Agenda Setting Theory

Agenda Setting Theory

Also known as The Agenda Setting Function of the Mass Media, it was first put forth by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw in 1972 in Public Opinion Quarterly. The main idea of agenda-setting theory is that newsmakers select the news items according to their preferences and decide on how to interpret the news.

They originally suggested that the media sets the public agenda, in the sense that they may not exactly tell you what to think, but they may tell you what to think about. In their first article where they brought this theory to light their abstract states:

In choosing and displaying news, editors, newsroom staff, and broadcasters play an important part in shaping political reality. Readers learn not only about a given issue, but also how much importance to attach to that issue from the amount of information in a news story and its position. In reflecting what candidates are saying during a campaign, the mass media may well determine the important issues—that is, the media may set the “agenda” of the campaign.

McCombs and Shaw went on to write on agenda setting at great length, they have produced many articles and research on the various facets of the theory. Since their introduction of this theory there has been a plethora of research regarding its uses, and their now exists an extension of the theory called Second Level Agenda Setting.

This theory is intended to apply to the news media, although in certain cases it has been applied to other areas of the media and messages which they transmit to audiences.

Media Richness Theory

Media Richness Theory

                                          Media Richness Theory argued that managers could improve performance by matching media characteristics to the characteristics of the tasks. It contended that media varied in information richness (later called media richness), defined as the ability to change understanding within a time interval. MRT theorized that four factors influenced media richness: the ability of the medium to transmit multiple cues (e.g., vocal inflection, gestures), immediacy of feedback (how rapidly the medium enables receivers to respond to messages), and language variety (e.g., words, mathematics, art), and the personal focus of the medium (the ability to personalize the message to the receiver). Richer media (such as face-to-face conversations) enable users to communicate more quickly and to better understand ambiguous messages compared to leaner media (such as written memos). Therefore, according to the theory, the use of richer media would lead to better performance on equivocal tasks—tasks that have multiple and possibly conflicting interpretations of the available information—thus presenting a challenge for participants to arrive at a shared meaning. In contrast, leaner media were better for low equivocality tasks because rich media provided communicators with too much information and superfluous messages. Thus MRT argued that the use of richer media would lead to better performance for equivocal tasks (such as deciding whether to acquire a company), while use of leaner media would lead to better performance for less equivocal tasks (such as determining customer reactions to product labels). MRT is imprecise about the definition of performance, but in later works, Daft and Lengel discuss performance in three terms: making better decisions (effectiveness), making better use of time (efficiency), and establishing shared systems of meaning (consensus among participants).

Despite the empirical evidence to the contrary, MRT still enjoys high face validity among managers. There is an intuitive belief that richer media should be better than leaner media for equivocal tasks and that this should influence the media people choose. Although MRT is a well-established theory, it should be used with care given the paucity of empirical support for it.

Social Judgment Theory

Social Judgment Theory

                     Social judgment theory, developed by Muzafer Sherif and colleagues, is different from other consistency theories for two reasons: First, it argues that a receiver interprets or judges how much a message agrees or disagrees with his or her own attitude. In other words, it is an attempt to apply the principles of judgment to the study of attitude change. Second, the theory maintains that a message receiver’s involvement in the topic of the persuasive message, that is, how important a topic is to a listener, is an important factor in attitude change. Social judgment theory has been called by some more of an approach to studying attitudes, not a complete theory.

                                 Overall, it is based on the use of analogy, whereby an individual’s initial attitude serves as an anchor for the judgment of related attitude communications. An advocated position is evaluated against this point of reference and is placed on an attitudinal continuum from acceptance via non commitment to rejection. The amount of attitude change or whether change occurs at all depends on the discrepancy within the self—only after a communicated opinion falls within the limits of the range of acceptance will it affect attitude change. Thus, the greater the difference between the initial opinion and the communicated opinion, the greater the attitude change will be. This theory further argues that the level of ego involvement in a topic depends on whether the issue arouses an intense attitude; that is, individuals who are highly involved in an issue are more likely to evaluate all possible positions, therefore increasing the anchoring property of their initial attitudes and broadening their range of rejection of a communicated opinion. Thus, a persuader facing a highly involved receiver may be able to advocate safely only a small change. Since most other approaches deal only marginally with previous attitudes, social judgment theory has obtained an important place in the research literature. Recently, however, researchers have questioned the basic principles of social judgment theory and how the theory’s principles relate to one another.

