Week 8 macrotheories presentation final

mass media
Effects theories

2012
1920s
POWERFUL EFFECTS
1984 Ball-Rokeach,
Rokeach and Grube The
Great American Values Test
LIMITED EFFECTS
1960 Klapper’s Effects of
Mass Communication
MODERATE EFFECTS
1973 Noelle-Neumann’s
Spiral of Silence
BULLET THEORY
1927 Lasswell’s
Propaganda techniques
in the World War

•  2007 National election campaign in Denmark
•  Visibility of and tone used by TV media
toward parties have an inﬂuence on party
choice
•  Effects of direct exposure signiﬁcant for
undecided voters and not decided voters
macrotheories of public opinion
Combined method
approach
Opinion leaders
Uses and
Gratifications
Studying
Mass media
Hopmann, Vliegenthart, De Vreese and Albæk (2010)

•  Informed opinion leaders..
–  spent one more hour obtaining information from
media channels
–  Spent more time on newspapers
–  Had higher levels of selectivity for information
•  Eg of opinion leaders in society: doctors
Combined method
approach
Opinion leaders
read
How much you
Trepte and Scherer (2010)
Uses and
Gratifications

•  Useful for deﬁning why people use the media
–  Content that satisﬁes social (interaction) and
psychological needs (need for learning)
•  Applied to new media technologies to
understand popularity of devices
•  Qualitative research will yield richer data
(Ruggiero,2000)
Opinion leaders
Explaining
Media useUses and
Gratifications
Combined method
approach

•  behavior schemas work better than self
schemas in disseminating health messages
•  Eg: if you classify yourself as pragmatic-
conceptual oriented self-schema, emphasis on
beneﬁts of an advocated action will appeal
more to you
•  Great potential in online marketing
PerceptionSelective
Pease, Brannon and Pilling (2006)

Case study: Which are the most
popular mediums used in Sg
during GE2011?

•  Trust is higher for traditional media sources
Singapore GE2011
Media Use
Institute of Policy Studies (2011)
3.45
3.44

2.78
2.76
2.51
2.28

0

1

2

3

4

5

Trust
in
media
sources

TV
news

Newspaper

Party
brochures

Blogs

Facebook

TwiDer

Singapore GE2011
Media Use
Institute of Policy Studies (2011)
•  90% use traditional media (newspapers
and television) as a source of information
•  41.1% of people read election news online
•  21% reading online political blogs up from
13% in 2010 IPS survey

Singapore GE2011
Agenda Setting
Wu and Soon (2011)
•  Overall agenda setting in Singapore GE 2011
occurs in both directions
•  Twitter is seen as less reﬂective of the other media
types (content wise)
•  Results support increase use and adoption of
Facebook and Twitter as a prominent channel of
communication and civic engagement

Social Control
Perpetuating
Cultivation

Cultivation effects
•  Institutional process analysis
–  Examines the production, management and distribution of media
messages
•  Message system analysis
–  Examines the content that makes up the television programme
such as media portrayals
•  Cultivation analysis
–  The relationship between exposure to television and people’s
beliefs, attitudes and knowledge, awareness of issues.
–  Desensitization to violence

•  1969-1985: status quo perpetuated women are less likely
to be portrayed than men
•  1990s: increased portrayals but occupational roles still
reﬂected predominant stereotypes of the type of jobs
women should hold, more female housewives than law
enforcers
•  2000s: cultivation effects showed less stereotypical
sexroles.
Meta-analysis of sex roles
Cultivation
Shanahan, Signorielli, & Morgan (2008)
1969 1990 2000

Mainstreaming
•  dominant sets of attitudes, beliefs,
values and practices exist within a
culture are adopted by heavy
viewers and override their own pre-
existing perspectives and attitudes
•  Viewing popular medical drama
grey’s anatomy is associated with
perceptions of doctors’
courageousness mediated by high
credibility ratings for the television
programme

Resonance
•  Resonance: the situation where
events in real life support the
distorted image of reality shown on
television (Bryant & Thompson,
2002)
•  Resonance mediates r/s between
identiﬁcation and parasocial
interaction with TV program’s
protagonist and attitudes toward
smoking (Lauzen & Dozier, 2003)
•  Resonance effect more signiﬁcant
than mainstreaming (Nan, 2010)

