR: THE “EFFECTS” TRADITION 77

Once again, such findings underline the need for quantitative media research

to analyse as much information as possible in complex multivariate

designs.

THE EFFECTS OF “PROSOCIAL MEDIA”

If altruistic behaviour can be observed under laboratory conditions when

participants are exposed to prosocial media content, what about real-world

viewing of “prosocial media”—materials that are specifically designed to

have positive effects?

Educational Media

By far the most research into educational media has focused on Sesame

Street, the long-running U.S. children’s television series first broadcast in

1969. Sesame Street was designed with deliberately prosocial aims in mind. It

intended to educate preschool children from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds

about the alphabet and the number system. After several years of

civil unrest in the United States, it was also part of a drive within the media

to promote racial harmony, and the series featured groups of children

drawn from different ethnic backgrounds. It was also set firmly within the

inner city, in an attempt to create an environment that would be recognisable

to urban viewers. Finally, it encouraged parents to watch with their

children by incorporating “adult” content, such as topical/satirical material,

and characters with adult appeal, like Bert and Ernie.

Since its inception, there have been numerous attempts to evaluate the

educational impact of the show (for a roundup of 30 years’ research, see

Fisch, Truglio, & Cole, 1999). Rice, Huston, Truglio, and Wright (1990)

studied its effect on vocabulary acquisition and found that frequency of Sesame

Street viewing was a good predictor of vocabulary knowledge at ages 3

and 5 (controlling for parental education, number of siblings, and gender).

However, older children did not seem to benefit from watching; indeed,

those still watching at ages 6 and 7 were more likely to be slow learners.

The authors explained this in terms of “quick incidental learning,”

which is more effective with 3-year-olds than with 5-year-olds.

Other studies suggest that Sesame Street viewing is also a good predictor of

children’s later performance in science and mathematics, and of nonracist

attitudes and behaviour (Christensen & Roberts, 1983; Huston & Wright,

1998). However, it is doubtful whether all of the original aims of the show

have been met. For example, early reports suggest that, counter to the producers’

objectives, it was children with higher socioeconomic status who

benefited most from watching the show (Ball & Bogatz, 1970). This effect

78 5. PROSOCIAL EFFECTS OF MEDIA

might be explained by the finding that parental mediation (discussion

about the show’s contents) enhances the effect of viewing, something more

likely in educated, middle-class families (Cook et al., 1975).

Some authors have argued that viewing television is passive activity from

which it is impossible for children to learn anything. Such beliefs have prevented

greater use of television as an educational medium in British schools

over the years (Gunter & McAleer, 1997). However, anyone who has observed

young children for more than a few minutes can identify much verbal

and gestural material that has its roots in television content, perhaps filtered

through peer interaction. Even in front of the set, much activity is

taking place, especially watching any show that involves musical content or

dancing, or where a presenter directly addresses the viewer (Palmer, 1986).

A popular standpoint in the psychological literature on children and media

is that however harmful media might be in the hands of television producers

and Hollywood directors, they could nevertheless be immensely

beneficial were they to be harnessed to educational ends. Greenfield

(1984) argued that screen presentation of educational material can be

highly successful if used in a supplementary context with printed texts, and

has even been found to enhance reading comprehension.

There is also a popular belief—perhaps one that offers some consolation

to concerned parents—that frequent video game play might sharpen cognitive

skills. On the other side of the coin, following the Columbine High

School shootings in 1999, a former colonel in the U.S. army warned about

the dangers of “shoot-em-up” video games and argued that they trained

children in the use of real firearms, a sentiment later reiterated by President

Clinton. However, a recent study examined the abilities of players of

the computer game Tetris, which involves the manipulation of complex

shapes (Sims & Mayer, 2002). Tetris players demonstrated enhanced performance

in mental rotation tasks involving shapes similar to the ones used

in Tetris, but performed no differently from controls on tasks involving

other kinds of shapes. This finding suggests that any cognitive skill sharpening

resulting from repeated video game play is likely to be very localised.

Global Issue Awareness

Appeals in the world’s media for charity have successfully raised money for

needy causes, most notably famine relief. Undoubtedly the most famous of

all charity events was the Live Aid appeal in the mid-1980s, which was estimated

to have raised over $100 million for famine victims in Ethiopia. This

campaign was set in motion late in 1984 by news reports of appalling conditions

of drought in the area that, in a pretty spectacular example of a positive

“media effect,” inspired Irish pop star Bob Geldof to dream up the project

of a multi-artist charity pop single.

THE EFFECTS OF “PROSOCIAL MEDIA” 79

Following the success of the single, a concert was organised for the following

summer that was to be transmitted live throughout the world, accompanied

by requests to viewers for monetary donations. Eventually, two

concerts were screened—one in the United Kingdom and one in the

United States—and together these attracted over a billion viewers in 170

countries. The money that was raised was spent on various projects in famine-

affected areas of central Africa.

Interestingly, and humblingly, it is not always rich countries giving to

poor ones. Harris (1999) reported an amazing case in which residents of a

Malian village raised $66 to help victims (including, presumably, some

wealthy businesses) of a Canadian ice storm after watching a news story

about it on local television. Admittedly, the village had a reciprocal arrangement

with a nearby Canadian town, and had received aid from them in the

past, but the Canadians were 75 times better off in terms of income! Perhaps

this is an effect of “exotic otherness,” which we tend to think applies

only to Westerners; in Mali, the very idea of an ice storm may be terrifying.

One of the fears that surround constant charity appeals via the media is

that eventually public generosity will run dry, as “compassion fatigue” sets

in. Certainly this appeared to be the case with charity pop singles in the

United Kingdom. The Band Aid record sparked a number of similar projects

during the late 1980s. Initially, these were almost as successful, such as

one to aid victims of the Marchioness disaster (a pleasure cruiser that sank in

the River Thames during the late 1980s), but later releases fared less well, as

the novelty of the idea wore off. On the other hand, BBC television’s annual

charity event, Red Nose Day, which features an evening of specially

produced comedy shows and short charity-information films, has become

something of an institution in British media culture and raises millions of

pounds each year for selected causes. The success of this venture suggests

that the media has high potential for worthy causes, although these need to

be carefully marketed.