                     

The Propaganda Model

The Propaganda Model

             The propaganda model is a conceptual model in political economy advanced by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky to explain how propaganda and systemic biases function in mass media. First presented in their 1988 book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, basically the model explains how private business are after their higher sale money by selling the product (readers and audiences) to the advertisers rather than providing quality news. Here the news is being misshaped and reformed from its original form. Herman and Chomsky call the factors which misshape news as filters. The news is being filtered by each of these factors before they reach its audience or general public. Describing the media's "societal purpose", Chomsky writes, "... the study of institutions and how they function must be scrupulously ignored, apart from fringe elements or a relatively obscure scholarly literature".

The theory postulates five general classes of "filters" that determine the type of news that is presented in news media. These five classes are:

1.   Ownership of the medium

2.   Medium's funding sources

3.   Sourcing

4.   Flak

5.   Anti-communism and fear ideology

The first three are said to be the most important factor, by the authors. In versions published after the 9/11 attacks on the United States in 2001, Chomsky and Herman updated the fifth prong to instead refer to the War on Terror and anti terrorism, although they state that it operates in much the same manner.

Although the model was based mainly on the characterization of United States media, Chomsky and Herman believe the theory is equally applicable to any country that shares the basic economic structure and organizing principles which the model postulates as the cause of media biases

Hierarchy of Needs

Hierarchy of Needs

                                    In 1943 Abraham Maslow came up with stages of human needs i.e Hierarchy of Needs. Simple because he wanted to know what motivates people. and after studying and examining he stated that people are motivated to certain needs which are Physiological Needs, Safety Needs, Social Needs, Esteem Needs and Self Improvement needs. These needs are explained in different stages, Physiological need being the first stage and from there, going upwards. Physiological needs contains or explains the very basic, day to day needs in our lives such as air, food, shelter, water, sleep, sex and warmth. Now the stage after this is Safety Stage, which consists of protection from elements that can put our life in danger, security, order, law, stability and freedom from fear. Next, the social need basically demands for friendship, intimacy, affection and love- from work group, family, friends, and romantic relationships. The need for Achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, self-respect, respect from others, fall into Need for Esteem and last but not the least, Self Improvement needs is need for Realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.

                     These needs are the very basic example of how we work daily and what we work for. Every one of us works to fulfill one need or the other. Later there were few more need added to this structure of Hierarchy of Needs, which were Cognitive needs - knowledge, meaning, (chase knowledge. Aesthetic needs - appreciation and search for beauty, balance, form, etc. Transcendence needs - helping others to achieve self actualization; spirituality. Now, the flow need not work according to the structure. Some need may fall beforehand.

Two Step Flow of Communication

Two Step Flow of Communication

               This two-step flow of communication hypothesis was first introduced by Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Hazel Gaudet in The People's Choice, a 1944 study focused on the process of decision-making during a Presidential election campaign. To understand this flow is very simple, this flow of communication explains the very basic structure of how information reaches to us, the audience, from the media and through the opinion leaders. Yes, opinion leaders are those people who pay attention and listen attentively to the message from the mass media and then these opinion leaders, interpret the whole message based on their own opinion and pass it on to the individuals who are in contact with these leaders. Opinion leaders play a very important role in forming our opinions, as they technically influence us. 