Cultivation a critique
•  Inconsistencies with operationalization of the most
important variable: Television exposure
–  Take total viewing x 5 (Heath & Petraitis 1987)
–  Total viewing for a day on average (Shrum & Bishak 2001)
–  Volume of viewing per day plus frequency of viewing (Custers & Bulck, 2011)
–  Implications for external and internal validity not addressed
•  users of new media have greater power to select content they
consume
•  mainstream views difﬁcult to convey through the new media due to
fragmented attention on the internet (less social control)

•  Highly participatory environments such as
MMORPG strengthens cultivation effects
because of the interactive and participatory
nature of the internet
•  Call for new theories, methods to measure
and quantify macro-level effects on the Internet
platform
•  Extend theory beyond social-psychological
effects
Future take on
Cultivation
Metzger (2009)

Baseline Understanding
Socio-
demographics
Fear of
Isolation
Issue
Obtrusiveness
etc.
Individual Traits
MICRO MACRO
Willingness to
Express Own
Opinion
IVs Main DV
Individual
Behavioural
Outcome
Aggregate
Effects across
Society
Theorized
Extrapolation
Cultural
Factors

Baseline Understanding
Socio-
demographics
Fear of
Isolation
Issue
Obtrusiveness
etc.
Individual Traits
MICRO
Media
Portrayal
Immediate Social
Environment
MACRO
Incongruent?
Perceptions of
Public Opinion
on issue X
Own opinion
on issue X
Silence
Public Opinion
Climate
Spiraling Mechanism
explains PO formation
IVs Theorized
Extrapolation
Quasi-
statistical
sense

Objectives Today
•  Challenge old conventions of SoS research
•  New measure of the IV and the DV
•  Question the implicit assumption of the spiraling
mechanism
–  How does Individual Silence lead to Aggregate Silence in the
formation of public opinion?
•  Address concerns for cross-cultural
comparisons
•  Introduce new variable that would improve
SoS theory
•  Attitude Certainty
•  Propose framework for future SoS research
macrotheories of public opinion Anything in italics and in the body text is the presenter’s own interpretation

Reexamining Core Variables
Socio-
demographics
Fear of
Isolation
Issue
Obtrusiveness
etc.
Individual Traits
MICRO MACRO
Willingness to
Express Own
Opinion
IVs Main DV
Individual
Behavioural
Outcome
Aggregate
Effects across
Society
Theorized
Extrapolation
?
?
?
?
Cultural
Factors

Reexamining Core Variables

Development of a New FSI Scale
•  Fear of Social Isolation (FSI) as a
replacement for fear of isolation
•  To address the inconsistencies with IV
measurement of the fear of isolation before
this
•  Previous measures of the IV plagued with
problems of interpretation
•  E.g. Scheufele et al. (2001), Ho & McLeod (2008)
used a scale that was clearly bidimensional,
including an “argumentativeness factor”
•  New FSI Scale is unidimensional
macrotheories of public opinion Hayes et al.,Communication Research, 2011

Development of a New FSI Scale
•  I worry about being isolated if people
disagree with me
•  I don’t worry about other people avoiding
me
•  I avoid telling other people what I think
when I think there is a risk they’ll avoid
me
•  I enjoy avoiding arguments
•  Arguing over controversial issues
improves my intelligence
•  I enjoy a good argument over a
controversial issue
•  I try to avoid getting into arguments
Argumentativeness
Hayes et al.,Communication Research, 2011

•  It is scary to think about not being invited to social gatherings by
people I know
•  One of the worst things that could happen to me is to be excluded by
people I know
•  It would bother me if no one wanted to be around me
•  I dislike feeling left out of social functions, parties, or other social
gatherings
•  It is important to me to ﬁt into the group I am with

Reexamine the Core DV
Socio-
demographics
Fear of
Isolation
Issue
Obstrusiveness
etc.
Individual Traits
MICRO MACRO
Willingness to
Express Own
Opinion
IVs Main DV
Individual
Behavioural
Outcome
Aggregate
Effects across
Society
Theorized
Extrapolation
?
?
?
Cultural
Factors