Health Awareness

Whether or not media produce the psychological effects claimed by many

social scientists, there is no doubt that they are invaluable means of communicating

information. Periodically, state agencies as well as private businesses

have harnessed the informational power of media in an attempt to

promote desirable behaviour, such as road safety or care with handling fireworks.

Media have also played an important role in the communication of

health messages, including worldwide publicity about HIV/AIDS ( Johnson,

Flora, & Rimal, 1997), smoking cessation programmes (Korhonen,

Uutela, Korhonen, & Puska, 1998), and warnings about skin cancer risk

from sunbathing (Buller, Borland, & Burgoon, 1998).

80 5. PROSOCIAL EFFECTS OF MEDIA

How effective are such campaigns? A lot depends on the type of information

that is being communicated. During 1999, the Australian state of Victoria

ran a campaign via television, radio, and print media to try and encourage

women to undertake screening for cervical cancer. The advertisements

presented several popular excuses associated with cervical screening, such

as “I’m too old to need a Pap smear,” followed by the slogan “Don’t make

excuses, make an appointment.” A research team later found that the media

campaign had been effective in getting the information across, but that

it had lowered self-efficacy among the women that were interviewed—in

other words, they now identified more barriers to taking a Pap test (Fernbach,

2002). The author suggested that, as in a similar U.S. campaign for

mammography screening (McCaul, Jacobson, & Martinson, 1998), the use

of negative health messages had actually backfired; rather than shaming

the public into changing their behaviour, it inadvertently provided them

with a readily available set of excuses for not changing their behaviour!

This study raises a common problem with using psychology for health

communication and other public service announcements—media material

is often devised by educated, middle-class people whose idea of a persuasive

message may not ring true with the public at large. In England in the 1980s,

the government launched a poster campaign bearing the slogan “Heroin

screws you up.” One poster, featuring a hollow-cheeked, emaciated adolescent

boy, kept disappearing from the billboards; it was turning up in the

bedrooms of adolescent girls! The poster was swiftly withdrawn from the

campaign.

Of course, there are instances in which health communication in the

media has been at odds with other media representations of health behaviour.

Smoking is possibly the best example there is of a true media effect. Its

popularity, in the Western world at least, seems to have been determined

exclusively by media trends. In the early years of Hollywood, rates of smoking

increased dramatically, probably owing to the glamorising effect of actors

and actresses smoking in films. Visits to the cinema were enormously

influential in terms of audience behaviour; fashions in clothing explicitly

followed the Hollywood agenda, and other social trends could be traced to

its influence, among them smoking.

However, during the latter quarter of the 20th century, the health risks

associated with smoking became a cause for major concern, and governments

across the world became committed to reducing the incidence of

smoking by their citizens. Although curbs on smoking in public and cigarette

taxes have played an important part in achieving this effect, the media

have also contributed. First, major restrictions have been placed on cigarette

advertising across the globe. Second, public service announcements

concerning the dangers of cigarette smoking have been screened on television

in several countries.

THE EFFECTS OF “PROSOCIAL MEDIA” 81

Since the 1970s, there have also been substantial changes in the way that

smoking is represented on television and in the cinema. Films from the

1960s featured glamorous actors and actresses puffing their way through

packet after packet, but it is now regarded as unacceptable if a soap character

lights a cigarette onscreen, unless the detrimental health effects of such

behaviours are featured in the narrative.

Education Through Entertainment

In many parts of the world, information about social issues is embedded

within popular drama. Prosocial soaps (also referred to as “entertainment-

education” media) are hugely popular in parts of Asia, Africa, and

Latin America (Sherry, 1998; Singhal & Rogers, 1999). These soaps follow

the same broad structure as do soaps in Europe and North America, except

that the storylines are explicitly prosocial, featuring issues ranging

from local subjects (e.g., dowry in India, or agricultural information in Africa),

to health issues (e.g., HIV prevention), to global issues (e.g., environmentalism).

Even in the West, soaps often feature storylines that are

intended to educate as much as entertain. These programmes, and the

factors that may account for their success, are discussed in more detail in

chapter 15.

There is always some doubt about the effectiveness of such shows—the

success stories are numerous but, at the same time, long-standing attitudes

may be resistant to change. Getting the message may require viewers to recognise

the function of the characters and the storyline, described by Liebes

and Katz (1990) as a “critical” reading of a media text. As we have seen with

regard to health messages that backfire, audiences are often not as sophisticated

as producers assume they are. In India, the series Hum Log (“We People”)

was broadcast during the 1980s with the aim of advancing the status of

women. Although it produced numerous notable successes, at the same

time many female viewers identified more with the traditional matriarchal

female character rather than with her independent daughters (Brown &

Cody, 1991).

The same problems occurred on both sides of the Atlantic during the

1970s, when sitcom writers attempted to challenge right-wing bigotry by

making reactionary comic figures the butt of the jokes. Although the shows

were highly regarded within the television industry as artistic creations,

their psychological impact was perhaps less successful. In the U.S. sitcom

All in the Family, “traditional” viewers actually identified with the bigoted

Archie Bunker (Vidimar & Rokeach, 1974), and in the parallel U.K. show

from the same period, Till Death Us Do Part, the racist right-wing protagonist

Alf Garnett was upheld by some viewers as a hero. These examples clearly

signal the need for media psychologists to study the meanings that media

82 5. PROSOCIAL EFFECTS OF MEDIA

hold for audiences, rather than assuming (as with much media violence research)

that their effects are homogeneous.

