Mass Media Effects Essay

When it comes to people in general I find that we are selective in all things throughout the course of our lives. We constantly choose the information that we hear, perceive, and retain. This process is known as selective attention and is undiscriminating and manifest in all areas of our lives. Therefore, this process has a large scope and importance in our lives. These principles of selective attention also extend to the various forms of Mass Media that we chose to indulge in; which not only affects the perception of content and messages of the Mass Media, but also the way in which we view the world and society. Among the selective processes we use in regards to Mass Media are selective exposure, selective perception, and selective retention and recall. In this essay I will discuss these principles and their effects on Mass Audiences. I will begin with Selective Exposure.

Selective Exposure is defined as a person's choice of specific media messages over others. In other words, we as people pick and choose what Mass Media content we want to experience. Every day we make choices of what newspaper and magazine articles to read, what websites to visit, what radio stations to listen to, and what television programs and films to watch. These choices are influenced by our personal preferences, views, opinions, and interests. In this manner it can be assumed that we as "consumers" of information only "purchase" those bits and pieces of information that interest us, therefore bypassing other information in the media like billboard advertisements on the side of the freeway. We may give them a glance, but are quick to push them out of our mind; just as we choose what information to expose ourselves to in the media. The implications of this idea of Selective Exposure are, in my opinion, threatening to the Mass Media outlets. The purpose of a Mass Media outlet is to reach as many people as possible with the message, which is not effectively accomplished if the Mass Audience is able to pick and choose what content they partake of. This implies that the Audience has the power and the Media is only an outlet for information.

Selective Perception on the other hand is defined as the tendency of people to hear what they want or expect to hear in Mass Media messages. This idea holds that we as people create our own personal meaning of messages based upon our inner desires. I believe that this idea is possibly the most hazardous practice to modern day society. According to the book a study in the 1950's showed that farmers anxious about the future of farming heard the words "farm news" on the radio, when the announcer in fact had said "foreign news." This clearly shows that people are capable of misinterpreting any mass media content and formulating it into something that matches their personal interests, concerns, or even views. In 1938 when CBS broadcast Orson Welles and the "War of the Worlds" a mass hysteria broke out among the people listening; this was especially peculiar because at several points during the broadcast there was a disclaimer aired stating that the story was a dramatization and people selected not to hear this statement and believed that Martians had indeed invaded the Earth. In my opinion the idea of Selective Perception once again takes the power out of the hands of the media and places it befalls the Audience. This is evident in the fact that a message can be successfully distorted to meet the audience needs at the time. This in turn is capable of producing unnecessary mass chaos or even a false sense of reality that could damage society and all of the principles that hold the world together today.

The final combined topics are Selective Retention and Recall which are defined as the subconscious retaining of selective messages and the ability to selectively recollect the messages that were retained. In other words, we as people subconsciously select what bits of information that we will retain in our memory and in a similar manner select what stored information to recall to our conscious memory based on our views and beliefs, personal interests, and personal preferences. This idea holds that of the cognitive dissonance theory of communication. Cognitive dissonance states that when we as people are faced with an inner conflict of information that doesn't match our belief of reality we maintain cognitive harmony by removing the dissonant idea from our mind, enhancing our previous belief and leaving no room for doubt. In a similar manner we pick and choose the ideas, beliefs, and views that maintain harmony with our own and are able to pick and choose these same pieces of information selectively when we need to support our personal ideas of reality. This idea puts the power in the audience's hands once again, allowing individuals to view the Mass Media message in a way that harmonizes their own personal paradigms. This practice, however true to reality, is flawed and could deeply affect society. If we as individuals only retain and recall information that matches our own personal paradigms we are limiting ourselves and are not able to grow, or in turn help society grow. I believe that it is through a collective approach that we are able to expand our horizons and see things in new and maybe better ways. If we all stick to our own beliefs we can not effectively cooperate and guide the world and society in the direction they need to go.

These practices of selective exposure, perception, retention and recall all put the power in the hands of the audience which could have serious implications on society and on Mass Media in general. When the goal of communication is to effectively send a message to a receiver and have that receiver interpret that message in a consistent manner; we are greatly failing in the area of Mass Communication. By putting the power in the audience, although unavoidable, we are subjecting our society to the influences of personal rhetoric and in turn audience editorializing of meaning and content. In my opinion these selective attention processes, which all people of the world use daily, that are leading to the ultimate decay of society. We are failing the world in the area of Mass Communication.

Bibliography

Vivian, John. The Media of Mass Communication. 6^th Ed. Massachusetts:

Allyn & Bacon, 2002.

West, Richard and Lynn H. Turner. Introducing Communication Theory: Analysis and Application. 2^nd Ed. New York: McGraw Hill Companies, Inc., 2004.