Willingness to Self-Censor (WTSC)
•  Shown by Hayes et al. (2005, 2010) to be a
viable construct in the analysis of SoS
•  Reliable
•  Valid
•  Statistically distinct from competing measures
•  Recently used in a nine-country comparative
analysis that conﬁrmed SoS predictions (Matthes et
al., 2010)
•  Positive and negative frame
•  WTSC is more intuitively aligned with the concept of silence
•  WTEO? Have to think of the concept in reverse
–  Lack of willingness to express opinions that leads to silence
macrotheories of public opinion Hayes et al., IJPOR, 2005, Communication Methods and Measures, 2010
Herbert’s

interpret
aGon

Questioning the Status Quo
Socio-
demographics
Fear of
Isolation
Issue
Obstrusiveness
etc.
Individual Traits
MICRO MACRO
Willingness to
Express Own
Opinion
IVs Main DV
Individual
Behavioural
Outcome
Aggregate
Effects across
Society
Theorized
Extrapolation
?
?
?
Cultural
Factors

Extensive Cultural Comparisons
•  Previous research: two countries in
dichotomous collectivistic-individualistic
comparison
•  Willnat, Lee & Detember (2002) – Singapore
only as collectivistic exemplar
•  Lee et al. (2004) – Singapore vs. United States
•  Huang (2005) – Taiwan vs. US
•  Now: 8-9 countries cross-analyzed

•  Cultural dimensions analyzed in studies
•  Social Independence/Interdependence (x-axis)
–  Individualism/Collectivism
•  Governing disposition (y-axis)
–  Full democracy/Flawed Democracy/Hybrid Regime/
Authoritarian Regime
•  IV: Hayes et al. (2011) measure of FSI
•  DV: Hayes et al. (2005, 2010) measure
of WTSC
macrotheories of public opinion Matthes et al., ICA, 2010
Testing Spiral of Silence Theory in Nine
Countries: An Individual Differences Perspective

macrotheories of public opinion Not to scale, only for relative comparison
Higher democracy
index
Lower
democracy index
More
Individualistic
More
Collectivistic
Germany
USA
UKFrance
South
Korea
Russia
China
Chile
Mexico
(not
signiﬁcant)
CorrelaGonal
size
between

WTSC
and
FSI
(β)
was
not

signiﬁcantly
associated
with
the

level
of
individualism
or
the

level
of
democracy
as
cultural

dimensions
-‐
so?

Testing Spiral of Silence Theory in Nine
Countries: An Individual Differences Perspective

The
posi)ve
correla)on
between
FSI
and
WTSC
in
eight

of
the
nine
countries
we
examined
hints
to
the
almost

universal
nature
of
spiral
of
silence
theory
as
originally

theorized
by
Noelle-‐Neumann
(1974).
By
the
same
token,

the
size
of
these
correla)ons
did
not
depend
on
a

country’s
democracy
index
or
level
of
individualism.
In

other
words,
spiral
of
silence
processes
can
be
assumed

to
occur
in
many
countries
and
across
cultures.

Not to scale, only for relative comparison
Higher democracy
index
Lower
democracy index
More
Individualistic
More
Collectivistic
Germany
USA
UKFrance
South
Korea
China
Chile
Suggests
Cultural
Boundary

condiGon
on
SoS
processes

Stimulating the quasi-statistical organ: FSI motivates
the quest for knowledge of the opinion climate
Hayes et al.,Communication Research, 2011

Questioning the Status Quo
Socio-
demographics
Fear of
Isolation
Issue
Obstrusiveness
etc.
Individual Traits
MICRO MACRO
Willingness to
Express Own
Opinion
IVs Main DV
Individual
Behavioural
Outcome
Aggregate
Effects across
Society
Theorized
Extrapolation
?
Cultural
Factors