One of the advantages of deliberately constructed prosocial media, as

opposed to prosocial content within media in general, is that producers can

design unambiguous contexts for the “preferred” reading. Sanders, Montgomery,

and Brechman-Toussaint (2000) reported on the success of an

Australian study in which a series of videos were specifically designed with

the intention of preventing child behaviour problems. A number of mothers

were given these videos and asked to watch two per week over a 6-week

period. At the end of this period, when compared to a control group, they

reported a significant reduction in problem behaviour among their children,

and had higher perceptions of parental competence. These effects

remained unchanged in a 6-month follow-up study.

Of course, there are enormous differences between the parents in this

study and parents consuming everyday media, and, as the authors themselves

acknowledged, it is possible that the reported changes in disruptive

behaviour may reflect changing parental perceptions (no independent observation

was carried out, or any data collected from fathers). Nevertheless,

the findings from global soap operas indicate that, when positive social

messages are embedded in narrative texts, they can have a substantial impact,

even if only on public awareness of important issues.

PARENTAL MEDIATION

In the previous sections I have described instances in which media “messages”

are misinterpreted by audiences—or, at least, not interpreted the

way their producers intended. Although it may be hard to force adult audiences

to interpret material that challenges preexisting attitudes and beliefs,

children’s understanding of media may be shaped strongly by the surrounding

social context. If a parent is on hand to explain some of the more

difficult or disturbing scenes a child witnesses on television or video, this

may help blunt any negative effects that occur during lone viewing. A growing

body of literature on the topic of “parental mediation” has examined

this parental contribution to children’s media use.

What does parental mediation consist of? At its simplest, the parent is a

coviewer; this is a contrast with the feared image of TV-as-babysitter, in

which—at least in popular lore—the parent dumps the child in front of the

set in order to be free to carry out household chores and other activities undisturbed.

The concern here is that the child is left vulnerable to the unmediated

influence of violence, sex, aggression, and other undesirable material,

and after a certain age may be competent enough to actively select and

operate “video nasties” left unattended on the shelf by the negligent par-

PARENTAL MEDIATION 83

ent. When the adult views television with the child, there is an opportunity

to discuss and explain some of the more disturbing material, and to consolidate

the prosocial or educational content.

How far should we be concerned about children’s lone television use? A

study by St. Peters, Fitch, Huston, Wright, and Eakins (1991) found that

children below the age of seven watched around 75% of children’s television

by themselves, but this figure was notably lower for comedy, drama

news, and sport programmes. Ironically, given the “video nasty” fears, children

are much more likely to view adult material when coviewing with an

adult; in other words, it is the adults who make the decisions about viewing

material. However, it might be that coviewing tends to be incidental (e.g.,

children being allowed to stay up late especially to watch an adult programme

with their parents).

Of course, the view of many parents is that the only way to prevent children

from watching undesirable media is simply to prohibit viewing. St. Peters

et al. found that, in their sample, restricted viewers generally saw less of

everything—in other words, rather than controlling the quality of television

their children watch, restrictive parents simply control the quantity (“One

hour and no more!”) There are several problems with blanket restrictions

on viewing: Policing exposure to undesirable media is virtually impossible;

even if preschool children can be protected from it, they are likely to find

out eventually; and the “forbidden fruit” effect may be stronger for children

whose media use is subject to such censure. Nevertheless, a 1988 Gallup

poll in the United States found that adults were seven times more likely

to change channel, or forbid viewing, rather than discuss undesirable content

(Austin, 1993).

The significance of mediation was realised by the early creators of children’s

media at the BBC, where the radio schedule was entitled Listen with

Mother and the corresponding television schedule Watch with Mother. The

pattern of contemporary domestic media use is vastly different, of course,

with so many young children owning their own television sets, and having

the ability to operate video playback. Therefore, the need for parents and

children to share viewing experiences assumes greater importance than in

the past. Nor is simple coviewing the answer; Austin (1993) argued that effective

mediation requires parents to discuss the programme content with

the child, perhaps explain ambiguous or disturbing material, or follow up

on concepts from the viewing session.

Not only has parental mediation been found to enhance the learning effect

of Sesame Street (Rice et al., 1990); it is also possible to blunt the negative

effects of television by discussing the relevant issues. Corder-Bolz (1980) examined

attitudes toward gender roles following a sitcom in which the lead

male and female characters were each shown performing nonstereotypical

tasks. Both male and female mediators effected huge decreases in pre-

84 5. PROSOCIAL EFFECTS OF MEDIA

school children’s stereotypical attitudes, whereas watching alone actually

produced a small increase. With older children (aged 11 or 12), mediation

still had a powerful effect, but there was also a decrease when viewing alone,

suggesting that by this age children are able to process the prosocial messages

without adult help. (Rosenkoetter, 1999, suggested that children as

young as seven are able to understand quite complex moral messages contained

in sitcom storylines.)

In a study of cartoon violence, Nathanson and Cantor (2000) asked children

between the ages of 6 and 10 to consider the feelings of the victim in a

cartoon that featured a substantial number of violent acts. Children who

did not receive the mediation achieved significantly higher scores on a selfreport

measure of aggression immediately following viewing than did those

in the mediation group, who also felt that the violence was less justified.

How does mediation work at a theoretical level? Austin, Roberts, and Nass

(1990) studied over 600 children and 400 parents in California in their responses

to questions about an episode of The Cosby Show. It was predicted that

children who had the most discussion about television with parents would

enhance the similarity of the television world with their own experience, and

that this would lead to stronger wishful identification with that television

world. The results of the study supported the authors’ prediction.

On the face of it, these results seem to conflict with the idea that mediation

might work by enhancing the difference between reality and fantasy

(e.g., a parent telling the child that a shot man is not really dead, the blood

is only tomato sauce, etc.). It may be that mediation works differently for

different media effects, or for different viewing genres. Certainly, in this example,

it is assumed that mediation enables children to absorb the prosocial

messages from The Cosby Show.

