Social Influence and Media Effects: Understanding Group Dynamics, Communication, and Knowledge Gaps
Social Influence and Group Dynamics
Social norms are shared rules or standards that guide behavior within a group or society. These norms can be categorized as:
- Descriptive norms: Specify what is typically done in a setting.
- Injunctive norms: Specify what is typically approved of in society.
Kurt Lewin’s research on group dynamics highlighted the power of group influence. His food habit study during World War II demonstrated that group discussions were more effective than lectures in changing behavior. This research emphasized the role of groups as agents of change and the importance of group identity in shaping behavior, such as voting patterns.
The social identification model of group influence proposes that a social group is defined by two or more individuals who share a common social identification or perceive themselves as members of the same social category.
Health Communication and Group Campaigns
Health communication campaigns leverage the power of social norms to promote positive health behaviors. For example, a health communication team at the University of Vermont designed a mass media campaign to prevent girls from smoking. They aimed to transmit a nonsmoking norm by portraying smokers in the minority and highlighting nonsmokers as the more prominent and attractive majority.
Combining media campaigns with intensive group instruction and discussion is often the most effective approach to health communication.
Media Effects and Interpersonal Influence
The influence of media on individuals is often mediated by interpersonal relationships. Personal contacts can be more frequent and effective than mass media in influencing decisions, such as voting behavior.
Opinion Leadership
Opinion leaders play a crucial role in the flow of information and influence. They possess three key characteristics:
- Strategic social location (whom they know)
- Competence (what they know)
- Admiration from others or personification of values (who they are)
Bullet Model vs. Two-Step Flow of Communication
The bullet model of communication suggests a direct influence of media on individuals. In contrast, the two-step flow of communication proposes an indirect influence, where media messages are first processed by opinion leaders and then disseminated to the wider public.
Diffusion Research and Innovation Adoption
Diffusion research examines the social process of how innovations become known and spread throughout a social system. This research identifies five characteristics of innovations that influence their rate of adoption:
- Relative advantage: The degree to which an innovation is perceived as better than the idea it supersedes.
- Compatibility: The degree to which an innovation is perceived as consistent with existing values, past experiences, and needs of potential adopters.
- Complexity: The degree to which an innovation is perceived as difficult to understand and use.
- Trialability: The degree to which an innovation can be experimented with on a limited basis.
- Observability: The degree to which the results of an innovation are visible to others.
Stages of Innovation Decision Process
The innovation decision process involves five stages:
- Knowledge: Exposure to an innovation and some understanding of how it functions.
- Persuasion: Formation of an attitude toward the innovation.
- Decision: Activity resulting in a choice to adopt or reject the innovation.
- Implementation: Putting the innovation into use.
- Confirmation: Reinforcement or reversal of the innovation decision made.
Adopters Types
Individuals can be categorized into five adopter types based on their willingness to adopt innovations:
- Innovators: Eager to try new ideas, with more cosmopolitan relationships than their peers.
- Early adopters: Respectable individuals, often with the highest degree of opinion leadership within the social system.
- Early majority: Deliberate individuals who interact frequently with their peers but hold leadership positions.
- Late majority: Skeptical individuals who often adopt an innovation due to economic necessity or increasing network pressure.
- Laggards: Traditional individuals who are often isolated and rely on local references.
Agenda Setting and Media Influence
The agenda-setting function refers to the media’s ability, through repeated news coverage, to raise the importance of an issue in the public’s mind.
Chapel Hill Study
The Chapel Hill study, the first agenda-setting study, demonstrated a relationship between the media agenda and the public agenda.
Charlotte Study
The Charlotte study further investigated the causal order between media agenda and public agenda, proving that the media agenda influences the public agenda.
Cognitive Psychology and Media Influence
Behaviorism emphasized the role of reinforcement, rewards, and punishments in shaping behavior. In contrast, cognitive psychology views individuals as active seekers of knowledge who function based on their understanding of the world.
The Gap Between Media Agenda and Reality
The media is not a mirror of reality but rather a searchlight, highlighting certain issues and shaping public perception.
Experiments on Agenda Setting and Priming
Priming is a process where the media’s focus on certain issues influences the criteria by which people evaluate candidates or events. By setting the agenda for an election campaign, the media can influence how voters evaluate candidates.
Obtrusive vs. Unobtrusive Issues
Agenda setting is more likely to occur for unobtrusive issues, those that the public does not experience directly, such as pollution. Obtrusive issues, such as unemployment, are directly experienced by the public.
Agenda Building and Public Influence
Agenda building is a collective process where media, government, and the public influence each other in determining the importance of issues.
Pseudoevents
Pseudoevents are manufactured newsworthy events, such as protests or publicity stunts, designed to attract media attention.
Knowledge Gap and Socioeconomic Differences
Socioeconomic status (SES) can influence access to information. Individuals with higher SES tend to have more education and are better equipped to process information.
Knowledge Gap Hypothesis
The knowledge gap hypothesis suggests that in a society, individuals with higher SES acquire information from mass media faster and better than those with lower SES.
Knowledge Gap in Specific Areas
Knowledge gaps are more likely to occur in areas of general interest, such as public affairs and science news, than in areas of particular interest, such as sports or garden care.
Reasons for Knowledge Gap
Five possible reasons contribute to the knowledge gap:
- Differences in communication skills between those high and low in SES.
- Differences in the amount of stored information or previously acquired background knowledge.
- Individuals with higher SES might have more relevant social contacts.
- The mechanisms of selective exposure, acceptance, and retention might be operating.
- The nature of the mass media system itself is geared toward individuals with higher SES.
Information Gap Hypothesis and Sesame Street
The information gap hypothesis is supported by studies on Sesame Street, which found that households with higher levels of education were more likely to watch the show.
Knowledge Gaps in Communities
Knowledge gaps are more likely to occur in heterogeneous communities with numerous sources of information than in homogeneous communities with common communication channels.
Refining the Knowledge Gap Hypothesis
Further studies have refined the knowledge gap hypothesis:
- If an issue arouses basic social concerns, the knowledge gap between different SES groups will decline.
- If the information is massive enough, a knowledge gap may be overcome.
- A well-known celebrity involved in the dissemination of information could narrow the knowledge gap.