Speaking about
“Boundaries” or
“Parameters” within
which SoS might apply…

•  Unit of Analysis: Society (system in which
groups interact)
•  Vs. unit of analysis in SoS surveys:
Individual
•  How does Individual Silence translate to Aggregate
Silence in the formation of public opinion?
Aggregate Opinion
Formation?
Sum
Collective Dynamics of the SoS: The
Role of Quasi-statistical monitoring

macrotheories of public opinion Sohn & Geidner, ICA, 2010

•  Attacks implicit assumption: if individual-level
conditions are met, the spiraling process is
likely to occur
•  However, individuals in the real world interact
in almost random manner
•  Formation of opinion climate cannot be
inferred directly from the sum of individual
traits at current-time survey snapshots
Aggregate Opinion
Formation?
Sum
Sohn & Geidner, ICA, 2010

•  Society as a System of
social interdependence
•  cannot be measured with
surveys or experiments
because
•  the consequences of multiple-
agent interactions over time
fail to match what might be
expected, simplistically, of an
individual agent

•  Also, regression tests in surveys assume
collective human behavior can be linearly
modeled (OLS estimation)
•  Complexity and nonlinear dynamics
research from other disciplines say
otherwise
– Macro-level outcomes can be astonishingly
complex and unpredictable

•  Used computer simulation method called
Agent-based modeling (ABM)
•  Examined the generative mechanism
through which individuals’ local social
interactions (e.g. opinion sampling and
monitoring) translate into macro-level
outcomes

•  Computational Stats: Using behavioral
rules established in surveys and
experiments to come up with a derivative
formula to model Spiral of Silence

•  Findings: tested for and conﬁrmed one societal-level
boundary condition
•  Observation range of an individual
•  Large scale SoS occurs only when a critical mass of
individuals having larger observation ranges is
reached
•  So that large cascades of effects can occur throughout society
•  “Domino effect”
•  Implication: Fragmentation in the media
environment could lead to fewer individuals having
similar views of the opinion climate
•  Which could make the Spiral of Silence less likely

Reinforcing Spirals: The Mutual Influence of
Media Selectivity and Media Effects and Their Impact on
Individual Behavior and Social Identity
•  Combines Cultivation and SoS
•  Hypothesized that attitudinal or behavioral
outcomes of media use can be expected to
inﬂuence selection of and attention to media
content
•  Process can be conceptualized in terms of mutually
reinforcing spirals akin to positive feedback loops
•  Reinforcing spirals perspective highlights the need
for longitudinal modeling of mutually inﬂuencing
media selection and effects processes
•  And be applied to Cultivation research
macrotheories of public opinion Slater, Communication Theory, 2007

Reinforcing Spirals: The Mutual Influence of
Media Selectivity and Media Effects and Their Impact on
Individual Behavior and Social Identity
•  Spirals perspective: influence of group
communicative and media influences
•  Media as corollary role
•  Cultivation: larger society influences
•  Media as Predictor IV
•  Study also suggests that larger society influences
(as dictated by cultivation) may be a key factor in
countering the acceleration of reinforcing spirals
•  Tension and competition between group
perspectives (reinforcing spirals) and those of
larger society
•  E.g. Tension between sociopolitical blog The Online Citizen
vs. traditional public domains

Selective Posting: Willingness to
Post a Message Online
•  Experiment
•  Employed real situation instead of
hypotheticals
macrotheories of public opinion Yun & Park, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2011

•  2x2 Factorial Design (Message
Congruence X Anonymity)
•  Main DV: Willingness to speak out
•  Actual behavioral measure operationalized by
message posting on online forum
A C
B D
Anonymous
Not Anonymous
Congruent Incongruent

•  Signiﬁcant main effect of Message
Congruence
•  Participants in a congruent condition were twice
more willing to post a message
•  Result supported the SOS explanation that majority
opinion holders were more willing to post a
message
•  No signiﬁcant main effect of Anonymity
•  Registration (not anonymous) vs no-registration
(anonymous) condition may not lead to saliently
perceived differences among the participants

•  Signiﬁcant interaction between pre-
experimental issue position and message
congruence
•  Reinforcement effects and selective perception
•  Participants exposed to incongruent messages
strengthened their existing issue positions
•  Whereas participants who were exposed to
congruent messages did not signiﬁcantly
strengthen their issue position
•  Links to yet another study involving attitude
certainty

•  Selective posting of congruent messages on
online forums will impose a serious threat
to the ideal of an open market place of
ideas on the Internet
•  Paper tries to refute Benkler, Castells (haha)
•  Original SoS proposition needs to be
modiﬁed to meet the current multichannel
media environment
•  And take into account of inﬂuences from social
media