However, the model lacks specificity regarding the precise effects; for example,

the concept of “identification” was studied by asking children

whether they would like to be part of the family in the show. Besides only

tackling one aspect of identification, this measure fails to distinguish between

the characters in the show; as the authors argued, parents may influence

their children’s identification processes by steering them away from

certain characters (by saying things like “You don’t want to be like that

character”). There is no indication of how identification processes might

be different without parental mediation.

Another possibility is that the focus on a specific television family may introduce

confounding factors into the mediation process. The fact that mediation

predicted a perceived similarity with the television world may reflect

the fact that families with positive patterns of communication identified

with the fully communicative (and possibly unrepresentative) Huxtable

family. Children from families who rarely discuss television content, perhaps

those of lower educational and socioeconomic status, may see fewer

PARENTAL MEDIATION 85

similarities between themselves and the Huxtables. Nevertheless, this

model makes an important contribution toward a more complex analysis of

mediation processes.

Not only might there be different styles of mediation for different material,

but there may be differences between the mediators themselves. Valkenburg,

Krcmar, Peeters, and Marseille (1999) identified three different

mediation styles among parents: social coviewing, when parents and children

watch together but do not discuss content; restrictive mediation, when parents

prohibit watching certain material; and instructive mediation, which involves

discussion and explanation. It could be argued that only the third style

qualifies as mediation in the classic sense because, as Austin (1993) argued,

simple coviewing and prohibitive viewing are largely ineffective means of

modifying children’s interpretation of television.

Austin, Bolls, Fujioka, and Engelbertson (1999) examined mediation

in more depth in a telephone survey with 255 adults, and identified four

mediation styles. Nonmediators are parents who might coview with children

but never discuss content. Optimists are those whose mediation consists of

mostly positive comments about the content, and who tend to be generally

trusting of television (even using it as a “babysitter”). Pessimists make

generally negative or sceptical comments to their children, and tend to be

generally distrustful of television, watching less prime-time material. Selectives

are mediators with a more or less equal balance of negative and positive

contributions.

The nature of parent–child discussions about television are therefore

likely to rely heavily on parental attitudes toward the media. They are also

likely to rely on existing communication patterns within families and on

general parenting style (Gunter & McAleer, 1997). Furthermore, we need

to appreciate that adults may fail to pick up on the salience of much media

content, particularly prosocial material. “Pessimists” may moderate the effects

of media violence on their children but fail to compensate by not reinforcing

prosocial messages.

CONCLUSION

Research on the prosocial effects of media is much more limited in its extent

than is research on violent media, but it does illuminate some of the

problems with the effects approach in general. Identifying and isolating

prosocial content in standard media fare is much harder than coding acts

of violence and aggression—not because it isn’t there, but because it has to

be understood and interpreted in its narrative context. Slowly, media violence

researchers are appreciating that the same is true of violent content.

A punch in the face does not mean the same thing in every media produc-

86 5. PROSOCIAL EFFECTS OF MEDIA

tion, nor does it mean the same thing to every member of the media audience.

The mixed success in communicating prosocial media messages—attempting

to change negative aspects of health behaviour, or unacceptable

attitudes—highlights the variety of “readings” that are open to media users,

and indicates the need for more carefully targeted campaigns. Multiple

readings exist for all forms of media message, not only the prosocial ones.

That it has taken so long to appreciate this fact casts doubt on the wisdom

of isolating specific aspects of media and studying their effects while neglecting

the psychology of media use in general.

"The Impact of Television: A Natural Experiment in Three Communities"

edited by Tannis MacBeth Williams

Television is so awful, and kids watch so much of it, that it's not surprising that there's been much sociological research on its effects. Most of the studies, though, suffer from the third-factor effect - yes, kids who watch a lot of TV tend to be more aggressive, but could a third factor explain both behaviors? Kids with lower IQ scores also tend to watch more TV and be more violent, as do kids from poorer families. The correlations between heavy TV watching and other behaviors could be merely effects from common causes.

So how can the effects of television be disentangled from all others? This book, "The Impact of Television" exploited a unique situation to do so. There was a town in central British Columbia that could not get TV because it was situated in a remote valley. BC is quite mountainous and TV signals don't carry far. In 1973 the town elders convinced the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (the CBC, the official channel) to install a transmitter just for them. The town would get hit with television not in its early formative stage, but in its mature and virulent form. Tannis MacBeth Williams, a professor of sociology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, heard about the installation, and decided to test the hypotheses about the effects of television by looking at the town before and after TV arrived.

Now, hard science types routinely denigrate sociology for its lack of controlled experiments, ignoring the fact that all field sciences have the same problem. Astronomers don't get to try out different galactic structures in the lab, nor do geologists get to bang continents together to see what happens. Like sociologists, they have to find the reasons for things from studying them as they are. In this case, however, there was a beautiful example of a community where the effect of a change in one variable could be observed.

Williams and twelve other faculty and students from UBC did extensive surveys around the town, which she code-named Notel. They also did control studies at a town with a single TV channel (Unitel), and one with four broadcast channels and cable (Multitel). They studied the towns twice: once before TV came to Notel (Phase 1), and again after it had had TV for two years (Phase 2). The towns were all similar in size (around 700 within town limits, and several thousand in the surrounding district), economic base (logging, mining, and farming), income (around C$7000 per family), and class structure (~10% professional/business, ~60% skilled labor/farmers, ~20-30% unskilled labor). All had small libraries, weekly newspapers, telephones, and regular road and rail service.

Using towns with and without TV allowed Williams to filter out changes over the two years that might be common to all rural towns in BC. Using towns with only one channel versus many decreased the effect that the programming itself had. Notel and Unitel got only the CBC, whereas Multitel got the CBC and the US networks. The CBC does run commercials, but it had a 60% Canadian content requirement and did not run ads on shows for kids under 12. (Interestingly enough, many Canadian cities get the US public network, PBS, and in fact Canadians contribute a good part of its funding.)