                     Because of this flow, the term “Personal Influence” was originally coined to refer to the process intervening between the media’s direct message and the audience’s ultimate reaction to that message. The two-step flow theory has improved our understanding of how the mass media influence decision making. The theory refined the ability to predict the influence of media messages on audience behavior, and it helped explain why certain media campaigns may have failed to alter audience attitudes and behavior. The two-step flow theory gave way to the multi-step flow theory of mass communication or diffusion of innovation theory.

                     Eventually, this theory had a lot of base in earlier stage, when people weren’t advanced on the technology and didn’t received message aka information back then the way we do now. So obviously they had to rely on such opinion leaders as they were their only source for the information. But do to digitalization, now anyone can easily access the information, be a judge for the information that he or she receives from such opinion leaders, cross check and find he’s own source to rely on and not be influenced by someone else’s opinion or interpretation of the message. 

Attachment Theory

Attachment Theory

                           Since the day we are born, we tend to expect certain things from that one specific person who shows love, care and affection for us. As time goes, we get more depended on that person, emotionally and physically and that dependency and the bond that keeps us tied to that person is known as Attachment. And to help us learn how the whole “Attachment” works and progresses in one’s life, John Bowlby explained it in depth in this book; Attachment Theory.

                             From the moment babies are born, they seek security and love from responsive parents and caregivers. During infancy, humans begin to develop what may eventually become lifelong patterns of interdependence with one another. Indeed, the earliest attachments are enacted through proximity-seeking behaviors; the cries or grasping of infants are an adaptive response to an otherwise uncertain world, ensuring protection from a caregiver and the resulting survival that such security affords. While early attachment figures are typically caregivers providing for the physical and/or safety needs of an infant or young child, attachment bonds are also formed throughout adolescence and adulthood. Just as infants turn to caregivers in times of distress or uncertainty, adolescents and adults tend to turn to a specific individual when they need affirmation related to security, closeness, or intimacy. This attachment bond is typically characterized by an enduring affiliation with an attachment figure through both good and bad episodes in the relationship; the bond is often so enduring that perceptions of grief and loss often occur if the affiliation is somehow severed. Adult attachment bonds have been found to occur in close relationships such as close friendships, sibling relationships, parent–child relationships, and even the occasional patient–therapist relationship. The strongest attachment bond that adults may experience, however, is the pairing between romantic partners.

Much like other attachment pairings, one’spattern of relating within adult romantic relationships is heavily influenced by one’s early relational experiences. Scholars have distilled the broad range of individual attachment behaviors into four distinct patterns;

·        Secure Attachment: The secure pattern of attachment is characterized by a strong sense of self-worth. Secure individuals are confident in their relational status and are typically found to rate quite high on the four key relational characteristics of commitment, trust, interdependence, and satisfaction.

“I am Okay and you are Okay too.”

·        Preoccupied Attachment:  These preoccupied individuals fear abandonment from their attachment figures and typically over monitor their relationships with these figures.

“I’m not Okay but you are Okay.”

·        Dismissive Attachment: The dismissive pattern of attachment is characterized by individuals with not only a high level of self-worth, but also an equally low level of trust for other individuals.

“I’m Okay but you are not.”

·        Fearful Avoidant Attachment: The fearful avoidant pattern of attachment is characterized by both avoidance of intimacy and anxiety about forming attachments.

“I’m not Okay and you are not Okay.”

                   The attachment theory argues that one’s early relational experiences have a significant impact on one’s manner of navigating one’s social world. The expressions of these individual differences often group into one of four general attachment patterns, which in turn may influence both process and outcome variables related to how one acts within many close or romantic relationships.

Spiral of Silence

                                               Spiral of Silence

                                Spiral of Silence theory was originally proposed by German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann in 1974, Spiral of silence is the term meant to refer to the tendency of people to remain silent when they feel that their views are in opposition to the majority view on a subject. The theory posits that they remain silent for a few reasons. For example, the fear of being in isolation if they voiced their opinion which is different than the opinion that majority of people hold. The major fear that they have is being out casted or thrown out of the society or losing their jobs if they voiced their opinion which differs and that their different opinion may lead to more lethal negative reaction or consequences from the people. Spiral of Silence in simple term means one being so completely lost in the spiral because of his fear of stating his opinion or views which may not be liked or accepted by people. The spiral is created or reinforced when someone in the perceived opinion majority speaks out confidently in support of the majority opinion, hence the minority begins to be more and more distanced from a place where they are comfortable to voice their opinion and begin to experience the aforementioned fears.