•  Opinion climate only determines opinion
expression when individuals hold their
attitudes with low or moderate attitude
certainty
•  For individuals with high attitude certainty,
no SoS effect
•  SoS only for some but not all members of
public
macrotheories of public opinion Matthes et al., Communication Research, 2010
A Spiral of Silence for Some: Attitude Certainty
and the Expression of Political Minority Opinions

•  Underlying theoretical basis: Attitude
certainty is an indicator of attitude strength
•  Deﬁnition: People hold their attitudes with varying
levels of conviction/assurance
•  Previous SoS research espoused “Hardcore
individuals”
•  Current study advocated attitude certainty as a
better way of distinguishing btw Hardcore and non-
Hardcore individuals

Perceive

self
as

minority

Perceive

self
as

majority

ModeraGon
Eﬀect

of
High
Atude

Certainty

Conclusion
Socio-
demographics
Fear of
Isolation
Issue
Obstrusiveness
etc.
Individual Traits
MICRO MACRO
Willingness to
Express Own
Opinion
IVs Main DV
Individual
Behavioural
Outcome
Aggregate
Effects across
Society
Theorized
Extrapolation
Cultural
Factors

Future
Directions of
SoS?
Socio-
demographics
Hayes’ 5-item
FSI Measure
Issue
Obstrusiveness
*Communication
Apprehension,
Attitude Certainty
as moderator…
Hayes’
Willingness to
Self-censor
Aggregate
Effects across
Society
Cultural
Factors
*Aggregation of
social media =
Habermasian Public
Sphere?
Use ABM or viable
computational
methods if need to
extrapolate to
aggregation
Media
Portrayal
Immediate Social
Environment,
interpersonal
group referents
*Reinforcing
Spirals: Media
Selectivity positive
feedback loop
*Selective Posting
on CMC platforms
and social media
*Group
referents on
social
media
*new additions to SoS theoretical framework
*ABM?

What might be the future of SoS?
•  Advance beyond influence of referent groups or traditional media
portrayals
•  Consider massively communicative networked systems
–  What differentiates social media?
•  Asynchronous communication
•  User-generated content (cultivation effects?)
•  Yet restrict effects to within “filter bubbles”
–  proximately socialized places online = locally socialized environments
offline
•  Distinct virtual third places
•  The Online Citizen can be perceived as Coffee House of Talkcock A
•  Temasek Review Emeritus can be Talkcock Pub B
•  Yahoo Singapore chat can be hangout place C
•  Limit generalizability to within the same unit of analysis
•  Less contention about cross-cultural applicability
•  Caveat: Spiral of Silence may not be well understood in authoritarian regimes
•  Democracies – pretty much ok to employ

&Answers
Questions
Name the two
contingent
conditions for
SoS to occur

Define Resonance
and give 1 research
example
&Answers
Questions

•  Taking the case of Singaporean’s
reaction to public ofﬁcial’s sexual
conduct as reported in the Straits Times.
Which media approach
would you use to
investigate the polarised
opinion?
•  Cultivation or spiral of
silence? Explain.
Discussion

•  Do you agree that
Singapore journalists’
orientations, attitudes
and beliefs in Singapore
reﬂect that of the
population?
– Issue: $1.1 billion of
public’s money spent on
new buses
Discussion

•  How does SoS apply to
social media platforms?
•  Critique the idea of treating
the aggregate of social
media as equivalent to a
Habermasian public sphere
–  May not ideal, but approaching
ideal
–  Remember key tenets: informed
judgments, best argument wins
Discussion

Singapore:
Fear of social isolation
or Fear of authoritarian
reprisal/legal lawsuits?
Discussion

•  Social filtering
•  TED: Ethan Zuckerman
•  Algorithmic filtering
•  TED: Eli Pariser
•  Online “filter bubbles” a
threat to democracy, and
undermines Public Sphere
“…one
day
I
no)ced
that
the

conserva)ves
had
disappeared

from
my
Facebook
feed…”

Discussion

THANK

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Week 8 macrotheories presentation final