The studies were done on various grades in the public schools, and on the towns as a whole. They were both longitudinal and cross-sectional, that is, if students in grade 2 were studied in Phase 1, the same students (if they could be found) were studied in grade 4 two years later, and new students in grade 2 were also studied. Background data on the students was also gathered, such as their IQ scores (which, incidentally, are illegal to give out in California) and the socio-economic status of their families.

Reading the book, I was impressed by the study's detail and rigor. It looks like model work, and the methodology alone has interesting lessons. Thomas Gilovich, a Cornell professor of sociology, noted in his book "How We Know What Isn't So" that social scientists are far more aware of and able to deal with the inherent randomness of phenomena than are scientists in deterministic disciplines like, say, chemistry. Sociologists know about the human tendency to find order in randomness, to extrapolate from limited data, and to create cause and effect from merely related events. In fact, the skeptical attitude induced by the probabilistic sciences is much more useful to the problems of everyday life and of citizenship than the dogmatism of the deterministic sciences. He thought, then, that sociology is a more useful (and probably more interesting!) science to teach than chemistry.

So what did Williams discover? She set up a number of specific hypotheses and devised experiments for each. I'll go through them in order of least effect seen to most seen in an unsubtle attempt to keep you reading:

Sex roles

Television is a strongly sex-typed medium. Most of the characters in programs are male (75% by some studies), and few women are shown as employed (or at least were then). This study measured how different children thought males and females were. Each child was given a list of characteristics (e.g. hard-working, honest) and asked whether they were more typical of boys or girls. The questionaire also asked if they were more typical of fathers or mothers. A lot of differences would indicated strong sex-typing.

Television seemed to increase the differences that kids saw between the sexes, but mainly between boys and girls. It seemed to have no effect on how children perceived adult roles.

Adult Creativity

This was measured by giving a set of adults two problems: the Duncker Candle Problem and the Nine Dot Problem. For the first, the testee is given a vertical piece of cardboard, a candle, a box of tacks and a book of matches, and asked to attach the candle to the cardboard so that it can burn freely. The expected answer is to empty the box, tack it to the cardboard, and set the candle in it. A higher proportion of Notel adults got this than Unitel or Multitel, and they got it faster. In the Nine Dot problem, people are asked to connect the nine dots in a 3 x 3 array with only four lines and without lifting the pencil. Too few people actually got this one to make any estimates, unfortunately.

Leisure activities

It's hard to find out what people actually do with their time. The amount of time people actually spend watching TV as measured by, say, the Nielsen diaries, is notoriously inaccurate, as Nielsen now admits. Even so, Williams wanted to learn if TV affected all the other things people did. She sent out questionaires all over the town that listed all the public places (e.g. parks, libraries) and public events (e.g. sports, dances, churches) and asked people if they had been there in the preceding year. As a check, she also included activities that did not exist, but found that people were honest.

The biggest effect was on sports - the number of sports events dropped in half in Notel. There was little effect on religious, civic, or business activities. The group most affected was those over 55; their participation in public events dropped dramatically, probably for the obvious reasons. The authors theorized that this could cause a widening gap between young and old, simply because the old were rarely seen any more. Overall, the number of activities did not change much, but the amount of participation did.

Child Cognition

The main test here is called Alternate Uses, where the kids are given five objects (a magazine, a knife, a shoe, a button, and a key) and asked to write down all the different uses they could think of for them. There's no time limit. They tested grades 4 and 7 both times, and 6 and 9 in Phase 2 (as part of the longitudinal study). Interestingly enough, there was little correlation between IQ and creativity. They also attempted to look for originality (uses that no one else thought of) as opposed to sheer number, but originality and number were so correlated that they weren't separable.

There was a noticeable drop in this after TV came. The raw scores dropped from 32 in Notel Phase 1 to the low 20s with TV, a drop of about 40%.

However, there was little effect on vocabulary, visio-spatial skills, and only a small drop in IQ scores.

Reading

Reading fluency was measured by a tachistoscope, which flashes a word on a screen for a few milliseconds. The quicker one can recognize it, the more skilled a reader you are. Fluency was higher in Notel in grades 2 and 3 in Phase 1, but dropped back to similar levels with Unitel and Multitel in Phase 2. However, there seemed to be little effect on fluency among 8th graders, possibly because their reading skills had been established by that age. The researchers thought that TV hindered the acquisition of reading skills simply because it took up so much time. Reading is a difficult skill, after all, and doesn't become pleasurable or useful until you're good at it. If TV distracts you from practising it in that crucial stage, you may never get good reading habits. Once you have it, though, TV seems less harmful.

An interesting effect was hypothesized by the researchers. TV was originally thought to be a great leveller, since both rich and poor would be watching the same programs and would be provided with the same news and information. Instead, the reverse may be happening. Increased TV viewing in poorer households harms those kids' reading abilities and habits. They thus do less reading throughout school and so have less access to the primary (although far from the only) source of knowledge. The gap in education is thus widened, not narrowed.

Aggression

This was the largest effect. Second graders were twice as aggressive towards each other (as measured by acts of pushing or taunting) after TV as before. The method here was to introduce two observers to the classroom and playground. After a week, when the children were used to their presence, they would record the aggressive acts that they saw. Each would pick a child at random and observe him/her for a minute. The observers would occasionally focus on the same child in order to check each other. They watched second graders because older kids tend to just hang out in groups rather than actively playing. Boys were more physically aggressive than girls (surprise), but they were equally verbally aggressive.

Although most aggressive acts were committed by a very few kids, the overall level rose for all children, and for both boys and girls. The levels also rose in Unitel and Multitel, but by nowhere near as much. Kids who were not aggressive before TV increased as much as kids who were. The researchers wondered if there had been some change in playground policy in the two years, but the schools all had the same principals, and they all had the same basic policy: only intervene if it looks like someone will get hurt. Such a policy wouldn't affect verbal aggression in any case.