                         The closer an individual thinks that their opinion resides to the held majority opinion, the more likely they are to be willing to voice it in public discourse. A few other important tenets to mention; this theory rests strongly on the idea that the opinion must have a distinct moral component (i.e. abortion), because obviously, no one will experience the spiral of silence trying to talk out what toppings to get on their pizza with roommates.

                             The theory has some weaknesses as well and two of the most notable are those of the vocal minority and the internet. People on Internet, even if in less minority, voicing their opinion are hard to go miss. Second, the vocal minority – you know those people, they may be the only one who thinks that cats need the right to vote, but they won’t shut up about it and are seemingly outside of the effects of the Spiral of Silence.

Rationalization Trap

It will just be true enough if I said that almost all of us hate to be corrected or that we hate to be looked stupid for unexplainable actions and in order to cover up our tracks and the mess up, we come up with hundreds of excuses and made of stories and all of this, what for? Just to save ourselves from the embarrassment. And in this entire act, we, my friend, voluntarily fall into the Rationalization Trap.

In technical term, Rationalization Trap occurs when we act to reduce dissonance it can end up as a whole set of justifications and rationalizations that lead to ridiculous or even immoral actions. Like Pinocchio's nose, one defense leads to another until we are all out of shape.

The trick is to avoid unthinking reaction, tolerating dissonance for long enough to be able to decide on a more appropriate action.

Rationalization Trap is also a part of Cognitive Dissonance. The need to justify our extremely stupid actions and save the embarrassment, we often do the most unthinkable and choose to disappear with the wind by taking wrong steps. Now, the one can avoid falling into the Rationalization Trap simply by taking a moment, stopping for a while, taking a deep breath and thinking. Seeing all the possibilities and measuring all the outcomes. You must let your brain reach every corner of this thought and calculate the result of your actions beforehand. One can avoid falling into this trap by just asking himself these questions;

·        Do I really need to go down that spiral of justification?

·        For whom?

·        Did I get there through the trickery of someone else?

Ask yourself these question and think whether lying and coming up with an excuse just to cover up your stupid action will be worth it or not? Because eventually, one thing will surely lead to another and then another and then soon enough, you’ll face a fall due to this trap of Rationalization.

Social Exchange Theory

                                            When we start calculating the impact and outcome of a relationship and then act according to the result, is what Social Exchange Theory is all about. Social exchange theory was introduced in 1958 by the sociologist George Homans with the publication of his work "Social Behavior as Exchange". He defined social exchange as the exchange of activity, tangible or intangible, and more or less rewarding or costly, between at least two persons. Social exchange theory highly speaks that our social behavior is the result of an exchange process. And the real purpose of this exchange is to maximize benefits and minimize costs. Benefits are what we achieve out of the relationship, good things such as passion, love, friendship, social support, fun, care, return of the favor and etc, were as Costs is the negative response that we receive from the relationship such as loss of money, less or no return of same affection or favors, time consuming, one sided or meaningless. In deciding what is right, we often develop a comparison level against which we weigh the give and take ratio. This level will differ between relationships, with some being more giving and others where we get more from the relationship. They will also differ drastically in what is given and received.

                       According to this theory, people weigh the potential benefits and risks of social relationships. When the risks outweigh the rewards, people will terminate or walk out of that relationship.

Social exchange theory eventually suggests that we often take the benefits and minus the costs, in order to come to the conclusion of how much a relationship is worth. The relationships in which the benefits outweigh the costs are the Positive ones, were as the relationships in which the costs are greater than the benefits are the negative ones.