Summary

To sum up: the introduction of television made kids more aggressive, harmed the acquistion of reading skills, decreased creativity scores, and cut participation in non-TV leisure activities. The important question then becomes: are these effects general or are they restricted to small-town British Columbia?

The book ends with a discussion of this. Williams believes the results are generalizable for the following reasons:

• The general test scores of children here match those in the rest of Canada, and overall demographics are similar.

• The effects were much more pronounced between Notel and Unitel/Multitel than between Unitel and Multitel. That is, the presence of TV itself was the important factor, and not its content.

• The side conclusions of the studies, such as the lack of correlation between IQ and creativity, match those of other studies. That is, the administration of the tests is not unique to this study.

• The conclusions with respect to television match those of other studies.

These conclusions are not novel and are not peculiar. The effects of TV are obviously great and are obviously far-reaching. What all the effort, all the rigor, all the detailed analysis of this study shows, is that the effects are negative.

Television's Impact on Kids

Television is one of the most prevalent media influences in kids' lives. According to Kids' Take on Media, a survey conducted in 2003 by the Canadian Teachers’ Federation, watching TV is a daily pastime for 75 percent of Canadian children, both boys and girls from Grade 3 to Grade 10.

How much impact TV has on children depends on many factors: how much they watch, their age and personality, whether they watch alone or with adults, and whether their parents talk with them about what they see on TV.

To minimize the potential negative effects of television, it's important to understand what the impact of television can be on children. Below you will find information on some areas of concern.

Violence

Over the past two decades, hundreds of studies have examined how violent programming on TV affects children and young people. While a direct "cause and effect" link is difficult to establish, there is a growing consensus that some children may be vulnerable to violent images and messages.

Researchers have identified three potential responses to media violence in children:

• Increased fear—also known as the "mean and scary world" syndrome Children, particularly girls, are much more likely than adults to be portrayed as victims of violence on TV, and this can make them more afraid of the world around them.

• Desensitization to real-life violence Some of the most violent TV shows are children's cartoons, in which violence is portrayed as humorous—and realistic consequences of violence are seldom shown.

• Increased aggressive behaviour This can be especially true of young children, who are more likely to exhibit aggressive behaviour after viewing violent TV shows or movies.

Parents should also pay close attention to what their children see in the news since studies have shown that kids are more afraid of violence in news coverage than in any other media content. Fear based on real news events increases as children get older and are better able to distinguish fantasy from reality.

Effects on healthy child development

Television can affect learning and school performance if it cuts into the time kids need for activities crucial to healthy mental and physical development. Most of children's free time, especially during the early formative years, should be spent in activities such as playing, reading, exploring nature, learning about music or participating in sports.

TV viewing is a sedentary activity, and has been proven to be a significant factor in childhood obesity. According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada almost one in four Canadian children, between seven and 12, is obese. Time spent in front of the TV is often at the expense of more active pastimes.

A Scientific American article entitled "Television Addiction" examined why children and adults may find it hard to turn their TVs off. According to researchers, viewers feel an instant sense of relaxation when they start to watch TV—but that feeling disappears just as quickly when the box is turned off. While people generally feel more energized after playing sports or engaging in hobbies, after watching TV they usually feel depleted of energy. According to the article "this is the irony of TV: people watch a great deal longer than they plan to, even though prolonged viewing is less rewarding."

As well as encouraging a sedentary lifestyle, television can also contribute to childhood obesity by aggressively marketing junk food to young audiences. According to the Canadian Paediatric Society, most food advertising on children's TV shows is for fast foods, candy and pre-sweetened cereals. Commercials for healthy food make up only 4 per cent of those shown.

A lot of money goes into making ads that are successful in influencing consumer behaviour. McDonald's, the largest food advertiser on TV, reportedly spent $500 million on their "We love to see you smile" ad campaign.

Sexual content

Kids today are bombarded with sexual messages and images in all media—television, magazines, advertisements, music, movies and the Internet. Parents are often concerned about whether these messages are healthy. While television can be a powerful tool for educating young people about the responsibilities and risks of sexual behaviour, such issues are seldom mentioned or dealt with in a meaningful way in programs containing sexual content.

According to a 2001 study from the Kaiser Family Foundation, entitled Sex on TV, three out of four prime time shows contain sexual references. Situation comedies top the list: 84 per cent contain sexual content. Of the shows with sexual content, only one in ten included references to safe sex, or the possible risks or responsibilities of sex. In shows that portrayed teens in sexual situations, only 17 per cent contained messages about safe and responsible sex.

Television is an inescapable part of modern culture. We depend on TV for entertainment, news, education, culture, weather, sports—and even music, since the advent of music videos.

|TIP: Create your own family TV-viewing |
|traditions, such as watching Olympic |
|coverage, the NHL playoffs, classic |
|movies or a weekly comedy show. |

With the recent explosion in satellite and digital speciality channels, we now have access to a plethora of both good quality and inappropriate TV content. In this crowded television environment, the key for parents is to search out high quality TV programs for their kids, and whenever possible, enjoy them together as a family.

Television offers lots of benefits to kids, including:

• Because of its ability to create powerful touchstones, TV enables young people to share cultural experiences with others.

• Shared viewing gives family members of all ages an opportunity to spend time together.

• Parents can use TV as a catalyst to get kids reading—following up on TV programs by getting books on the same subjects or reading authors whose work was adapted for the programs.

• Great television can teach kids important values and life lessons.

• TV programs often explores controversial or sensitive issues, which can make it easier for parents and kids to discuss them.

• Educational programming can develop young children's socialization and learning skills.

• News, current events and historical programming can help make young people more aware of other cultures and people.

• Documentaries can help develop critical thinking about society and the world.



|TIP: Whenever possible, |
|choose Canadian programs for|
|your family viewing time. |

• TV can help introduce your family to classic Hollywood films and foreign movies that may not be available in your local video store.

• Cultural programming can open up the world of music and art for young people.

How to choose good TV

How can you select viewing that is good for your children? David Kleeman, Director of the American Center for Children and Media, says ask yourself the following questions:

• Does the program actively engage my child, physically or intellectually? Television watching doesn't have to be passive. It can prompt questions, kindle curiosity, or teach activities to pursue when the set is off.

• Do I respect this program? Parents don't have to like every show their children choose—in fact young people need their own district culture. But parents should trust that a program's creators understand and respect how children grow and learn.

• Does my child see others like himself or herself on television? Young children believe that television reflects the real world. To not see people like themselves—in race, ethnicity, or physical ability, for example—may diminish their self worth. A lack of role models should spark discussion about how TV portrays different types of people.

• How do makers of this program regard my child? Some program creators see young people as consumers to be sold to. Others see them as students to be educated, as future citizens to be engaged in the community, or simply as children, whose work is play.

Use the resources on the side bar to help you find good quality television for your kids.

The Impact of the Mass Media on Indian Culture and forms of Communication

Introduction:

The impact of mass media in India is very significant and this is clearly apparent through the rising number of advertisers who are capitalizing on these media channels to spread their messages. Rural or urban, regardless of caste and religious boundaries, Indians are glued to television and radio serials. The question this essay aims to examine is the intangible cost involved in this burgeoning mass media culture.
“Films are seen once or twice while ad films are seen over and over. Yet the advertising for many of these iconic brands doesn't seem to drive social change in behaviour and values as strongly as some of the heroes and heroines do through their portrayals in films and serials. ”
It is the people and their characters that the masses of India seem to identify with. With regards to their dressing and personifications of themselves, mass media has affected the lives of people in many ways. As village politician Chandraprakash Dwivedi said “Now village girls want to dress like Rani Mukherjee in Bunty aur Babli -- this within four weeks of the release of the film. ” Men want a hairstyle like “Radhe Bhayya ” in hit movie Tere Naam. Bindis, blouses, and bangles define the concept of beauty for girls in small towns - influenced by the looks of the saas-bahus in the umpteen TV serials beaming into their drawing rooms on various satellite channels.
In Kirk Johnson’s study of a small town two hours away from Mumbai city where television had just reached, he noted how television upset existing social structures and created new ones. This essay aims to answer the question it has put forth above through the examination of the differences in social structures in India from the past to the present; as well as the differences in forms of communication and entertainment.

Folk Music, television and cinema will be examined under the category of communication and entertainment. Communication in India often took on a musical tone, especially in the communication of religious works or literature. Poetry and religious texts were often sung. The advent of television however has made this rather obsolete. Similarly, village theatre and dance (nautanki) has been replaced by cinema and television serials.

Social structures in India have also changed with respect to the caste system as Johnson’s work shall demonstrate. Owning forms of media and communication (televisions) has becomes more a more important symbol of class than caste. Similarly; village story-telling and word-of-mouth has lost its following and has thus changed the social structure of things as well.

“Traditional forms of communication and entertainment”

The culture of India is one of the oldest cultures in the world and yet it is so diverse as to be impossible to pin down and define. The South, North, and Northeast have their own distinct cultures and almost every state has carved out its own cultural niche. In spite of the diversity, it's bound by a common thread as one civilization perhaps because of its shared history of colonialisation and the following struggle for independence from the British.
Culture and its preservation matters a great deal to Indians, at least in rhectoric. The Government of India has even formulated a “Cultural Policy” which lays out three major objectives as preserving the cultural heritage of India, inculcating Indian art consciousness amongst Indians and promoting high standards in creative and performing arts. Unfortunately, it seems the advent of mass media has made the cultural policy redundant as performing arts seem to have virtually disappeared for the masses of India.
In the past, Indian drama and theatre were a significant part of “Indian culture” and some of the oldest plays in the world originated from India. The tradition of folk theatre was also alive in nearly all the linguistic regions of the country. In addition, there is a rich tradition of puppet theatre in rural India. There were many theatre groups that used to travel from village to village putting up small skits and these served as entertainment and also as a means of communications between different villages as information travelled through word of mouth. These nautanki goups have since been replaced by Bollywood cinema and the tv-serial market.

Similarly, the earliest Indian literary traditions were first orally spread and only later transcribed. Most of these spring from Hindu tradition and are represented by sacred works like the Vedas, the epics of the Mahabharata and Ramayana. These works were narrated with an accompanying discourse by learned speakers or visiting sanskrit scholars and Brahmins.

Finally, the music of India includes multiple varieties of folk, pop and classical music. India's classical music tradition, including Carnatic and Hindustani music, has a history spanning millennia and, developed over several eras, remains fundamental to the lives of Indians today as sources of religious inspiration, cultural expression and pure entertainment. India is made up of several dozen ethnic groups, speaking their own languages and dialects, as a result, folk music plays an essential role in uniting people of the same dialect group who may be far apart geographically. An example is the folk music of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, Bhojpuri music. It serves as a means of communication as the lyrics of the songs often cover recent cultural changes and events; as well as religious content. Bhojpuri music is spread through visiting singers as well as everyday singing by laypeople. The songs are not static and their lyrics are often played around and substituted by the singers. This allows for communication between gepgraphically disparate groups. Later in this essay, the loss of such a means of communication will be examined with regard to the invention of casette tapes and television.

Changes in forms of Media and Communiation:
Music, drama and literature have all changed with time and are now digitally enahnced are available to a wider base of people. The television and print revolutions have granted access to these forms of media to the masses across india. Villages often have their own newspapers and access to television is readily available to the majority. Bollywood cinema is not restricted to the urban community and is in fact highly popular with the rural masses.
The ease of making casette tapes and now compact discs has allowed for a very widespread distribution of music; negating the need for traditional folk singers and concerts. Bhojpuri folk music is an example of a dying genre of music that is now regaining some following due to overseas diaspora groups desperate to maintain their links to their dialect. As Ajeet Praimsingh, leader of the bhojpuri singing group D’Bhuyaa Saaj said, “we don’t speak Bhojpuri any more, so all that we sing is by the ear. But we love this form of music and we perform quite often”.
In Cassette Culture, Peter Manuel tells how a new mass medium, the portable cassette player, caused a major upheaval in popular culture in the world's second-largest country. The advent of cassette technology in the 1980s transformed India's popular music industry from the virtual monopoly of a single multinational LP manufacturer to a free-for-all among hundreds of local cassette producers. The result was a revolution in the quantity, quality, and variety of Indian popular music and its patterns of dissemination and consumption. Manuel shows that the cassette revolution, however, has brought new contradictions and problems to Indian culture. While inexpensive cassettes revitalized local subcultures and community values throughout the subcontinent, they were also a vehicle for regional and political factionalism, new forms of commercial vulgarity, and, disturbingly, the most provocative sorts of hate-mongering and religious chauvinism.

Television has had a more or less similar impact due to its widespread reach. It is nearly impossible to establish the precise number of people with access to a television set in “the poor world ”, as James Murdoch, chief executive of STAR TV Group told a cable conference in India; due to the fact that individual cable subscribers sometimes pass on the service illegally to an entire neighborhood. “Moreover, in parts of the developing world, large numbers of people often crowd into one house or cafe to watch television, a factor that is hard to quantify ”.
In the case of India, media empires have had to adjust their strategies to suit the Indian context. STAR TV realized that its mainly American oriented programming was only reaching a tiny, although wealthy, urban audience. It therefore started adding Hindi subtitles to Hollywood films broadcast on its 24-hour channel and dubbing popular U.S. soaps into Hindi. In October 1996, STAR Plus began telecasting programs in English and Hindi. In 1999, it claimed 19 million viewers in India.
Another example of this cultural hybridity is Zee TV, India’s first private Hindi-language satellite channel. Zee was launched in October 1992 and depended initially on recycled programming. It then broke television taboos by broadcasting programs about sex, relationships, and horoscopes. The channel thrives on a mixture of Hindi film, serials, musical countdowns, and quiz contests. Zee’s innovative programming includes news in “Hinglish.” Despite the influence of the English language in India, the biggest media growth is in regional languages. Even U.S. series like “Friends” (known as “Hello Friends” in India) have been hybridized, although the latter has not been as successful as expected—the lifestyle of the Hyderabadi versions of the New Yorker originals did not settle in the Indian imagination.
Such television shows are the prime example of how American culture has become more popular in India than Indian culture. Even Indian soap operas, set in traditional households often portray traditionally dressed women who behave and dress in a completely Western manner out of the house. Television serials, both Indian and western oriented ones have deemphasized traditional dress. As a Bengali fieldworker commented, in the cities it is difficult to tell men and women apart by their dress. Movies and television have created a new fashion that is being emulated all over the country, rural and urban.

Changes in Social Structure:

The people of India belong to thousands of castes and caste like groups--hierarchically ordered, named groups into which members are born. Caste members are expected to marry within the group and follow caste rules pertaining to diet, avoidance of ritual pollution, and many other aspects of life.

With the advent of mass media and channels of communication and information, the Brahmins who have traditionally been at the top of the caste system have been replaced by those with colour television sets in their homes reports Kirk Johnson in his study. The next level seems now to be those with access to colour TV, followed by black and white TV owners and then those with access to black and white TVs.

Caste lines have been blurred in the quest to gain access to information; which in itself is not a bad thing. Television watching, especially in the rural areas has become a communal event and it is not uncommon for TV owners to position their television sets such that they are facing the open door; allowing members of other caste groups to sit outside the home and enjoy the shows . Similarly, in villages where there is one common, government-provided television set, members of the village gather around to watch communally. This is especially the case for religious programs as well as those related to agriculture.

However, such interaction means that traditional social structures have been destroyed and more people are flocking to the cities that they see on television in the hopes of achieving the material goods that are telecast. This has resulted indirectly in an increasing number of unemployed in the cities as well as a growing number of slums, as these internal migrants are often lowly skilled and unable to find suitable jobs in the city.

Other than changing the social structure and norm, the media revolution has also contributed to the disintegration of so-called 'Indian norms'. Movies such as "Monsoon Wedding" are an ideal demonstration of the culture shock faced by many young Indians today. There is a chasm between traditional values of chastity and dressing conservatively and the TV values of stylish and often skimpy dressing and more liberal values, including dating before marriage and other 'western norms'.

Although information and communication links that television, cinema, radio and newspapers have brought about are immense; it is undeniable that they have had a very strong and not altogether beneficial impact upon the masses who watch them. Culture and social structures have suffered, as have traditional art forms and methods of communication.

Conclusion:

Other than dress; many other aspects of culture have been sacrificed in favour of western influences. Folk music and travelling singers have given way to cassettes and compact discs; nautanki shows have dissolved under the pressure and competition brought forth by television and cinema. The traditions of story telling has also taken a back seat due to casette playbacks of discourses and the ease with which printed material is cheaply available.

Just as traditions have gone ‘out of fashion’, it seems that many beliefs have done so as well. Television has reached a stage where even religious discourse is broadcast, negating the need for temple visits and religious-social gatherings. Infrastructure and the mass media influenences that it has brought with it have created a culture where person to person interaction has nearly stopped. Information is relayed to us through media channels, radio, television, books and newspapers.
It seems almost as if we have entered an era of ‘cognitive imperialism ’ where as Carolyn Martin famously commented, “Western civilization was the center of the stage play for which the rest of the world was an awestruck audience ." The interaction between the media and the people it impacts is ever changing and evolving; the Indian-themed but Hollywood made movie, “Monsoon Wedding,” demonstrates how globalization and the media reveal striking features in cultural contexts. Societies like India’s are being affected by globalization and the western influences that are a large part of it, but their interest also plays an active role in fostering it.

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